This is a follow-up to my post last week about IP rights and the "for me, but not for thee" attitude we often see when assertion of rights makes an appearance in pop culture. Last time it was a contestant on "Project Runway" having to change course after being informed that some pre-printed t-shirts she'd planned to use were trademarked. I'll try to refrain from making this an annoying multi-part series, but here's another example of IP irony:
Celebrity gossip website TMZ.com is poking fun at singer-songwriter-musician Taylor Swift for joining on to a BMI copyright infringement lawsuit that apparently goes after bars that haven't paid proper licensing fees for the music played in the establishment and during karoke. Someone like Taylor Swift couldn't possibly need the couple of bucks a month that would come in from such fees, TMZ intones.
Or maybe it's more about the principle of the matter. And maybe that's why the bottom of the post on TMZ has a fun little symbol of a "c" with a circle around it. And why their own Terms of Use page says, "This Site and all materials incorporated by TMZ.com on this Site
("Material") are protected by copyrights, patents, trade secrets or
other proprietary rights ("Copyrights") …TMZ.com respects the intellectual property rights of
others and asks users of this Site to do the same."
