The Associated Press has asked a federal judge to deny a request by the attorneys of street artist Shepard Fairey to withdraw as his legal counsel.

According to the Boston Globe,

In April of 2008 we mentioned the lawsuit brought by George Lucas against the original designer and creator of the Stormtrooper outfit in a English court for copyright and trademark infringement. The English judge in that case ruled that the suits were not covered by copyright law because they were not works of art and a £10 million (approx. $16.5 million) damages award against Mr Ainsworth in the US could not be enforced in the UK.

According to WalesOnline,

Now Lucasfilm has brought an action in the Court of Appeal to try to prove that the Stormtrooper suits are sculptures and therefore works of art covered by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Mr Lucas’s company is also claiming that an English court should allow the US court jurisdiction in cases involving internet trading even though the trader may not have a physical presence in the foreign country.

We haven’t seen this film so we cannot in all honesty vouch for it, but we thought our readers (and those in NYC next week) might be interested in this film. Playing next Tuesday, November 10th, at New York City’s IFC, is Copyright Criminals.

According to IFC’s website, the film,

examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law, and (of course) money. This documentary traces the rise of hip-hop from the urban streets of New York to its current status as a multibillion-dollar industry. For more than thirty years, innovative hip-hop performers and producers have been re-using portions of previously recorded music in new, otherwise original compositions. When lawyers and record companies got involved, what was once referred to as a “borrowed melody” became a “copyright infringement.”

Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor for the Cornell University Library, sent us this news release concerning a new book on guidelines for the digitization of content for U.S. libraries, archives, and museums. Earlier this year the U.K.’s National Portrait Gallery faced a similar question regarding copyright and the digitization and public access to public domain works.

ITHACA, N.Y. (Oct. 29, 2009) – How can cultural heritage institutions legally use the Internet to improve public access to the rich collections they hold?

“Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums,” a new book published today by Cornell University Library, can help professionals at these institutions answer that question.

Based on a well-received Australian manual written by Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon of the University of Melbourne, the book has been developed by Cornell University Library’s senior policy advisor Peter B. Hirtle, along with Hudson and Kenyon, to conform to American law and practice.

The development of new digital technologies has led to fundamental changes in the ways that cultural institutions fulfill their public missions of access, preservation, research, and education.  Many institutions are developing publicly accessible Web sites that allow users to visit online exhibitions, search collection databases, access images of collection items, and in some cases create their own digital content. Digitization, however, also raises the possibility of copyright infringement. It is imperative that staff in libraries, archives, and museums understand fundamental copyright principles and how institutional procedures can be affected by the law. 

“Copyright and Cultural Institutions” was written to assist understanding and compliance with copyright law. It addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of “risk assessment” when conducting any digitization project. Case studies on digitizing oral histories and student work are also included.

Hirtle is the former director of the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, and the book evolved from his recognition of the need for such a guide when he led museum and library digitization projects. After reading Hudson and Kenyon’s Australian guidelines, he realized that an American edition would be invaluable to anyone contemplating a digital edition.

Anne R. Kenney, the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University, noted: “The Library has a long tradition of making available to other professionals the products of its research and expertise. I am delighted that this new volume can join the ranks with award-winning library publications on digitization and preservation.”

As an experiment in open-access publishing, the Library has made the work available in two formats. Print copies of the work are available from CreateSpace, an Amazon subsidiary. In addition, the entire text is available as a free download through eCommons, Cornell University’s institutional repository, and from SSRN.com, which already distributes the Australian guidelines.

Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums by Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon.  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-935995-10-7. Price: $39.95. Available for purchase at https://www.createspace.com/3405063, and for free download at: < http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1495365> and < http://hdl.handle.net/1813/14142>.

According to the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research,

Brandeis University is contemplating suing Harper’s Magazine for slander or defamation for the article “Voodoo Academics: Brandeis University’s hard lesson in the real economy” in the magazine’s November issue[.]

Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz wrote in an e-mail: “We recognize that the legal process for slander/defamation is an arduous task and one that is difficult to prove; however, we feel that some affirmative course of action must be taken to protect the reputation of Brandeis given that this article is likely to have circulation on the Internet far beyond the circulation numbers of Harper’s.”

You can read the entire story and Reinharz’s e-mail here.

Last Thursday, Stanford’s Fair Use Project asked the Southern District of New York that they be allowed to withdraw from representing their client, Shepard Fairey. The motion identifies the lawyers who would take over the case as Jones Day partner Geoffrey Stewart, William Fisher III, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and John Palfrey, a professor and vice dean at Harvard Law School. The parties are due back in court this coming Thursday for a status conference.

The AmLaw Daily has more here.

The New York Supreme Court ruled this week that a woman who worked relied on an art dealer’s valuation of a painting by Julian Schnabel cannot recoup the $290,000 she paid for the work. 

The Court ruled that a “party is not justified in relying on any alleged misrepresentations if the facts were not peculiarly within” the other party’s knowledge and the party had the means to learn the truth by exercising ordinary intelligence.

Entire story at Law.com.