New York Business Litigation Attorney | New York Breach of Contract Attorney » copyright http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:20:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 How One U.S. Company Is Protecting Against The Piracy Of Its Proprietary Software http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/how-one-u-s-company-is-protecting-the-piracy-of-its-proprietary-software/ http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/how-one-u-s-company-is-protecting-the-piracy-of-its-proprietary-software/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:59:24 +0000 Jonathan Cooper http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/?p=221 Two days ago, the New York Times reported on a lawsuit that was brought by California-based Cybersitter, claiming that two Chinese software companies had engaged in unfair competition, and misappropriated, or stolen, thousands of lines of the code contained in its proprietary software to develop Green Dam, a type of software designed to block users from viewing unwanted websites.

The significance of this particular case lies in its scope, however: apparently, the Chinese government mandated that Green Dam Youth Escort be included with all computers sold in the country, thereby forcing several prominent computer manufacturers, including Acer, Lenovo and Sony to include this software with its computers. According to the lawsuit, these manufacturers continued to market and sell their computers with the software even after they were made aware that the software was indeed pirated.

The lawsuit seeks more than $2 billion in damages, representing the amount of money Cybersitter would have earned had all of these users paid for their software.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

]]> http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/how-one-u-s-company-is-protecting-the-piracy-of-its-proprietary-software/feed/ 0 The Dangers of Failing to Protect Your Creative (and Proprietary) Work Under Federal Copyright Law http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/the-dangers-of-failing-to-protect-your-creative-and-proprietary-work-under-federal-copyright-law/ http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/the-dangers-of-failing-to-protect-your-creative-and-proprietary-work-under-federal-copyright-law/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:07:25 +0000 Jonathan Cooper http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/?p=146 I was recently contacted by a small business owner who was looking to protect her company’s intellectual property. The problem is, she was contacting me to try and protect only after she was having a problem with one of her co-workers. She didn’t know that in order to properly protect the creative work that was generated for her company, she needed to have a written agreement that delineated everyone’s responsibilities, and most importantly, who would own the creative work product.

And therein lies the danger: the Copyright Act tends to favor (in terms of ownership) the one who actually created the work rather than the one who may have commissioned the work.

An article published in today’s New York Times, which notes the legal difficulties faced by Disney in its intended acquisition of Marvel Superheroes highlights these problems. In that case, Marvel’s ownership of the intellectual property rights to some of their superheroes has been challenged by the creators’ heirs, who claim that they are entitled to at least partial rights to selected characters. On the other hand, Sony apparently has undisputed movie rights to X-Men – forever.

Here’s the bottom line: if the creative business is worth anything significant (and if it isn’t, you’d better find one that is worth something),  it should be worth the modest investment necessary to prepare a written agreement that protects it.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

]]> http://nysmallbusinessattorney.com/the-dangers-of-failing-to-protect-your-creative-and-proprietary-work-under-federal-copyright-law/feed/ 0