Mother of ‘Success Kid’ Demands Steve King Stop Using His Meme — The New York Times reports on the cease and desist sent to the Iowa Representative over his unauthorized use of the popular photo. “Though the ‘meme era’ of copyright cases has only recently begun, so far the courts have held that ‘there’s nothing special about memes,’ said Louis Tompros, a lawyer who represented Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe the Frog, in a case against the conspiracy website Infowars. ‘The fact that an image becomes popular does not mean that it loses copyright,’ he said. ‘If the parent of the kid in the meme took the photo, she owns the copyright and does have a copyright infringement claim.'”
The United Kingdom will not transpose the DSM Directive — In approximately nine hours from the time this is posted, the UK will officially withdraw from the European Union. It was announced last week that as a result, the country will not be transposing the EU’s recently adopted Digital Single Market Directive, a sweeping set of changes to copyright law. The Directive is perhaps best known for its Articles 15 and 17, which clarify rules of liability for user-generated content and create a press publishers right, respectively.
Supreme Court Can’t Get Enough Copyright And Trademark — The Court is set to issue decisions in three copyright cases before the end of its term in June—Allen v. Cooper, Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, and Google v. Oracle America—making its busiest year in terms of copyright since 1985. Law360 takes a look at those cases, along with upcoming trademark cases, which have also seen a notable spike.
Music Publishers Knock Out Peloton’s Antitrust Countersuit — The exercise bike company saw its antitrust counterclaims against fifteen music publishers dismissed this week. The counterclaims were made after the publishers sued Peloton for widespread infringement, alleging that the company had not secured licenses for thousands of songs that it has used in its service.