Morgan Lewis on Intellectual Property and Technology
June/July 2003

In this Issue:

• Rights of Publicity vs. Free Speech: The Winters' Discontent:
  In a highly publicized case in California involving the balance between the right of publicity and the First Amendment, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Winter v. DC Comics, 2003 Cal. LEXIS 3492 (Cal. June 2, 2003), that the First Amendment bars right-of-publicity and related claims where “significant creative elements” transform the work “into something more than a mere celebrity likeness.”
• Eisenhower Footage Liberated: No Attribution Required:
  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that copying public-domain works without attribution does not violate federal unfair competition law.
• Playing Internet Ball in American Cyberspace:
  In America Online, Inc. v. aol.org, No. CIV.A.02-1116-A, 2003 WL 1957442 (E.D. Va. Apr. 23, 2003), a federal district court ordered the “.ORG” registry (Public Interest Registry) to transfer the domain name <aol.org> to America Online, Inc. (“AOL”) when a foreign registrar refused to comply with an earlier court order to turn the domain name over to AOL.

For the full story, please view the PDF.