In this week's post, we see how YouTube’s copyright infringement system faced a blunder amongst media giants when copyright bots took down live streaming of video from the San Diego Comic-Con media conference.

Plus, trademark licensing agreements should include provisions to help both licensees and licensors come to agreement on what happens with remaining inventory at the end of the license term via exit strategy requirements.

YouTube Copyright Bots: Finding the Right Balance for Copyright Infringement Takedowns

Much like most online platforms that allow for third-party posting of content, YouTube has struggled with copyright infringement issues. However, YouTube seems to get the most criticism for just not finding the sweet spot with using their content ID system and copyright bots for systematically handling copyright issues.

Recently, at San Diego Comic-Con (“SDCC”) which was held virtually and livestreamed by ViacomCBS, the streaming of a reading of the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Discovery was suddenly blocked and replaced with a black and white screen with a copyright violation notice citing the CBS Content ID.  YouTube’s copyright bots “sensed” the similarities between the sounds and images in the livestream with that of material in YouTube’s content ID system for CBS copyrights and automatically blocked the video stream. 

Clearly, such livestreaming of CBS’s own material would not be unauthorized or copyright infringement.  However, the YouTube copyright bots did as they are intended to do and put a quick stop to a seeming copyright violation.  It took about 20 minutes for ViacomCBS to get things straightened out with YouTube for restoration of the livestream and continuation of the SDCC media conference.

With copyright infringement rampant on social media platforms and the legal requirements such Internet service providers must abide by to help to prevent unauthorized use of content, companies rely on technology to help streamline monitoring and enforcement process.

Read more here.

Trademark License Agreements: Provisions to Consider for End of License Term

Brian Casper briefly discussed exit strategies for licensing agreements in a white paper entitled Brian Casper on Trademark Licensing. In this post, he discusses what can go wrong if there is not an adequate exit strategy and explores some licensing end of term provisions for the benefit of licensors as well as licensees.  

Early in my career I had the good fortune of representing a very popular professional golf star, John Daly. This golf pro had entered into a licensing agreement with a golf club company, Hippo Golf Co., to use his trademark.  When the license ended, the company continued to sell their remaining inventory and use the pro’s name and likeness.  I was able to secure a $1.5 M judgment against the company for this business indiscretion.  So why didn’t this agreement have a sell off provision?  I was not involved in the contract drafting or negotiation, but I can speculate that this was by design.  

When you are the licensor and you have the upper hand in the trademark licensing negotiation, you have a tremendous advantage if you can avoid a sell off provision—or even require the certified destruction of any remaining products. When it comes time to renew the agreement, the licensee will have the added pressure of losing the value of the remaining inventory. But for most trademark license agreements, the parties will be on more equal footing and there will be some exit strategy provision for selling off the remaining inventory.

Read the full article here.

Click to read the previous Weekly IP Buzz on Thriving Attorney.

For more posts, see our Intellectual Property Law Blog.

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In addition to Thriving Attorney, Darin M. Klemchuk is founder of Klemchuk LLP, a litigation, intellectual property, and transactional law firm located in Dallas, Texas. Click to read more about Darin Klemchuk's practice as an intellectual property lawyer.