DA VINCI DONE; GOOGLE WHACKED?

Da Vinci #2 settled

Frank Jennings and Ed Meikle have brought the IPKat some bad news for lawyers. Music companies Universal Music and Sony Bertelsman have settled their passing off action out of court. Universal claimed that Sony was guilty of passing off in using imagery connected with the film The Da Vinci Code to promote its CD, Music Inspired by Da Vinci, by composer Jan Kisjes. Universal is responsible for the soundtrack on that film. However, Sony argued that Universal’s rights were limited to the film's official soundtrack and did not extend to associated promotional material or general religious themes and imagery explored in the book.

The IPKat would have liked to have seen how this one would have panned out.


More trouble for Google

The IPKat is grateful to Edwin Jacobs of the Law & Justice Blog for alerting him about the Belgian action brought against Google. ServersCheck, a software supplier, argues that the search facility in Google’s toolbar brings up results which lead to infringing versions of ServersCheck’s software.

The IPKat notes that this seems to be a case in which Google’s Adword’s scheme leads to an interface between trade mark and copyright infringement.