Marvel Comics has won a legal battle to retain copyright of its lucrative comic book characters including Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. Marvel sued the family of late co-creator Jack Kirby last year after the family laid claim to copyrights for work he created from 1958 to 1963.The Kirby estate plans to appeal.

Via BBC. Background here.

Another book that looks to further the copyright/fair use debate. Published by the University of Chicago Press, Reclaiming Fair Use was co-written by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi. From the publisher:

In the increasingly complex and combative arena of copyright in the digital age, record companies sue college students over peer-to-peer music sharing, YouTube removes home movies because of a song playing in the background, and filmmakers are denied a distribution deal when some permissions “i” proves undottable. Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi chart a clear path through the confusion by urging a robust embrace of a principle long-embedded in copyright law, but too often poorly understood—fair use. By challenging the widely held notion that current copyright law has become unworkable and obsolete in the era of digital technologies, Reclaiming Fair Use promises to reshape the debate in both scholarly circles and the creative community.

A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for the Star Wars saga has won his battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. Britain’s Supreme Court upheld an appeals court ruling that the Stormtrooper costumes were functional not artistic works, and thus not subject to UK copyright laws. Lucas managed to pull a victory however, as the Court also ruled that the sale of replicas in the U.S. did violate U.S. copyright law.

According to Bloomberg News, Lucasfilm could take its U.K. copyright claim to the European Court of Justice.

Via The BBC.

Art journalist Sarah Thornton, who writes for the New Yorker, the Economist and Artforum and is author of the popular book Seven Days in the Art World, has won £65,000 ($106, 736 US) in damages against the Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the Daily Telegraph. London’s high court found that a 2008 review in the Daily Telegraph of Thornton’s book, by journalist Lynn Barber, contained two factual “errors,” amounting to libel and malicious falsehood.

The Daily Telegraph plans to appeal. Via Artnet.

Citing a violation of its terms of use, Facebook removed Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album cover from Nirvana’s own Facebook page. According to Facebook’s terms of use, “Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of the Terms of Use.”

However, we just checked and the naked-baby-showing-his-penis image is still up (no pun intended).

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

Not everything that shines is gold. A good list of royalty-free, public domain images. Available at makeuseof.com.

Hand made bags. Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

Early last week, law professors, designers, and fashion advocates testified in front of members of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet in favor of and opposition to the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (IDPPPA), a bill that aims to provide copyright protection to fashion designers. According to the Washington Post,

If passed, the IDPPPA, now in its second iteration, will give three years of copyright protections to innovative designs not in the public domain, preventing fast-fashion retailers from making exact copies of “unique” fashion designs.

Keep in mind that the bill targets copyright protection, not trademarks, which already grant designers some protection based on logos, colors, and names.