That Was the Copyright Year That Was (2008)

Please note that this post is from 2009. Evaluate with care and in light of later events.

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That Was the Copyright Year That Was by Bruce E. Boyden of Marquette University Law School:

I recently compiled a list of the biggest developments in copyright law in 2008, based on a not very systematic survey. I thought it would be worth sharing here, as I know that I often wish for lists like this myself.

The above is a useful listing of important copyright-related cases from 2008. For me, I think the following two stand out as having particularly broad importance to my interests:

• Jacobsen v. Katzer, 535 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2008), holding open-source licenses to be enforceable.
• Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 2d 1164 (W.D. Wash. 2008), applying the first-sale doctrine to software sales despite language in the original license saying otherwise.

Of related interest is Patently-O’s “Patent Cases 2008” compendium of patent-related cases from last year.

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