3 Count: White Royal Wedding

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1: Designer Sues Fashion House over Claims Sarah Burton Copied Her Ideas for Kate’s Royal Wedding Dress

First off today, Leon Watson at The Telegraph reports that bridal designer Christine Kendall has filed a lawsuit against fashion label Alexander McQueen alleging that the bridal dress Alexander McQueen designed for Kate Middleton at her royal wedding in 2011 is an infringement of sketches she submitted to Middleton months before the wedding.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the UK’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, Kendall sent her outline to the Duchess five months before the wedding and received a letter of gratitude from the office of Prince William and Prince Harry. She claims that, when she watched the wedding, she noticed similarities between he dress Middleton wore and her designs.

However, Alexander McQueen says that there is no merit to the lawsuit and that they had not heard of Kendall until 13 months after the wedding, when she first approached them about the alleged similarities.

2: Google Accused of Enabling Photography Piracy

Next up today, Olivier Laurent at Time reports that Getty Images has filed a complaint with the European Union’s antitrust commission alleging that Google Image Search’s use of high-resolution and full-screen image slideshows has hurt their business and promoted piracy of photography.

The complaint comes on the heels of another EU antitrust issue where the commission charged Google with unfair practices by promoting its services via Android devices. Getty is asking regulators to also take a look at how Google Image Search operates, claiming that the way it presents photos and limits opt-out of image search encourages users to download and infringe upon the works they represent, often without visiting the original site.

Getty Images represents over 200,000 photojournalists and has a long reputation for being very aggressive with copyright enforcement, sending demand letters to businesses that use Getty images, even unwittingly.

3: US Congress to Look for Areas of Consensus on Copyright Law

Finally today, Emmanuel Legrand at Music Week reports that Bob Goodlatte, the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, published an announcement in honor of the 16th World IP Day that discussed the path forward for copyright reform in the United States.

The announcement first highlighted the process so far including 20 different hearings before his committee on copyright law and then a series of public roundtables across the country.

He said that now his committee is looking at the various recommendations and is finding areas of broad consensus where reform and change may be practical. However, he cautioned that it was important that Congress move slowly in this area as even a subtle change in the law could have a profound and unintended impact on creators, intermediaries or other stakeholders.

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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