Comments on: Jones Day Lawyers Apparently Don’t Know the Law

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:55:35 +0000

It is unfortunate that people feel the need to seek out a lawsuit for little to no reason, but it happens all the time. A lot of these companies are looking for any possible way to start a problem and I have heard of a number of large companies that actually employ people to search the web and find any potential copyright infringers.

Terry
real estate license

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:55:35 +0000

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:55:35 +0000

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:50:43 +0000

BlockShopper is responsible for a grotesque invasion of privacy that recently caused a woman to be raped by a former boyfriend/stalker after she moved to avoid him & then blockshopper posted her personal information online (http://www.blockshoppervictim.com). She even asked them to take down the info but they did not. Jones Day did exactly what the government did to the mafia. They didn't / couldn't get them on murder. So, they got them on tax evasion. BlockShopper is disgusting and what they do needs to be stopped. Putting BlockShopper out of business with legal bills for copyright infringement is just fine with me since nobody can get them on a privacy invasion complaint . They refuse to take their "news stories" down, regardless of the circumstances. James - I want my country back too - meaning I want the right to live in peace w/o my privacy being violated for someone else's profit.

By: DUI Lawyers Online

DUI Lawyers Online — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:35:14 +0000

By: Law Student

Law Student — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:39:30 +0000

Jones Day has no case. This seems to be a clear-cut case of descriptive fair-use.

By: Jim Harper

Jim Harper — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:24:46 +0000

Documents from the case are on the Citizen Media Law page.

By: Carme

Carme — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:00:42 +0000

I haven't seen the actual lawsuit so I'll take your word for it. The letters speak vaguely of "proprietary material" which I assumed includes the photographs.
It's possible that the copyright in the images belongs to the photographer but it's much more likely they were works for hire and belong to the firm.
As for fair use, the purpose of the reproduction is just one of four criteria for fair use; another one is how extensive the reproduction is, in this case the whole work. I find it hard to believe that this is acceptable fair use of a copyrighted photograph; as I said before, that would mean that any publication - a newspaper, a website, a blog - that "reports" on anything can use any copyrighted picture that relates to the text. That sounds implausible to me. Again, IANAL.
If the firm does hold the copyright to the photographs they should be scorned, not commended, for failing to use the one claim where they had a chance.

By: James

James — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:31:41 +0000

Sadly, that is a wonderfully written post.

Some day I'd love to have my country back.

By: Jim Harper

Jim Harper — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:23:14 +0000

The Jones Day suit didn't allege any copyright violations – perhaps because the owner of the copyrights in the images they have on their Web sites is the photographer who took them. And news reporting is listed in the Copyright Act as purpose of using copyrighted material that is fair use. Perhaps Jones Day lawyers DO understand copyright law! [n.b., Criticism and comment are also listed fair uses of copyrighted material.]

By: Carme

Carme — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:12:15 +0000

The trademark and linking claims are bogus, but I think posting the images actually is copyright infringement. If it weren't, any publication could put copyrighted images next to any related text, which is probably not the case. Do you think differently?
IANAL.

By: Marlee Taankos

Marlee Taankos — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:23:05 +0000

Meredith Wilkes deserves more respect than you have shown her...on the racquetball court that is.

Maybe she is doing one of those "How To Lose All My Clients In 10 Days" magazine pieces.