Detroit Industry, North Wall, Diego M. Rivera, Detroit Institute of Arts

By Chris Young

Those of us who have been following Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing continue to wait patiently for the upcoming October 23 court hearing on the city’s eligibility to file a Chapter 9 bankruptcy plan. Commentators expect “battles in federal court, potentially setting national precedents on matters ranging from whether bondholders get repaid when cities run out of money to whether public pensions, previously thought to be sacrosanct under the Michigan Constitution, are protected in municipal bankruptcies.”

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By Kristine Jacobs

How much thought do you put into a text message before you send it? Do you consider where the recipient is and what he might be doing? A New Jersey court wants you to do just that.

Last month New Jersey became the first state in which the sender of a text message can be held liable for an accident that results when the recipient reads the text message. The New Jersey Appeals Court concluded that “a person sending text messages has a duty not to text someone who is driving if the texter knows, or has special reason to know, the recipient will view the text while driving.”

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By Matthew Fredrickson

Glafira Rosales was arraigned last month on criminal charges because of her suspected involvement in the sale of counterfeit artwork to two Manhattan galleries, but the charges seem inadequate. Starting in the early 1990s, Rosales allegedly resold 63 works of Pei-Shen Qian as those of more famous painters, making millions of dollars. The complaint against her originally alleged eight counts of tax fraud. On July 19, 2013, Rosales was arraigned on her first indictment, which added counts of wire fraud and money laundering. On August 19, she was arraigned again on a superseding indictment, which added conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

After the first indictment, The Art Newspaper reported that allegations of Rosales’ false statements and sale of counterfeit artwork constituted wire fraud. Though this classification is essentially true, these charges appear to have very little to do with the false statements and counterfeit pieces themselves, or the damage to the international art community. These charges do not appear to punish the real crime: stealing the artists’ names.

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By Chelsey Heindel

Fifty years after the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, last week provided numerous occasions to commemorate the exalted civil rights event—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s clarion call for freedom—and ongoing efforts to realize social equality. Despite a surplus of media coverage, audiences overwhelmingly encountered only abbreviated broadcasts of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech due to its copyright protection.

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By Misa Bretschneider

Last Wednesday marked another chapter in the clash between 3D printing and copyright law. Square Enix, the Japanese game developer behind Final Fantasy VII, devastated gaming fans when it pulled the plug on the sale of fan-made, 3D-printed Final Fantasy VII figures. When Joaquin Baldwin decided to use 3D printing technology to recreate and sell high-quality figures of the game’s most popular characters on Shapeways (a marketplace for user-designed 3D-printed objects), the figures started selling like hotcakes. However, Square Enix soon learned of Baldwin’s efforts and sent a DMCA takedown notice to Shapeways. Adhering to its takedown policies, Shapeways promptly removed the merchandise from Baldwin’s profile “[i]n order to comply with the DMCA and protect intellectual property right owners”.

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