Blawg Review #168 -- Go Blue!
Blawg Review #168 is available at Jeffrey Mehalic’s West Virginia Business Litigation blog (another LexBlog blog) – click here for the post. It is another excellent review, although it is a bit light on IP. Additionally, Mehalic has a very even-handed post about the settlement of a West Virginia suit between West Virginia University and Rich Rodriguez, the new football coach of my University of Michigan Wolverines. While the subject matter of that dispute is not necessarily relevant to Chicago IP litigators (Coach Rodriguez is paying his full $4M buyout over time, much of it funded by the University of Michigan), Mehalic has an interesting side note about a contract the court reporters put on each transcript in the case requiring that no copies be made or used without paying the court reporter for them – click here for the post. My first reaction is, and always has been, that the reporters hold the copyright because the transcript is their interpretation and compilation of what was said. But Mehalic disagrees, and makes a good point. The copyright in a (usually) verbatim recitation of a proceeding has to have a very thin copyright, if any.
Thank you for your kind comments regarding Blawg Review #168 and my post about Rich Rodriguez's settlement with WVU and the court reporter's copyright.