While Kobe Bryant just passed Michael Jordan's All-Star scoring mark, it won't diminish Jordan's stature or legacy. When most people think of Jordan, they think of his six championships with the Chicago Bulls, his five NBA MVP awards, and his leaping image that’s been immortalized by Nike as Jordan Brand.

Many today think of Jordan and see dollar signs around one of the biggest sports brands and athletes of all time. Inevitably, that leads to legal tussles to protect the Jordan cash cow. That's why the represent  the majority owner of the worst team in the NBA, the Charlotte Bobcats, has sued Chinese sportswear and shoe manufacturer Qiaodan Sports for wrongful use of his trademark.Continue reading...

Opponents of SOPA and PIPA cheered yesterday’s web blackouts as a critical juncture in the escalating debate over copyright protection.

“The Web blackout Wednesday may be remembered as one of the first successful online uprisings in the U.S., but leaders in the U.S. Senate still planned to begin voting on PIPA next Tuesday.”

California Representative Anna Eshoo, Dem., tweeted "I do not support #SOPA! It is overly broad, threatens the Internet, will hinder new jobs & hurt economic opportunities" with a link to her statement: “History is being made by the more than 10,000 websites that have chosen to boycott SOPA by participating in today’s blackout,” and she followed suit by blacking out her own website.

A key factor in the turn was the education made quickly available to the public about the complex issues and alliances involved as shown in the following two videos:Continue reading...

Gucci bags, Apple iClones, New Balance sneakers, jeans of all stripes, Oakley sunglasses, you name it. Head out to any major urban strip, market or sidewalk vendor and you'll find a plethora of knock-offs laid out on a table, selling for a low, low price.

Well, fakers beware. There are now 38 countries committed to an international anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting agreement.

At an Oct. 1st meeting in Tokyo, the United States and seven other nations signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which aims to stamp out piracy and intellectual property theft. Other new ACTA signatories include New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and Morocco.

Prior to signing, the US was embroiled in debates over the sections of the agreement pertaining to IP protection on the web, a hot-button issue that alarmed online privacy watchdogs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, with some concerned about ACTA's constitutionality.Continue reading...

Kim Kardashian is suing an up-and-coming lookalike for copying her personal style. Now Kardashian and her sisters Khloe and Kourtney are found to be kopying themselves.

The Kardashian Klan this week released an online-only pre-sale (with 30% markdown) on their new Kardashian Kollection of clothes, accessories and handbags for Sears (which hits stores on August 25th) — and were swiftly slapped with a cease-and-desist counterfeit claim against one of the designs.

Take a look below to kompare, and hear from the designer now at odds with the Kardashians.Continue reading...

It's interesting to see the different ways that artists handle copyright infringement and illegal downloads of their music.

Metallica sued Napster over people "sharing" their music, a band who is clearly against piracy. Radiohead pioneered a "pay what you want" deal to download an entire album in 2007, and tweaked that with its latest release. Music labels and artists, meanwhile, are constantly swatting down YouTube videos on copyright issues, while file-sharing sites are constantly being shut down as new ones pop up.

One band who not only doesn't mind the copyright issue on YouTube, but actually rewards fans for it, is blink-182.  On August 2nd they released their first single ("Up All Night") in eight years, and the video (above) has already had more 200,000 views. The catch? The video is comprised of footage uploaded onto YouTube by fans, whose amateurs videos illegally used ... blink-182's music. Why did they do it?Continue reading...

Hollywood's wagons are circling against content theft with a new coalition, Creative America, to fight piracy and protect creative works and jobs.

The entertainment industry coalition states “that halting the looting of America’s creative works and protecting jobs must be a national priority."

Statistics cited on the group's homepage:

• Websites trafficking in stolen film and TV content get nearly 150 million visits every day, more than 50 billion visits per year. 
• Content theft isn’t just about movies. TV shows are illegally streamed and downloaded millions of times each week.  
• Content theft threatens over 2 million jobs supported by the film and televisio n industry in all 50 states and D.C. 
• The vast majority of workers in film and TV are middle class, earning $55K a year on average. These are the people hurt by content theft.  
• Content theft has already cost 140,000 U.S. jobs, along with $5 billion in wages and revenues for residuals and pensions. 

The founding members — including NBC Universal, SAG, Sony Pictures Entertainment, AFTRA, CBS, the DGA, IATSE, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, Disney and Warner Bros. — call themselves a “grassroots organization” supporting 2 million Americans whose jobs are in creative fields.Continue reading...

Apple's iPhone turns 4, while company reports worst first-half since 2008.

Associated Press to open bureau in North Korea.

Bulgari acquisition by LVMH approved by EU.

Clinton Global Initiative launches micro-lending drive.

Coca-Cola details environment and corporate citizenship progress.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg now worth $18 billion — more than Google's founders.

GE expands Olympics sponsorship through 2020.

Google champions UK tech hub.Continue reading...

Burberry execs certainly had cause to celebrate at the brand's swanky soiree at London's Serpentine Gallery last night. The luxury brand, along with Louis Vuitton, won a $2.5 million legal ruling against Canadian counterfeiters.