Author name: Kiran George

Kiran Mary George is a Third Year student at ILS Law College, Pune. Her first stint in the world of Intellectual Property law was an internship with a registered copyright society that granted her an insight into the world of copyright in music. Since then, her interest in IPR has taken strong hold, and she enjoys keeping close tabs on developments in the field. She is still discovering her interests, but so far takes a special liking to open access, copyright and trademarks.

When Central Perk Came to Town : The Legality of a TV Show Themed Restaurant

/ By / Copyright

In a dream come true for every crazed fan of the unforgettable 90’s TV show, it appears that two ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S.’ themed ‘Central Perk’ cafes, both named after the soap, have popped up in Kolkata and Delhi – a development that has, needless to say, excited many. The owners have come up with a brilliantly unoriginal and yet, exceedingly profitable recipe for commercial success that’s going to have them making (and eventually losing) big money, all by feeding off of Friends’ …

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The Copyrightability of Tattoos (II): Does Artist Interest trump the Right to Bodily Autonomy?

/ By / Copyright

In my earlier post, I briefly outlined the issues associated with copyrighting tattoos specifically in the light of the use of the human body as a medium of expression. In this post, I will attempt to identify whether such use affects the copyrightability of the tattoo by pitting copyright ownership against bodily autonomy. Vesting Ownership with the Artist: Why catastrophic If ownership rights in tattoos were deemed to be wholly vested in the artist, it would have the strangely twisted …

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The Copyrightability of Tattoos (I): Does Artist Interest trump the Right to Bodily Autonomy?

/ By / Copyright

In January this year, the creators of wildly popular NBA 2k16  videogame were dragged to court by Solid Oak Sketches – the exclusive owner and licensor of the copyright to tattoos on the bodies of NBA players like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, both of whom, together with their famous inks (see here and here), feature in the videogame. Solid Oak claimed that in making unauthorized digital reproductions of the tattoos on the bodies of the players, the creators had …

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Digital Sampling : Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ Copyright Controversy (Part II)

/ By / Copyright

(Part I can be accessed here) Both Bieber and Skrillex have vehemently refuted allegations that the riff comprises an act of digital sampling – Skrillex recently even tweeted a video in an attempt to break down the creation of the vocal riff in ‘Sorry’. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to explore the possible defences available against an action of infringement specifically by digital sampling, in attempt to speculatively – on account of lack of sufficient judicial precedent – narrow down the …

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Digital Sampling: Bieber’s ‘Sorry’ Copyright Controversy (Part I)

/ By / Copyright

Following close on the heels of the Los Angeles District Court’s historic decision last year in the ‘Blurred Lines’ copyright infringement scandal, comes another rather scandalously tasty instance of an allegedly infringing work, Justin Bieber’s Billboard topping, Selena Gomez-serenading, hit single, ‘Sorry’. It appears that an indie singer, Casey Dienels, working under the stage name ‘White Hinterland’, has reportedly sued both Bieber and his producer Skrillex for allegedly sampling the famous “oo-ooh” introductory vocal riff from her haunting version in …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review ( 29th May – 4th June )

/ By / Others

SpicyIP Highlight of the Week Our SpicyIP Highlight of the Week was definitely the guest post by Harshavardhan Ganesan – an LLM student at the University of California, Berkeley – where he discusses the issue of trademark genericide. He begins by considering the reasons for a trademark’s foray into the public domain, and goes on to discuss the steps that companies can take to prevent the death of its trademarks. He concludes by throwing up several pertinent questions that the issue …

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Royalties in the Digital Music Industry: The Metadata Predicament

/ By / Copyright

Before the digital revolution transformed the way people accessed music, and music lovers still thronged CD stores to buy their favourite artist albums, unlicensed users of copyrighted music probably didn’t have too many legitimate excuses for not paying royalties. The backs of CD and cassette cases – whether you bought them pirated or original – always had a little colourful pamphlet on the front that displayed the album name, and one at the back that listed out the names of …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (24th – 30th April, 2016)

/ By / Others

SpicyIP Highlight of the Week Our SpicyIP Highlight was definitely Prateek Surisetti’s two-part post submission for the 2016-17 Fellowship. In the first part, he chronicles the issues associated with permitting companies to trademark colours having extensive uses in the light of the 2013 Nestle v. Cadbury judgement. He then looks into the basis of the Sieckmann Criteria and explores the ‘ideal threshold’ pertaining to the clarity and precision required of applications seeking registration of color marks. In the second part, …

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BDR, Lee Pharma decide not to pursue CL appeals

/ By / Patent

(Posted on behalf of Balaji) A  Reuters report from earlier today, carried by newspapers such as Mint and The Hindu, states that generics manufacturers Lee Pharma and BDR have decided not to pursue appeals against the rejection of their compulsory license applications for patents over AstraZeneca’s Saxagliptin and BMS’s Dasatinib respectively. The report identifies recent news of the Indian government’s private assurance to US pharma lobbies that it would not issue compulsory licenses for commercial purposes as the reason behind the decision. If true, the ramifications of this development for …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (27th March – 9th April)

/ By / Others

SpicyIP Highlight (this post has been co-authored by Kartik, Balaji and I) Our Highlight of the Week was definitely the post by one of our fellowship applicants – Swati Muthukumar– where she examines MSF’s opposition to Pfizer’s pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in India. She discusses the contentions put forth by MSF in their challenge, and then briefly turns to the decision of the Opposition Division of the European Patent Court as regards the patent in order to further determine the legitimacy …

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