The annual legal problems in museum administration conference was held last month. A few “hot” topics hit the agenda. Not surprisingly, copyright and fair use was in the mix. Other topics were federal resale rights, moral rights, and broken donor pledges. On the current “hot” topic concerning the academic and institutional use of copyrighted images, Theodore Feder, president of New York’s Artists Rights Society, had this to say.

[T]he society accepts “the use of thumbnails before, during and after an exhibition.” Under US “fair use” rules, which allows for the reproduction of copyrighted works in certain educational and other circumstances, “we accept as fair use a scholarly publication of under 3,000 copies [but] not a coffee table book,” plus reproductions used in research and news reporting[.]

The conference was organized by the American Law Institute-American Bar Association and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Association of Museums. More via The Art Newspaper here.

Now available, the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York’s new version of How to Read the IRS Form 990, based on the newly redesigned and expanded Form 990 that was first required for 2008  IRS filings. The online resource is broken down by topics into their own hyper linked chapters. Great resource and available here.

“You have the right to remain silent…”

Yes, we’ve all heard those romantic lines before, and certainly know what words follow.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2000 decision in Dickerson v. United States was probably the first criminal procedure decision celebrated with an editorial in Broadcasting & Cable magazine. Noting that Chief Justice William Rehnquist opinion relied on the warnings’ well-established place in popular culture, the editorial acknowledged that, “[n]ext to the pledge of allegiance, the Miranda rights may be the most familiar common litany of the baby-boomer generation, thanks to TV.” Professors Richard Leo and George Thomas have similarly observed “suspects are likely to have heard Miranda so many times on television that the Miranda warnings may have a familiar, numbing ring,” and that “it is because of these shows and the mass media more generally – not the police, the legal system, or Supreme Court doctrine – that Miranda has become so much a part of our national culture.”

Critical to the Dickerson Court’s reaffirmation of Miranda was the fact of the public’s overwhelming awareness of Miranda and the fact that “Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture.” Clearly, television dramas, and particularly police procedurals, get the credit for informing the public about the Miranda warnings. But, whether praising or skeptical toward portrayals of Miranda and its embedding in popular culture and the public consciousness, most study and commentary presumes that the consumers of serial police dramas on American television have had repeated exposure to the Miranda warnings. Dickerson was decided in part on the same premise.

But what would happen if the general American viewing audience (and by extension, foreign audiences), stopped hearing Miranda warnings on popular TV shows and Hollywood movies? Would Miranda rights cease to exist?

However, it may be that most people writing about the ubiquitous nature of Miranda in popular culture are describing a popular culture they remember rather than popular culture as it now exists. Judges and scholars may remember Miranda warnings used as prominent script elements in the television of their youth – the generation that came of age in the era of “Dragnet” and “Adam-12” heard Miranda warnings more times than they could count. But, as Broadcast & Cable noted, “[w]e’ve not heard a TV Miranda read in a while.” Following up on that observation, a look at several iconic cop shows from the years since Miranda demonstrates a sharply diminished role for Miranda in popular culture. What happens to the Dickerson rationale if there isn’t the repeated popular culture representations of Miranda that created a public familiar with and expecting of a caution that they have the right to remain silent? Can Miranda survive in law once its television role has been left on the cutting room floor?

An interesting new article on this hypothetical has just been published on Cleveland State Law Review, and available via SSRN here.

American jazz musician and composer Miles Davis (1926 - 1991) playing the trumpet. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images)

I’ve mentioned the often overlooked and negative relationship between copyright and racial minorities before, specifically by those that exploit minority artists and those that profess a “free culture” movement. This weekend I ran into this gem.

According to The Root‘s Latoya Peterson, “[a]ll too often, when it comes to intellectual property, black artists are the ones who lose the rights to their work.”

Peterson quotes Lateef Mtima, founder and director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice at the Howard University School of Law,  “It’s not hard to get our community excited about music, art or fashion — we need to get out there in the communities to protect that work.”

To help educate minority artists, Mtima is “partnering with the NAACP and Google to take intellectual property discussions out of legal journals, courtrooms and academia and to bring them to artists, scientists, technologists and creators of all stripes. He hopes to get more people, particularly young black entrepreneurs, interested in protecting themselves, and their work.”

Paterson’s conclusion is on point,

If black creators don’t own the rights to their work, we lose out economically and culturally. Intellectual property matters. And the creative future of a generation of young black artists depends on us learning how to leverage the law to our advantage.

One factor readers may want to consider when reading pro “free culture” ideology, is to note who professes the “free culture” ideology and whether or not they address the issues mentioned above. More likely than not, they never do.

According to a 2007 content analysis by professor Alex Long of the University of Tennessee, Bob Dylan easily beat the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen as the most-cited in court opinions. In 2007, Dylan had 186 references at one point, compared to 74 and 69, respectively, for the Beatles and Springsteen.

According to the ABA Journal, Dylan has been quoted by two U.S. Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia. The times they are a-changin’?

We can’t believe Lucas Films didn’t get it first.

According to FishBowl NY, The Walt Disney Company has filed three trademark applications for the phrase “Seal Team 6,” which readers may recall is also the name of the elite special forces NAVY SEAL team that killed Osama Bin Laden. The trademark applications were filed on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden. The registrations include toys, video games, clothing, and Christmas trees and articles. The registrations can be viewed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website here. Just plug in the term, “Seal Team 6.”

Incidentally, didn’t Charlie Sheen play a NAVY SEAL once?

Open-back square-twist crease pattern

Yes, we’re just posting on this story now, even though we received notice of this case from plaintiff’s counsel about a week ago. There’s something a bit disturbing about receiving a mass e-mail with generic information on a case or legal situation. If you want our attention, treat it seriously, and don’t just send an e-blast to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that opines on art law.

Anyhow, for our faithful followers who have been e-mailing us about this and  asking about this case via facebook and twitter, here it is!

Painter, Sarah Morris, has been sued for copyright infringement by 4 origami artists. The e-mail mentioned above contained this “explanation” on the need for this lawsuit.

Why did the artists take this step? Among other reasons, under American copyright law, the original artist has the right to control derivative works of our original works. (“Derivative works” are those works that are based upon our original works, but do other things to them – such as colorizing them, in this case.) As the original artists, they have the right to decide what you can do with their artwork, not Ms. Morris. Although they published our crease patterns, that does not mean we gave up our ownership rights to the original art works we created. 24 of her works (listed in the complaint) have been identified as unauthorized copies of origami crease patterns by modern origami artists.

Fair use? Infringement? We think this one’s fair use.

The complaint may be found here.