I haven’t mentioned this before, but I am a patent attorney. I also prosecute trademarks and do the occasional copyright work. So imagine my excitement when I was reviewing a daily list of recent IP lawsuits and I found a copyright infringement case involving the iBird iPhone application!
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According to the complaint, Martin Stewart (doing business as Naturesound.org) created 3,500 nature sounds that are subject to federal copyright. Mitch Waite, the developer of iBird was in talks with Stewart to license the sounds but the talks fell apart. Even though Mitch Waite didn’t obtain a license, he used the sounds in the iBird application. I don’t have to write “allegedly used” because if you look at the iPhone app, Martin Stewart is listed as the recordist. Apple is named in the lawsuit because they included iBird in promotional materials.
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This use of copyrighted materials is pretty blatant. I will be watching closely to see whether Mitch Waite has any interesting defenses.
I think you’re the only lawyer I know personally (sort of!) that I like!
And you know I mean that in the best possible way, right?!?!?! It’s just that sometimes it surprises me that “lawyers” are real people. I feel the same way about politicians – although I don’t think I know any personally.
Thanks Pamela!
I guess to a certain extent the job requires the attitude. A litigator had better be aggressive, right? Just like the CEO of a giant corporation has to be an a**hole. Um, right?
Exactly!
Thank goodness he’s suing! I teach writing once in awhile and am shocked at how blatant copyright violation and plagiarism are. People think nothing of passing off others’ work as their own — “it was on the internet” or “it didn’t cost anything,” etc.
Apple should know better!!!
I hear that, BP. For all the good that Wikipedia does it can also create some serious plagiarism problems.