US COPYRIGHT ROUND-UP

The IPKat brings copyright news from across the Pond:

* New York Blade reports that DC Comics is threatening copyright action against a New York art dealer and website. Kathleen Cullen of Kathleen Cullen fine arts has exhibited drawing by the artist Mark Chamberlain, which show Batman and his faithful assistant/second fiddle Robin in a variety of homoerotic and semi-nude poses.

The IPKat thinks that this case is a good contender for a fair use parody defence to infringement and, even if it isn’t, the adverse publicity that DC Comics will get out of making threats in such a situation probably outweighs the negative effects that this artwork might have on the image of Batman.


* NBC17 reports that a student of Duke University, North Carolina is bringing an infringement action against a website which sells term papers online, after finding a paper that she wrote online. She is seeking $10,000 compensation for the copying of the paper she wrote while studying abroad as an undergraduate student at Mount Holyoke College. The IPKat thinks there could be some tricky damages issues here. Ordinarily a college paper would not be sold and so would have little commercial value. Here though, the paper is being sold and therefore manifestly has some commercial value. However, one would hope that the student would not license her paper to be copied, since this would amount to helping others to cheat. The IPKat would also like to know where the website got the paper from.