āThe repeal came after eight years of litigation and is apparently triggered by the Stateās realization that it had no legitimate defense to at least one of the federal court claims: that Blackbeardās Law was a constitutionally prohibited āBill of Attainderā ā a bill that targets and harms an...
The infamous pirate Blackbeard was once the scourge of the Atlantic but over 300 years later a different kind of pirate sails North Carolinaās waters. And a case heard at the United States Supreme Court has returned to Raleigh. On February 8th, 2023, filmmaker Frederick Allen of Nautilus...
āAfter this ruling, and youāre an artist and your paintingās in the North Carolina Museum of Art or you post a photo of a North Carolina lighthouse on your website or you write a piece of music and theyāre playing it in a North Carolina museum, the state has every right to take it and infringe...
Supreme Court justices frown on state's public display of pirate ship's salvage
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it was "deeply troubling" that after North Carolina was caught with copyrighted material and agreed to pay a fine, the state legislature enacted "Blackbeard's Law" to convert...
The justices will decide whether an underwater videographer can sue North Carolina for posting his images of the wreckage of a sunken pirate ship. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/us/politics/supreme-court-blackbeard-piracy.html
In 2015, according to a complaint filed in federal court, North Carolina pirated footage of Blackbeard flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. Then North Carolina passed "Blackbeard's Law" to justify that misuse. Rick Allen of Nautilus Productions is now taking his case to the Supreme Court of the...
North Carolina claims shipwreck images and video in its custody are N.C. property in intellectual property rights grab. The law passed in 2015 is still on the books. https://nautilusproductions.com/blog/1384-2
The videographer accusing the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the State of North Carolina of copyright infringement regarding images related to the Queen Anneās Revenge has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower courtās July 2018 decision that...
A lawsuit that persists in federal court, a documentary filmmaker accuses North Carolina of committing a modern form of treasure looting: using his copyrighted underwater footage without permission. "Pirates come in many forms," attorneys for Fayetteville-based videographer Frederick Allen said...
North Carolina asked the Fourth Circuit on Thursday to dismiss a lower court ruling that said the state pirated stock footage a North Carolina company had shot of the 18th Century pirate ship the Queen Anneās Revenge. Nautilus Productions worked with the state to get access to the wreck and has...
In 2013, Allen found out that the state of North Carolina had allegedly been using his videos online without his consent. While the parties entered into a settlement agreement, requiring the State to compensate Allen for the use of the copyrighted material prior to the settlement date, Allen...
After the discovery of Blackbeard's commanding ship, the rescuers and the state came to a mutual understanding and agreement that allowed Intersal to create photos and videos of the wreckage which they could copyright. This was agreed by both parties in 1998. However, in 2015 a new law was...
Like major theft on the high seas, the infringement of copyright is known as "piracy," and is considered a serious crime. U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle has correctly shot down an attempt by North Carolina's Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and others to dismiss a lawsuit...
US State Changes Law To Steal Pirate Video
This article could get a bit confusing; it is about the US state of North Carolina changing an anti-piracy law so it could use the internet to copy and share somebody elseās documentary videosā¦ which happen to be about pirates of the nautical variety...
Nearly 300 years ago, the infamous Pirate Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge (QAR), sank off the coast of North Carolina near Beaufort Inlet. A private salvage firm, Intersal, found a cluster of cannons and other artifacts in late 1996 on the seabed near the inlet. State...
It all started back in 1996 when a company named Intersal, Inc., established a few years earlier to āincrease knowledge and awareness of Americaās rich maritime heritage by researching, locating and excavating valuable historic shipwrecksā, found the remains of Blackbeardās ship off the North...
NC Sued in Federal Court Over Blackbeard's Law
Modern day piracy on the Queen Anne's Revenge
The owner of Nautilus Productions, a Fayetteville photography company that began documenting the recovery of the wreck after it was discovered in the late 1990s, says the state misused his footage and...