2021

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BTS’ ‘Butter’ Hit with Multiple Plagiarism Allegations

Plagiarism Today

On May 21, the popular K-pop band BTS released their latest single, Butter. However, despite the popularity of the track and solid reviews for it, the release itself has been anything but buttery smooth. The reason is that the track has faced not one, but two separate allegations of plagiarism, with many fans and critics alike wondering if the band may have run afoul of copyright law.

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Books and Supply Chains: A Christmas Challenge for Authors, Publishers and Booksellers

Hugh Stephens Blog

On October 22, the Malta registered giant container ship Zim Kingston, enroute from South Korea to Vancouver, lost 109 containers overboard in heavy seas off the coast of Vancouver Island. Although four containers washed ashore further north up the coast, most are assumed to have sunk.

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New Fair Use Guidelines: the Defense Narrows

Creative Law Center

You can't just slap your style on someone else's creative work and call it transformative. Fair use guidelines are evolving. The post New Fair Use Guidelines: the Defense Narrows appeared first on Creative Law Center.

Fair Use 201
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Benefits and Considerations for Patent Prosecution Under Patent Prosecution Highway in Australia, Canada, South Korea, and Japan

Intellectual Property Law Blog

I. Introduction. This is the second article of the multi-part series discussing benefits of prosecuting patents under Patent Prosecution Highway or PPH. The first article can be accessed here. To recap, PPH is a set of initiatives promulgated by participating patent offices around the world to accelerate patent prosecution in countries of the participating patent offices.

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Software Composition Analysis: The New Armor for Your Cybersecurity

Speaker: Blackberry, OSS Consultants, & Revenera

Software is complex, which makes threats to the software supply chain more real every day. 64% of organizations have been impacted by a software supply chain attack and 60% of data breaches are due to unpatched software vulnerabilities. In the U.S. alone, cyber losses totaled $10.3 billion in 2022. All of these stats beg the question, “Do you know what’s in your software?

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Snopes Co-Founder and CEO Admits to Plagiarizing Dozens of Articles

Plagiarism Today

On Friday, Buzzfeed published an article that highlights the widespread and long-running plagiarism of Snopes CEO and co-founder David Mikkelson. The article, the inquiries for which resulted in an investigation by Snopes itself , has resulted in the retraction of some 54 articles and resulted in another 140 pieces being identified as being possibly problematic.

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Some Copyright Highlights in 2021-Around the World and in Canada?

Hugh Stephens Blog

It seems as if it was only a few weeks ago that I was writing a similar summary for 2020, the “annus horribilis” when COVID first hit us, but in fact it was 51 weeks ago yet many of the same pandemic and copyright-related issues that I wrote about last year are still with us, … Continue reading "Some Copyright Highlights in 2021-Around the World and in Canada?

Copyright 246

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Artificial Intelligence And Subject Matter Eligibility In U.S. Patent Office Appeals – Part Two Of Three

Intellectual Property Law Blog

Note: First published in The Intellectual Property Strategist and Law.com. This article is Part Two of a Three-Part Article Series. Artificial intelligence is changing industry and society, and metrics at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reflect its impact. In a recent publication, the USPTO indicated that from 2002 to 2018 the share of all patent applications relating to artificial intelligence grew from 9% to approximately 16%.

Patent 212
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The Cinemassacre Monster Plagiarism Scandal

Plagiarism Today

Disclosure: Though I have no relationship or connection with this story, I am a long-time fan of James Rolfe and his work. James Rolfe is one of the most famous YouTubers working today. Best known for his character the Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) Rolfe has enjoyed over 17 years of success on YouTube spread across multiple shows. One of those series, Monster Madness, has been a long-running October tradition in our house.

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Singapore’s Copyright Act Revisions: A Step in the Right Direction, But….

Hugh Stephens Blog

Singapore’s long awaited and long debated revisions to its copyright law were tabled in Parliament at the beginning of July with a view to enactment by the end of summer. This follows a two-month public consultation by the Law Ministry and Intellectual Property Office. The revisions have been in the works for some time, beginning … Continue reading "Singapore’s Copyright Act Revisions: A Step in the Right Direction, But….

Copyright 246
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What is a brand made of?

Erik K Pelton

A “brand” is the sum total of a number of things that go to the heart of a business’ relationship with its customers and within the marketplace of competitors: For more about Building a Bold Brand , see my book ! The post What is a brand made of? appeared first on Erik M Pelton & Associates, PLLC.

Brands 264
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IPO Diversity in Innovation Toolkit

Women and diverse employees have the technical skill and knowledge, yet their contributions are not patented at the same rate as those of their male counterparts.This toolkit can help organizations move the needle on achieving gender parity in innovation.

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Fifth Circuit Issues an Important Online Jurisdiction Ruling–Johnson v. HuffPost

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

This is the most interesting Internet personal jurisdiction opinion I’ve read in years. I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, because many of you cannot find much enthusiasm about any jurisdiction ruling. Well, get excited about this one. If this opinion isn’t overwritten by further appeals, I’m likely to include it in my Internet Law reader as the principal case on jurisdiction–which would be the first time I’ve changed my principal cases on jurisdicti

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‘Widevine Dump”: Leaked Code Downloads HD Video from Disney+, Amazon, and Netflix

TorrentFreak

With more ways to stream online video than ever before, protecting video continues to be a key issue for copyright holders. This is often achieved through Digital Rights Management, which is often referred to by the initials DRM. In a nutshell, DRM is an anti-piracy tool that dictates when and where digital content can be accessed. Widevine DRM is one of the leading players in the field.

Copyright 145
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A Split Develops: Can Artificial Intelligence Invent Stuff?

JD Supra Law

There is a split developing in the world over whether artificial intelligence software (AI) can be listed as an inventor on a patent application. A recent U.S. district court decision illustrates the consistent position taken in the U.S. In September 2021, the district court held that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Congress defined the term inventor in the Patent Act to include only natural persons.

Invention 145
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The ‘Restoring America Invents Act’ Would Open the Floodgates for Patent Owner Harassment

IP Watchdog

The much discussed, but previously unreleased, Restoring America Invents Act has finally been made public. The bill was submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in what he described late last week as an attempt to reverse the reforms of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) made by former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu. Leahy promised to take aim at discretionary denials of inter partes review (IPR) and post grant review (PGR) challenges, which he did, among many other things.

Invention 145
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10 Christmas Copyright Stories

Plagiarism Today

It is that time of year again. The holiday season is upon, and we are now 10 days away from Christmas. So, as I do most years, I’m preparing to take some time off from the site until the new year (or just before) but I wanted to make sure that I left everyone with something seasonally appropriate. To that end, this is something of an advent calendar.

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Parsing the Plagiarism of the Bad Art Friend

Plagiarism Today

On Tuesday, journalist Robert Kolker published an article in the New York Times Magazine entitled Who is the Bad Art Friend? The story looked at the ongoing feud between two authors, Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson. To parse the winding tale into the most condensed version possible, the story begins when Dorland made the decision to donate a kidney to a stranger.

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Understanding the Shopify Textbook Piracy Lawsuit

Plagiarism Today

Last week, five major education publishers filed a lawsuit against Shopify alleging that the ecommerce service provider has enabled rampant commercial textbook piracy on its platform. According to the publishers, which include Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education, they have sent more than 32,000 takedown notices to Shopify over allegations ebook piracy only for the company to throw up roadblocks to getting content removed and have the company fail to

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Why You Should Never Use the Stock Content in a Website Theme

Plagiarism Today

Building a new website is literally easier than it’s ever been. There are countless services that will help you get started and a never-ending slew of tools to help you get your business or personal endeavor online. However, that’s not to say that there is no work. One still needs to make the site look attractive, fill it with useful content, and then maintain/update the site moving forward.

Licensing 317
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Copyright in the Age of Bots

Plagiarism Today

If you’ve had any issues with copyright over the past few years, whether you are on YouTube, Facebook or even operating your own website, it’s probable that your issue didn’t start with a human, but with a bot. According to YouTube, their automated Content ID system handles over 98% of copyright issues on the site. Similar bots monitor Facebook and Instagram.

Copyright 299
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When Should You Run a Plagiarism Check of Your Work?

Plagiarism Today

As more and more schools and private companies begin using automated plagiarism detection tools, it’s becoming increasingly common for students, authors and journalists to run plagiarism detection software on their work. In fact, many schools are actually encouraging this behavior and giving students access to the same tools they use. The goal of this is to verify that the work is at least largely free of issues and that the author didn’t make any mistakes when penning their latest p

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When Joke Theft Becomes Serious

Plagiarism Today

In September last year, UK comedian Kae Kurd took to the stage on Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club to perform a short routine in front of a national audience. As part of that routine , Kurd told a joke about a smart refrigerator that was texting and annoying him while he was out with his friends. That particular joke caught the attention of another UK comedian, Darius Davies, who felt that the joke was very similar to his work.

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The Impact of the Internet on Plagiarism

Plagiarism Today

When people learn what I do for a living, one of the first questions I am usually asked is, “Has the internet made plagiarism much worse?”. It’s easy to see why it’s a question. Anecdotally, it feels like plagiarism stories are becoming much more common. Just over the sixteen years I’ve been writing for this site, there’s been a marked increase in the number of news stories about plagiarism and the amount of interest in the topic.

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Understanding the Pearson v. Chegg Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

Plagiarism Today

Yesterday, news broke that Pearson Education, the largest publisher of textbooks in the world, has filed a lawsuit against the website Chegg alleging widespread copyright infringement of its content on the site. The lawsuit specifically targets Chegg Study, a subscription service of Chegg that, according to Pearson, makes up the majority of the site’s $644 million in revenue.

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We Need to Rethink YouTube

Plagiarism Today

The stories have become incredibly common. Last week, it was YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick, better known as Totally Not Mark, who faced some 150 copyright claims on his channel from Toei Animation. Fitzpatrick, a prolific reviewer of anime, had gone from running a successful channel reviewing anime to, according to his video, finding himself without revenue and facing the loss of three years of his work.

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7 Takeaways from YouTube’s Copyright Transparency Report

Plagiarism Today

Yesterday, YouTube published its first every Copyright Transparency Report. With that step, it follows in the footsteps of Google , Facebook , Reddit and other major industry players in publishing such a report. However, YouTube’s first report comes out in a very different context than the others. While it’s interesting to see the amount and kinds of copyright notices other providers see, YouTube has faced far more copyright criticism than those companies.

Reporting 279
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What Mr. Beast’s Squid Game Video Says About Originality

Plagiarism Today

Mr. Beast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, is a YouTuber who has earned a reputation for his massive giveaways, massive projects and expensive stunts. However, one of his most recent videos has been drawing some criticism over allegations that it is plagiarizing its source material. In the video , Mr. Beast recreates all the games from the recent Netflix hit series Squid Game and puts 456 people through them with the promise that the ultimate winner will receive $456,000.

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The Streamlabs (SLOBS) Plagiarism Scandal

Plagiarism Today

Streamlabs, a company that provides software that enables livestreaming, has long been a somewhat controversial figure in the streaming marketplace. Their main product, Streamlabs OBS (often abbreviated to SLOBS) is built on top of the open-source application OBS it’s been accused of creating confusion by using such a similar name for a commercial product.

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Facebook’s Plagiarism Problems Are Deeper Than You Realize

Plagiarism Today

Back in September , I reported on Facebook’s Widely Viewed Content Report and how Casey Newton, a reporter at The Verge, noticed that nearly all the top posts on Facebook for the quarter were plagiarized. . This month, Newton is at it again and recently published an updated article that looks at the latest quarterly Widely Viewed Content Report. The findings, to put it mildly are not shocking.

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Luxembourg PM Admits to Dissertation Plagiarism

Plagiarism Today

Last week, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, was accused of plagiarism in a thesis that he wrote for the University of Nancy. The plagiarism was discovered by reporter.lu and covered by Pol Reuter (French language article). According to the report, nearly all the 1999 thesis was plagiarized save a brief introduction and a brief conclusion that appears to be original.

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Understanding Copyright, Trademark and Halloween Costumes

Plagiarism Today

As we’ve discussed in the past , copyright has played an oddly oversized role in our modern Halloween festivities. Whether it’s establishing the modern zombie formula , essentially re-copyrighting Frankenstein’s Monster or nearly killing off one of the most iconic vampires , Halloween and copyright have a long and controversial history together. However, one of the areas that is generally less talked about is copyright’s impact on Halloween costumes.

Trademark 279
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The Battle Over Poker NFTs

Plagiarism Today

From PokerPaint Websote. On September 23, the art site PokerPaint announced on their Twitter (Tweet now deleted) that they were releasing a series of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on OpenSea. The site, at that time, was fairly well known in the poker community. Famous for its expressionist renderings of various poker players, the site and its artist, Brett Butz, sold not only completed works but offered commissioned pieces that were popular among poker players.

Fair Use 279
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Why Plagiarism Thrives on Facebook

Plagiarism Today

Back in August, Facebook released its “ Widely Viewed Content Report ” that attempted to showcase the type of content that was popular on the service. It included a list of the 20 most viewed posts during the second quarter of 2021, each of which received between 43.6 million and 85 million views. The goal of the report was to both highlight the most popular content on Facebook and to deflect some of the attention Facebook has been getting regarding misinformation that spreads wildly

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Using Tortured Phrases to Spot Problematic Papers

Plagiarism Today

A recent article in Nature highlighted an unusual approach to spotting questionable research papers, the use of “tortured phrases” The article highlights the work of Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse, and his colleagues. According to Cabanac, he couldn’t understand why researchers in several articles were using phrases like “Colossal Information” instead of “Big Data” or “Haze Figuring” instead of “Cl

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Why Spotify Removed So Many Comedy Albums

Plagiarism Today

Last week, Spotify removed a slew of popular comedians from their service including John Mulaney, Kevin Hart, Lewis Black and Tiffany Haddish to name just a few. The move was abrupt and left both the comedians and their fans in a lurch. However, the move didn’t come completely out of nowhere. It’s actually a battle that has been brewing for several years but has only now reached a tipping point.

Music 264
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3 Count: NFT Repeat

Plagiarism Today

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday. 1: YouTuber Hit With 150 Copyright Claims For Reviews Featuring Anime Footage. First off today, Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku reports that YouTuber Mark Fitzpatrick, better known as Totally Not Mark, says that he does not know what is next after the anime studio Toei has filed copyright claims against some 150 of the videos on his channel.