Testimony by Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren this week helped answer one of the questions raised by his company's determined pursuit of perceived justice in its suit against J.C. Penney and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia: Why does this dispute seem so personal? Macy's helped the company after Stewart got out of prison eight years ago and Lundgren had come to consider her a friend.

But Lundgren's remarks on Monday about the centrality of the Martha Stewart deal to Macy's business raised another, more important question for all three brands: Why is the Martha Stewart imprimatur so important to the dean of department-store chains and why does Penney believe her brand has so much appeal that it's willing to allow its CEO to share company secrets in court about its tremendous potential?

As first of the three most important people in the trial to actually take the stand, Lundgren left no doubt about how important sales of Stewart-branded merchandise have become to the chain. While the home department is usually the least profitable section of a Macy's store, because of its long lead time and slow turn of products, he testified according to Advertising Age, 40 percent of Macy's advertising is attached to the home business. And that's largely because Macy's wants consumers to know it's got Martha's stuff. Continue reading...

On Feb. 7, 2007, Stephanie Lenz did something completely unmiraculous. She posted a 29-second video of her 14-month-old son dancing around the house with a push toy while enjoying Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy. Cute, right?

Universal Music's lawyers were less than charmed — and a six-year legal battle ensued between the music giant and Google, the parent company of YouTube. While more than 1.2 million people have heard Prince do his thing on the video since its posting, Universal has been trying to get Lenz to take it down, citing copyright infringement.

But Lenz and lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation have been fighting to keep it up — and will now have have their case heard before a jury. At issue is whether Universal considered the definition of “fair use” before sending the takedown message, The Hollywood Reporter notes.Continue reading...

The under-$10 bestseller -- so prominent a part of the promise of e-books when they burst on the scene about five years ago -- looks to be returning soon to a screen near you.

That's the most anticipated outcome from the suit filed Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department against Apple and five leading book publishers who, the government said, conspired to lift the price of many best-selling e-books to $12.99 to $14.99 -- after they didn't like the financial compression provided when Amazon succeeded in cutting the price of many books for its Kindle e-reader to $9.99.

While making books easier for consumers to obtain and read, of course, e-books have proved a financial challenge for traditional book publishers and authors, because they tend to flatten the industry's financial structure. But the government said, basically, "Tough!" and sided with consumers. Continue reading...