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DMCA Takedown Notice

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Biletsky Law - DMCAIn 1998 the United States enacted the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA updated various parts of the then current copyright laws. One such provision that was updated was the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA). OCILLA provides a conditional safe harbor for Online Service Providers and similar “middlemen of the internet” (think content hosting sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, etc.).

While there are many different parts of the OCILLA which provide certain protections from liability, this article will focus in particular on the Takedown Provisions. The Takedown Provisions require that in order for an Online Service Provider to be able to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions, they must comply with certain notices and in particular, any Takedown Notices. These Takedown Notices act as an easy way for content owners to be able to protect their intellectual property by notifying the service provider that their intellectual property has been infringed upon.

Once the content owner has made the service provider aware of the infringment, it is now up to the service provider to take action to stop the infringment. When a service provider complies with the Takedown Notice and removes the content, the service provider is deemed to have fulfilled their obligations under the law and they can then take advantage of the safe harbor provisions which protect them from being liable for the infringement.

If the service provider is made aware of the infringement and does not take action to prevent it, if such infingement is occuring, then the service provider may not be in compliance with the law and therefore may not be able to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions.

So how do you file one of these Takedown Notices? It is advised that if you do find out that your intellectual property is being infringed that you contact an intellectual property or entertainment lawyer immediately. However, to explain what the process is:

First, it is important to determine whether the content provider provides a way for content owners to send a Takedown Notice. Usually, this will be found in the very bottom of a website and will be under the “Terms of Use” (or similar worded page) or there may be a “DMCA” link. Within the terms or in the DMCA page, there will be a list of statements that must be sent to the service provider in order for hte Takedown Notice to be in compliance with the law:

Worded in one way or another, the following is required in order for the Takedown Notice to be effective:

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.
(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Once a Takedown Notice which includes all of the above is sent to the servie provider, it is up to them whether or not to comply. Many of the larger service providers will have certain procedures in place to determine whether there actually has been infringement and whether they should remove the content.

While what goes into the Takedown Notice is pretty much the same for every service provider, each service provider has their own protocol for dealing with the notices. You may or may not receive any kind of confirmation or response. You may eventually notice that the infringing content has been removed, or not.

If you have sent a service provider a DMCA Takedown Notice but the infringing content has not been removed, it is important that you contact an attorney to take the next steps necessary to protect your intellectual property.

Has your content been posted without your permission? Contact Biletsky Law to ensure that your intellectual property rights are protected.

Trademark Classes

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Biletsky Law - Trademark ClassificationA common misperception about trademark law is that once you have registered a trademark, that you own all of the rights to the name, logo, or brand (these are referred to as the “mark”). In reality, this is not necessarily the case. When registering a trademark, one of the essential steps is choosing which class best fits your product or service. Once the trademark application survives the examination process, you will then receive the trademark rights to your mark in the particular class that you selected.

For example, Coca-Cola may have originally registered their mark as a beverage (Perhaps under Class 032 – Beers and Beverages). At that point, someone who sold couches and other furniture (Class 020 – Furniture) under the name Coca-Cola would likely have been permitted to use the name Coca-Cola because there isn’t a high likelihood of confusion amongst consumers. A likelihood of confusion is the standard for trademark infringment, but that’s a whole other topic for another article!

Nowadays, because of the massive branding around Coca-Cola, and the possibility of the company having registered their mark under a multitude of different classes, the opportunities for other people to come up and use the name in a different product or service is diminishing.

Before getting back to what the different classes mean, here is a little history on the classification system. In 1957, the Nice Agreement, or the “Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks” established a set of classifications to be used as the basis of registering trademarks.

One of the underlying purposes for establishing this class system was to set up a uniform method for making it easier for trademarks to be classified appropriately regardless of the country of origin of the mark. As of now, the Nice Classification had been adopted by 84 different countries and contains over 11,000 detailed descriptions of different products and services.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what classes are, and where they came from, we can dive into what this all means for you. The classes are divided into two major subsects, Products and Services. There are 34 product classes and 11 service class. Each of these classes are further divided into descriptions. For instance if you are selling camoflauge t-shirts the class would be 025 – Clothing and the description would be “Camoflauge T-shirt.”

Each class has a separate filing fee which ranges between $225 and $375. However, descriptions within each class can be added at no additional fee. So, going off the t-shirt example, if you are also selling dress shirts and sweat shirts, there is no additional fee to include those descriptions in your trademark application.

So, if you have enough money to be able to register your trademark under each class, you’ll be able to have the trademark rights to your mark for pretty much everything, right? Well, not exactly. Trademarks are based upon the use of the mark in commerce. However there are many situations where you may wish to obtain the trademark rights to a product or service but you may not be using the mark in those service quite yet.

That’s where the “Intent to Use” basis comes in. What this means is that you are not currently using the trademark for that product or service, but you intend to do so. However, you cannot just state that you intend to use the mark for every product or service, rather you need to have a bonafide intent to do so. The trademark application even requires you to state that you intend to use that particular class, under penalty of perjury. This means that lying about whether you had the intent to use the product or class can come with serious consequences.

So that is a crash course about the classification system for trademarks. There are many other nuansces to the the trademark process and for the classification selection process. Before submitting a trademark application, it is important that you speak with an intellectual property attorney to help you choose which class is best for your product or service.

For more information on trademarks or the classification system, contact Biletsky Law.

Electric Daisy Carnival Trademark Battle

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Biletsky Law - EDCIn 2009, a trademark application for the mark “Electric Daisy Carnival” was filed on behalf of Pasquale Rotella of what is now Insomniac Holdings LLC. The trademark application alleged use as early as 1997. On April 20, 2015 Gary Richards of HARD Events filed a lawsuit seeking to cancel Insomniac’s trademark. Before diving into who owns what, it is important to understand where this lawsuit is coming from.

Starting as early as 1991, Gary Richards and Stephen Enos (also known as Dr. Kool-Aid) began hosting events under the name “Electric Daisy Carnival” in Southern California. It wasn’t until 1997 when Rotella began using the name for Insomniac’s flagship festival.

For nearly six years, Insomniac’s use of the “Electric Daisy Carnival” trademark went uncontested. Then, on June 5, 2013 Enos filed an Australian trademark application for “Electric Daisy Carnival.” After that trademark was filed, on June 21st, Insomniac filed an Australian trademark application for “Electric Daisy Carnival” as well. In addition to the filing, Insomniac also opposed Enos’ application. Taking the legal battle closer to home, some five years after the initial U.S trademark application for “Electric Daisy Carnival” was submitted, Enos filed suit in California against Insomniac claiming prior use of the mark.

While the outcome of the Australian trademark opposition and the U.S lawsuit is uncertain, Richard’s claim for ownership of the mark has thrown Insomniac back into the courts. Even though this lawsuit is likely to last for several months before any major developments occur, there is plenty of time to speculate what will happen.

Although Richards may not have federally registered the trademark, a person or a company receives “common law” trademark rights to the mark just by using the mark in commerce. However, unlike other intellectual property rights such as copyrights and patents, the user of a trademark only owns the rights to that mark so long as they are using the mark in commerce. What this means is that although Richards may have been the initial user of the mark, if Insomniac is able to show that Richards “abandoned” or failed to continuously use “Electric Daisy Carnival,” then Richards argument that he is the rightful owner to the mark will likely be met with rejection.

While the battle over the rights to the “Electric Daisy Carnival” wages on, Insomniac will continue to use the brand and has its’ flagship festival in Las Vegas lined up for next month with revenues expected to surpass the record-breaking receipts of previous years.

For more information about trademarks or to have a trademark of your own registered, contact Biletsky Law.