Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School September 14, 2010 Last Friday, the Ninth Circuit decided an important case about the scope of the first-sale doctrine in copyright as applied to computer software. In Vernor v. Autodesk, the court concluded that the documents in question created a license rather than a sale [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School June 24, 2010 Yesterday, a federal district court in New York granted YouTube’s motion for summary judgment in its long-running litigation with Viacom. Viacom and – separately – the English Premier League sued YouTube and Google alleging that they were liable for infringing works that [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School May 24, 2010 I am working on a paper on the history of razors and blades (yes, I know that sounds obscure, even for an ivory tower sort; I’ll leave it to another day to try to persuade you that you should be fascinated, too). [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School April 5, 2010 The iPad arrived on Saturday. Not mine, unfortunately, as I want to see it live and in person before buying, but the iPad itself. I am not enough of a fanboy to have rushed out to see one immediately, though I confess [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School February 10, 2010 On Feb. 4, the Department of Justice filed its second statement of interest in the pending Google Book Search (GBS) case. We now have a full slate of second-round filings as we head toward the fairness hearing set for a New York [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School November 18, 2009 My favorite German word is festschrift. What could be nicer than commemorative essays to celebrate an event? The University of Chicago Law Review is publishing essays in celebration of Judge Frank Easterbrook’s 25th year on the bench. My essay focuses on what [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School June 18, 2009 Google is a company of modest ambitions. As it puts it in its brief corporate statement, Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Organize it, put it online, display it, and make a few [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School Feb. 11, 2009 The lawsuit filed Feb. 9 by Shepard Fairey against the Associated Press raises some basic questions about what copyright does and doesn’t do. Yesterday’s New York Times describes the background and displays the two critical images. The first is a photograph snapped [...]