I field a lot of questions from clients about whether they should “trademark” their name. Of course, what those clients really mean is whether they should register their name or logo or both with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Although I can’t answer that question for you, I can provide a quick […]
The Seay Firm at Slingshot Festival
John Seay of The Seay Firm will be a panelist at the First Annual Music & Technology Conference. The event is presented by the UGA Journal of Intellectual Property law and sponsored by the University of Georgia School of Law and the Slingshot Festival in Athens, Georgia. The event is Friday, March 27, 2015, at the […]
A Musician’s Guide to Metadata: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
By Michelle Davis, UGA Law Class of 2015 Metadata, generally speaking, is data that describes other data. In the context of music, metadata is the identifying and descriptive information embedded in a digital song file. For example, when you play a song in iTunes, metadata is used to populate the “artist,” “song title,” and “album” fields. […]
Copyright Office Releases Music Licensing Study
On Thursday, February 5, 2015, the U.S. Copyright Office released a massive 245-page music licensing study proposing fairly radical, but in many cases much needed, changes to how music is licensed. As anyone who has ever tried to license music can tell you, the system is long overdue for an overhaul. Many of the changes proposed have […]