Joe Petersen focuses his practice in representing technology and digital media companies in the enforcement and protection of their copyrights and trademarks. In addition to his broad copyright and trademark litigation experience, Mr. Petersen possesses unique experience in federal court litigation establishing fee structures for the public performance of musical works. Beyond his litigation experience, Mr. Petersen also routinely counsels clients on the protection, enforcement and licensing of their intellectual property assets.
Mr. Petersen is currently representing the library defendants in the suit brought by The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs against the HathiTrust Digital Library, a collaboration of more than 60 colleges, universities, and other nonprofit institutions that have pooled their collections of digitized books for the limited purposes of search, preservation and access for the print-disabled. Mr. Petersen also represents a leading wireless telecommunications company and recently helped secure a victory from the Ninth Circuit which held, among other things, that the carrier defendants had no duty to implement a Digital Rights Management system to filter allegedly infringing content exchanged over their networks. See Luvdarts, LLC et al. v. AT&T Mobility, LLC, 710 F.3d 1068 (9th Cir. 2013). Previously, Mr. Petersen defended independent music label Naxos of America from unfair competition claims and common law copyright claims asserted by Capital Records. That matter was ultimately certified by the Second Circuit to the New York Court of Appeals regarding questions of the reach and scope of common law copyright under New York state law.
Mr. Petersen serves as co-chair of the New York Chapter of the Copyright Society and regularly publishes on copyright related issues. Mr. Petersen was recommended for his copyright expertise in the prestigious 2011 and 2012 Legal 500 U.S. and in 2011, Mr. Petersen was praised as “well regarded” for his knowledge of “cutting edge” copyright issues. Mr. Petersen was similarly praised in the 2008 Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business for IP Trademark Copyright as being "well versed in copyright and trademark infringement claims, trade secret litigation and domain disputes." Mr. Petersen is AV® rated by Martindale-Hubbell.*
*CV, BV, and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedure's standards and policies.
