BAD BIRTHDAYS AND DASTARDLY DOWNLOADS

The IPKat brings news of a trio of incredulity-causing copyright stories:

* Information Week reports that Google took down a stylised logo which it posted to celebrate the birthday of artist Joan Miro after the Miro family objected. They claimed that the logo, which was styled after Miro, but did not directly take any of his work, infringed their copyright and moral rights. Google expressed disappointment, but took the logo down.

The IPKat says that this event touches on the tricky subject of where style and ideas stop and expression begins. He can understand why the Miro family might want to retain control, but he notes that one moral right protects the artist’s reputation. The family’s reaction doesn’t seem to have done their reputation much good.


* P2P asks whether the ‘the Royal Household, the British government, it's territories, or whoever arranged the celebrations’ of the Queen’s 80th birthday sought permission from AOL/TimeWarner for ‘Happy Birthday to You’ to be played, and if so, whether royalities were played.

The IPKat suspects that the piece is somewhat tongue in cheek, but it puts the IPKat in mind of Flanders and Swann’s account of the history of Greensleeves, where ‘the royalties go to royalty’.


* The Inquirer reports that RIAA have sued a family without a computer for filesharing. If this is correct, the IPKat is speechless.