Copyright registration with the United States Copyright Office is a precondition to filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, however until earlier this month, there was a split as to when registration actually occurs. In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that registration occurs when the Copyright Office registers a copyright. The alternative view was that registration occurs when a copyright owners submits a proper application to the Copyright Office. Therefore, you must have a copyright registration certificate from the Copyright Office before filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
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Peloton’s Cautionary Tale: Music Licensing and Your Business
One of my primary fitness activities this past winter has been riding our Peloton bike. Workouts on the bike are always interesting because Peloton has numerous great instructors, varied ride types for all skill levels, and great music. You may have seen in the news earlier this week that Peloton is being sued for using music without permission in its video fitness classes. The lawsuit was filed by a group of several music publishing groups, claiming that Peloton does not have licenses in place for more than 1,000 songs owned or administered by the groups over a period of years.
As an attorney that works with both businesses that use others’ intellectual property and creators of intellectual property, music licensing and other types of intellectual property licensing is a commonly misunderstood issue. Songs are protected by copyright law, which grants exclusive rights to the owner of the song. If you don’t own the copyright, you need a license from the copyright holder in order to legally play their songs. Small businesses that play music for their customers are no exception to this rule; in fact, they are often the target of litigation when they ignore these obligations.
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Disclosure Requirements and Penalties Under Pennsylvania’s Data Breach Notification Act
This is the final installment in a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification. The previous posts in this series are: Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security; and When Does a Data Breach Require Disclosure Under Pennsylvania’s Data Breach Notification
When Does a Data Breach Require Disclosure Under Pennsylvania’s Data Breach Notification Act?
This is part two of a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification. Part one of this series was Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security.
The first post in this series made the case for why you should take data security seriously. Otherwise, you’ll need to worry about the daunting task of complying with a multitude of data breach notification laws and the public relations nightmare of being the next company that revealed its customers’ personal information.
But as the saying goes: the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
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Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security
This is part one of a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification.
If the events of the past few years are any indication, the scale and frequency of data breaches will only increase in 2019. According to Experian’s 2019 Data Breach Industry Forecast, in the first half of 2018, the number of records compromised exceeded the total number of breached records for all of 2017.
In the event of a data breach, legal compliance obligations can be daunting, particularly if your business stores personally identifiable information for residents of other states. All 50 states have data breach notification laws, each of which is slightly different. And do you store information about residents of the EU? Then you may need to worry about how the GDPR applies.
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Hey Siri, Remind Me To…
Siri’s been around since 2010, but despite my borderline obsession with Apple products and services, my use of Siri has been limited until fairly recently. I think my increased usage is likely due to several factors, including Siri’s recent improvements, a Series 4 Apple Watch that allows Siri to speak back to me, and voice assistant technology reaching a tipping point for widespread adoption, particularly with the Amazon Alexa and Google Home product ecosystems.
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Why Getting a Mentor Should Be Your New Year’s Resolution
I recently attended a SCORE luncheon where the presenter commented that we live in a “VUCA” world. VUCA meaning volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. I’m typically not a huge fan of such corporate-speak, but in this instance I thought it was a perfect distillation of the daily challenges we all face personally and professionally.
There’s no better time than early January to consider your goals for the year. If you’re still debating your top New Year’s Resolution candidate, let me make a suggestion to survive this VUCA world: get a mentor.
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IRS Releases 2019 Standard Mileage Rates
The Internal Revenue Service has announced the 2019 optional standard mileage rates which are used to compute the deductible costs of operating a vehicle for business, charitable, medical or moving expense purposes.
Beginning on January 1, 2019, the standard mileage rate for use of a car, van, pickup or panel truck is 58 cents per mile driven for business use (up from 54.5 cents in 2018), 20 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes (up from 18 cents in 2018), and 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations.
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It’s Holiday Party Season – Let’s Talk About Risk!
It’s December, which means the holiday season is officially in high gear and that it’s now socially appropriate to listen to holiday music. If your calendar is anything like mine, you may have a few holiday parties coming up – you may even be hosting such a party.
If so, what are some of the legal risks associated with hosting a party?
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What Are Your Legal Obligations as an Employer on Election Day?
As I’m sure you’re aware from the constant barrage of political advertisements, we are less than a week away from Election Day in 2018 which is Tuesday, November 6. As an employer, what are your legal obligations to your employees with respect to time off for voting?
To regular readers of the Lancaster Law Blog,