Pipe down, part 2; Ninja Coke settlement; New edition of Goldstein confounds the critics

Pipe down, part 2

Back in November the IPKat reported that the UK parliamentary Bill to ban piped music in hospitals was dropped by the Government - but it has re-emerged as a Private Members' Bill. The new Piped Music etc. (Hospitals) Bill has been introduced in the House of Lords empowers the Secretary of State to draw up plans to prohibit the playing of piped music and the showing of television programmes in the public areas of hospitals, requiring anyone listening to music in such areas to wear headphones.

The IPKat notes that this Bill is narrower than its predecessor, which also covered the playing of piped music and the showing of television programmes on public transport (see Legal update, Private Members' Bill to ban piped background music. This should also provide a further boost for MP3 players, even if it will deprive owners of rights in recordings, performances, musical works and lyrics of an income stream. Merpel says, you could probably get many members of the public to pay not to be subjected to the involuntary pipe.

Piped music here and (alas) here
PipeDown - the campaign for freedom from piped music - here


Ninja Coke settlement

Earlier this month the IPKat noticed that trouble was brewing in the form of a plagiarism claim made by an independent pop group, 7 Seconds of Love, that Coca-Cola had used both their song Ninja and their kitty video without authorisation in a TV ad. Monika Bruss and Jim Davies have been swift to alert the IPKat to the ensuing out-of-court settlement here and here. The animated video originally appeared on MySpace and YouTube, featuring a cat bouncing around in a ninja suit.

The IPKat is sure that image-conscious Coke was quick to settle in order to avoid the adverse publicity that litigation would generate - but bets that some young pup in the advertising department didn't half get his delicate parts rearranged. Adds Merpel: ensuing settlement? Non-suing settlement, more like it.


New edition of Goldstein confounds the critics

The IPKat's good friend and Dutch colleague Piter de Weerd mentions a book review on the IPkat’s dutch equivalent, boek9. The review, by Dirk Visser, is of anIP thriller Errors and Omissions by respected US academician and copyright commentator Paul Goldstein. Hero of the novel is Intellectual Property lawyer Michael Seeley, "defender of artists’ right, take-no-prisoners intellectual property litigator – and a man on the brink of personal and career collapse". If you want to read the plot, it's summarised here on Amazon.com.

The IPKat notes that Paul is not the only IP personality to turn his hand to writing IP fiction: patent attorney Kfir Luzzatto has done much the same with his book The Odyssey Gene. Merpel adds, there are quite a few more leading IP personalities who write fiction: the only thing is, they call their stories "judgments" and they apparently have some legal force ...