Category: Geek Stuff

Commissioned Art: Copyright Threat, or Copyright Menace?

Standard Disclaimer: I am an attorney, but I am probably not your attorney. Nothing in this post is legal advice and nothing in it should be applied to the facts of any real-world dispute. Copyright law is heavily fact-dependent. Consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction and familiar with the relevant law before making legal decisions.

I am in the market for some artwork to use on the cover of a book I wrote. Being a good Internet citizen and neighbor, I have been trying to find an artist who is a member of one or more of the communities I am part of, or at least adjacent to (shut up, @boozybadger) on the Internet to provide said art, in exchange for which I propose to provide cold hard cash, or at least the digital equivalent thereof. I have done this before: for instance, the logo I use for my law firm, I commissioned from a student who makes logos to earn money for school. Cool, huh?

Legal Inspiration Logo!

However, this is not a request for quotes on artwork, this is a post about the legal questions related to commissioning artwork. Mostly, the copyright question. And it’s a doozy.

Continue reading Commissioned Art: Copyright Threat, or Copyright Menace?

An Inexpensive Secure Device – the FreePi (Raspberry Pi FreedomBox)

Hello friends!

Sorry it’s been quiet on the ol’ blog, but if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll get plenty of commentary on the legal news of the day. (I’m @legalinspire on Twitter. See right column.)

Today, though, we’re going to take a little detour, though our destination is very relevant to intellectual property law, information security, and a few other topics near and dear to my heart. Specifically, we’re going to look at one of the purest Open Source devices available for non-I’ll-just-build-my-OWN-damn-OS programmer types: the FreedomBox. Even more specifically, I’m going to show you how to build the cheapest sort of FreedomBox you can build from scratch. (First there’s going to be some background, so if you just want to skip to the building part, click here. Warning: this is very long and there are a lot of pictures.)

Continue reading An Inexpensive Secure Device – the FreePi (Raspberry Pi FreedomBox)

But What About The Memes??? (Interview on CheckpointXP Radio)

I love doing media interviews and it’s always a blast talking to the folks at CheckpointXP Radio. I was on the show yesterday (April 2, 2019 for those of you visiting FROM THE FUTURE!) to talk about The Article Formerly Known As Article 13, namely Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. And while of course everybody was up for a brief legal scholarship session, we did get to the most crucial question of our day:

WHAT ABOUT THE MEMES? ARE OUR MEMES SAFE???

If this issue concerns you – and I literally can’t imagine that it doesn’t – here’s a link!

https://checkpointxp.com/2019/04/02/checkpoint-xp-daily-tuesday-april-2nd-2019-feat-march-whipple-on-article-13/

Video Game Preservation: Not a DIY Project, But Now A Lawful One

(This post was originally written for Ron Coleman’s Likelihood of Confusion blog. Please note that while the author is a licensed and experienced attorney, nothing in this post constitutes specific legal advice. It is provided for general educational purposes only. The author has made an offer of pro bono consultation related to the subject matter of this post. This may be considered ATTORNEY ADVERTISING in some jurisdictions.)

If you are into vintage video games, you probably know about “ROM Sites.” ROM sites are websites where you can download the ROM (Read Only Memory) code for classic cartridge or board-level games, such as Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges or arcade cabinet games like “Spy Hunter.” They’re not really different in kind from websites or torrents where you can download more modern software which was available on disk or CD-ROM. They’re just a little more arcane because you have to not only download the ROM code (which has been “ripped,” or copied from the ROM chips to a computer hard drive) but download and run “emulator” software, which allows your modern PC to run code written for much, much older hardware. It’s entirely doable, but requires a little effort and tech know-how.

Recently, Nintendo sued one of the better known ROM sites, loveroms.com, and won a 12 million dollar judgment against them for copyright infringement. Here’s a copy of what was the front page of loveroms.com from the complaint:

Here’s what’s on the loveroms.com front page now:

Apology to Nintendo

Our website, LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co, previously offered and performed unauthorized copies of Nintendo games, in violation of Nintendo’s copyrights and trademarks. LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co acknowledges that it caused harm to Nintendo, its partners, and customers by offering infringing copies of Nintendo games and has agreed to cease all such activities. To access legitimate Nintendo games online, please visit www.nintendo.com for information about the Nintendo Game Store.

Continue reading Video Game Preservation: Not a DIY Project, But Now A Lawful One