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May 2, 2019

Fourth Circuit Fixes Fair Use

FairUseIPBlog

On April 26, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a controversial ruling that caused significant concerns for visual artists. Brammer v. Violent Hues Productions, LLC, No. 18-1763 (4th Cir. Apr. 26, 2019). The lower court ruled that a festival promoter’s unlicensed use of a copyrighted photograph on its website in connection with advertising the festival was permitted as “fair use.” More information concerning the trial court’s ruling is contained in our earlier article, Is Fair Use Still Fair, available here. After analyzing the statutory fair use factors, the lower court found that they weighed in favor of permitting the… Read more


Oct 28, 2015

Google Books’ Fair, Transformative Use

“Transformative use” is not about a war between giant robots that can transform into vehicles and other objects, although there are similarities between the animated television series “The Transformers” and the war that has been taking place for more than a decade between Google and the publishing industry. Internet giant Google has been sued by publishing giants – in 2005, by the American Association of Publishers and, more recently, by the Authors Guild. Google’s Library Project, which began in 2004, involves agreements between Google and a number of the world’s major research libraries under which participating libraries selected books from… Read more