US Copyright Office Review Board denies UEFA copyright protection over Starball logo
Although the World Cup is over, this Kat can’t keep his mind off thinking about MORE football … or soccer (as Americans call it). In 2016, the Union des Associations Européennes de Footbal (UEFA) filed an application with the US Copyright Office to have the famous Starball logo registered as a copyright work of two-dimensional visual art. The Starball logo is composed of a round ball, made up of black stars, with white polygons in the negative space between the stars. The shapes are arranged into a circular space, with the outer stars curved to follow the circumference (see below). The US Copyright Office rejected the application. UEFA thus appealed the decision to the US Copyright Office Review Board (CORB), which however confirmed the prior assessment in a decision issued earlier this summer. UEFA set forward a number of claims in its Second Request for Reconsideration for Refusal to Register. First, it claimed that the work was sufficiently creative (original) due to the logo’s co...