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“Finally, on June 30, 2023, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill repealing Blackbeard’s Law. The repeal came after eight years of litigation and is apparently triggered by the State’s realization that it had no legitimate defense to at least one of the federal court claims: that...

The infamous pirate Blackbeard was once the scourge of the Atlantic but over 300 years later a different kind of pirate sails North Carolina’s waters. And a case heard at the United States Supreme Court has returned to Raleigh, N.C. On February 8th, 2023, filmmaker Frederick Allen of Nautilus...

Allen has been in court with North Carolina for years after the state took his footage of an 18th century ship led by the notorious pirate Blackbeard. First, officials in the state’s culture agency posted images of a salvage operation on its website. Later, came video. And then eventually, after...

“After this ruling, and you’re an artist and your painting’s 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 they’re playing it in a North Carolina museum, the state has every right to take it and infringe...

Three centuries ago, the infamous pirate Blackbeard sunk one of his ships right off the coast of North Carolina. The Queen Anne's Revenge is still there, just a few feet under the water. Today, that ship and the underwater footage a filmmaker took of it have become central in a Supreme Court...

In January 2011, Rick Allen lost his left arm below the elbow and suffered second- and third-degree burns after a scuba tank exploded and caught fire in his garage. He spent three months in the hospital, two of them in a medically induced coma. But 10 months after the accident, Allen — the owner...

A lawsuit from NC about Blackbeard’s pirate ship will go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the outcome is expected to have far-reaching implications for numerous businesses and individuals who make money from creating and selling copyrighted works, such as songs, books, pictures...

The justices will decide whether an underwater videographer can sue North Carolina for posting his images of the wreckage of a sunken pirate ship. Blackbeard’s Ship Heads to Supreme Court in a Battle Over Another Sort of Piracy

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...

A documentary filmmaker says North Carolina posted his footage without permission. North Carolina claims immunity. Now the Supreme Court is being told that copyright infringement by states is "once again a very serious problem." What Happens When the Copyright Pirate Is State Government?