3 Count: True Ugliness

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1: Gucci Wins $4.66 Million, Ban on Guess Knock-Offs

First off today, Reuters reports that Gucci has won in its case against Guess, though the victory may be a bit bittersweet. Gucci sued Guess for copyright and trademark infringement, accusing Guess of attempting to make knockoffs of their luxury items. Of the four items displayed, the judge ordered a permanent injunction preventing Guess from selling 3 of them and awarded some $3.66 million in damages based on profits Gucci had earned from the goods. However, that amount was far short of the more than $120 million Gucci wanted because the judge denied to give Gucci damages based on loss sales, calling their analysis “speculative”. In her ruling, the judge also quoted Oscar Wilde in calling fashion “a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months” and expressed a desire to keep that “ugliness” out of the courts.

2: Aereo Gets Unfair Competition Claim Dismissed, Still Faces Two Claims of Copyright Infringement

Next up today, Michael Gorman at Engadget writes that TV streaming service Aereo has won a small victory in court in its case against the TV networks. Aereo is a planned service that lets users rent an antennae and record broadcast TV for streaming online. It was sued by the major TV networks for both copyright infringement and unfair competition. However, that latter claim has been tossed on the grounds of federal preemption. Basically, Aereo argued that the state unfair competition claim was preempted by the Federal copyright action, which was on the same issue. This still leaves Aereo to face the copyright infringement claims, which are still pending.

3: Washington Times Columnist to Take 3-month Leave While Editors Examine Possible Plagiarism

Finally today, the Associated Press reports that Washington Times columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave has been placed on a three-month hiatus following plagiarism allegations against him. The editors at the paper are going to take the opportunity to investigate the allegations and his past work. In recent weeks, The Washington Post and Salon.com have both published passages of Borchgrave’s that seem to include unattributed passages taken verbatim from other sources. Borchgrave, between 85-91, was the editor for the newspaper and continued writing columns after he left that position. In response to the allegations, he said, “If I dropped a few quote marks inadvertently, mea culpa. Everyone makes mistakes.”

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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