International Publishing Company, Hachette has signed a "print-on-demand" agreement with the French National Library (BnF) which will allow them to sell out-of-copyright works from the BnF's online library. European Union countries have been known for setting limitations on the reproductions of oeuvres, particularly where the web is concerned. Hachette seems to have found a way to profit from this...
NY federal judge ruled against google last week in their copyright case, having "[tossed] out a 165-page settlement reached in 2008 between Google and authors and publishers groups". This article discusses Google's 2009 plan for a global digitized library and the lawsuits that have surrounded it.
The article is recent from March 25th (LA Times, Business Section). It's discussing Google's history regarding the e-book controversy. Judge Chin's decision forces us to think about what an online digital library might look like without infringing parties, like Google. As noted in the article, Google was attempting to use "orphan works," whose right holders could not be found. As a result, Google would be using the works without being held accountable under copyright law.
Here's the original document, filed by the U.S. Supreme Court, on 3/22/2011:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/74854-chin-ruling
The Country music duo the "Bellamy Brothers" are upset over Britney song title's resemblance to their 1979 hit but it seem they will not be suing the popstar.
I'm actually surprised that the Bellamy Brothers would pursue legal action against her, because song titles are inevitably recycled or given without knowledge of their prior use. I have FIVE different songs called "Heartbreaker" in my iTunes library (Will.i.am, Led Zeppelin, Mariah Carey, MSTRKRFT, Pat Benatar) and none of them are covers. This seems like a classic example of an attempt at manipulating copyright laws for personal gain as opposed to protection of intellectual property.
I do not think that the copyright law should be applied to song titles because the title is merely a representation of the song. The title is only a small part of the song that is created and title is not a song that has melody in it. If more copyright restrictions apply to song titles, it would eventually end up holding the artists back from choosing the desired and preferable representation of the song. The artists would have to struggle to find new words or phrases as new songs are released everyday.
I know that the Bellamy Brothers specifically mention the title, but I think they would have a much stronger case on the basis of "fixing" the double entendre within the song: the BB's lyrics are "If I said you had a beautiful body / would you hold it against me" vs. Britney's "If I said I want your body now / would you hold it against me." That's pretty startlingly similar, and even if you can't copyright ideas, you can copyright the expression of those ideas... and there's enough overlap between the two to be persuasive.
Now that I know copying a song title doesn't count as copyright infringement, I wonder what percentage of a songs lyrics must be exactly the same as another song in order for that to count as copyright infringement. And even if the lyrics happen to be the same, can an artist still avoid a lawsuit if his or her melodic line/ chordal progression/ instrumentation is different enough to make the song "original"? I'm guessing that its a case-by-case thing...