Re: Conde Nast vs. Blackmask (copyright infringement)

There is a US District Court that sits in Greenbelt MD and I assume the appearance before the magistrate will, as it is, or at least was when I practiced actively, a pretrial planning session to set discovery schedules and the like, and to simplify issues if possible.

Adverse possession of a copyrighted work. . . . Hmmm. Don't think so. SOL will probably not relate back, but the injunction could still issue prospectively for the ongoing violation.

If the copyright holder is known, it is not really an orphan work, is it, though I understand some have advocated broadening orphan to include no-longer-exploited works previously published (to distinguish from unpublished works).

It does seem that the public is not served in this (and similar) particular instances of works not being exploited by the copyright holder and being made available by others and then the copyright holder taking the work out of circulation again.

I wonder, could we find a sort of "compulsory equitable license" for this sort of situation which would then be withdrawn upon the copyright holder demonstrating actual exploitation of the work again?

Speculation is fun. Not much in the way of legal support here, but fun to speculate nonetheless.

Could this be a [new?] species of misuse? If you have functionally abandoned your exploitation for 20 years, you cannot now come along and threaten those who are making it available? Or would you need to show some sort of trap or bad conduct other than simple non- exploitation?

How about abandonment through non-exploitation and thus it is in the public domain? I think this better than "adverse possession" -- since that would work a change of ownership rather than merely a loss of copyright -- but still very problematic.

Steve

On Apr 11, 2006, at 4:00 PM, Vance R. Koven wrote:

> Indeed, one of the more interesting points (to my ignorant eye) raised
> by the description in the blog was whether a plaintiff is entitled to
> bring a copyright infringement case before a magistrate. I presume (if
> the reporting is at all correct) that they were talking about a US
> Magistrate, but still...
>
> Vance
>
> On 4/11/06, Jon Noring <jon[_at_]noring.name> wrote:
>> Most here may have already seen this, but for the few who haven't,
>> appears to be a very interesting copyright infrinement case:
>>
>> For the details and links elsewhere, see:
>>
>> http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=4631
>>
>> with a small update at:
>>
>> http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=4639
>>
>>
>> Lots of interesting aspects to this case, particulary with regards to
>> the Public Domain.
>>
>> Jon Noring

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Prof. Steven D. Jamar                                     vox:   
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