The United States Supreme Court recently brought final resolution to Mandeville-Anthony v. Walt Disney Co., a dispute over the ownership of Disney and Pixar’s animated movies “Cars” and “Cars 2,” and the spin-off television series “Cars Toon.” The plaintiff originally filed the case in 2011 in the Central District of California alleging two claims. First,… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: copyright
Creative, But Perhaps Too Creative, Lawyering
Posted in UncategorizedU.S. District Judge Rakoff ruled on whether copying legal filings amounts to copyright infringement. His verdict: it does not. Judge Rakoff granted summary judgment to defendants Lexis and Westlaw, dismissing plaintiffs’ allegation that reposting legal documents infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights. Though the Court’s Order does not state the basis for the ruling, the defendants argued that the… Continue Reading
Publish or Perish: Sony Releases Compilation of 50-Year-Old Bob Dylan Bootlegs to Comply with EU Directive
Posted in UncategorizedAuthorship credit: David McMillan Exploiting a recent European Union Directive extending the term of copyright for sound recordings, Sony released an 86-track collection of Bob Dylan recordings, including studio outtakes and live recordings from 1962-63. The Directive, issued September 2011, extends the term of protection for sound recording copyrights by 20 years—from 50 years… Continue Reading
Controversial “Six-Strikes” Copyright Alert System Debut Delayed
Posted in UncategorizedThe Center for Copyright Information, an organization founded and funded by media industry organizations, their members and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), yesterday announced that it would push back the start date and will likely begin to roll out its long anticipated “Copyright Alert System” in the early part of 2013. The announcement comes on the… Continue Reading
Fifty Shades of Gray Market Artwork
Posted in UncategorizedDroit moral – the legal doctrine that grants artists a moral right to dictate certain treatment of their artwork even after sale – has a firm foundation in European law and elsewhere, but has never found much support in U.S. jurisprudence. Certain moral rights are recognized under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, 17… Continue Reading
Hulkamania is Running Wild: Let the Battle Begin (in Court)
Posted in UncategorizedTerry Bollea, better known as the professional wrestler with the stage name Hulk Hogan (“Hogan”), is involved in an unattractive legal battle that presents an unusual intersection of the First Amendment, copyright law, and privacy/publicity issues. Hogan filed two lawsuits arising out of a 2006 sexual encounter with Heather Clem (“Heather”), then the wife of… Continue Reading
Artist Resale Royalties: U.S. Copyright Office Seeking Comments
Posted in UncategorizedShould artists have the opportunity to benefit from the increased value of their works? At the request of Congress, the U.S. Copyright Office is considering whether artists and/or their heirs should be granted a percentage of the proceeds from the resale of their original works of art. On Dec. 15, 2011, Senator Herb Kohl and Representative Jerry Nadler introduced the… Continue Reading
The Use and the Fury: Faulkner Estate’s New Enforcement Efforts
Posted in UncategorizedIn a pair of lawsuits filed about a week ago, Faulkner Literary Rights, LLC (“Faulkner Literary”), the owner of the literary rights to the late William Faulkner’s works, sued Sony Picture Classics (“Sony”), as well as Northrop Grumman Corporation (“Northrop Grumman”) and Washington Post Company (“Washington Post”) in the federal district court for the district… Continue Reading
Pocket Full of Kryptonite: California Court Rules that Superman Heirs Forfeited Termination Rights
Posted in UncategorizedThe Copyright Act’s provisions concerning termination rights are complex and nuanced: these rights are available only under certain circumstances and only during specified periods of time. And that is not surprising, as these rights allow an author or an author’s beneficiaries to recapture potentially valuable rights that were previously assigned—basically, an author or her heirs have… Continue Reading
Time is Relative: California Court Determines that Einstein’s Right of Publicity Expired in 2005
Posted in Uncategorized“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once,” Albert Einstein once quipped. But Einstein was not commenting on law, where the passage of time has a different significance—and now has resulted in a California federal judge ruling that Einstein’s right of publicity, which was claimed by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (“HUJ”), has expired. … Continue Reading
Whoa Nelly: Furtado and Timbaland Defeat Copyright Claim as Plaintiff Fails to Show Evidence
Posted in UncategorizedIn what might have otherwise been a legitimate case of copyright infringement, Kernel Records–the plaintiff in Kernel Records Oy v. Timothy Mosley et al., had its case tossed out because of an evidentiary failure. Section 411 of the Copyright Act is clear: absent special circumstances, a plaintiff must attain a copyright registration, as discussed here. One… Continue Reading
Illegal Music Downloaders Beware
Posted in UncategorizedFor the second time in under a month, a court has confirmed a large statutory damages award against an illegal music downloader. In the latest development in a six-year long dispute over illegal music downloads, the Eighth Circuit issued a unanimous decision last week and reinstated a $220,000.00 jury verdict against Ms. Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Ms. Thomas-Rasset… Continue Reading
An Expensive Lesson: 30 Illegal Song Downloads Cost $675,000.00.
Posted in UncategorizedIn 2005 the parents of Joel Tenenbaum, then a college student, received a notice directing them to call the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to arrange payment of $5,250 for pirated music downloaded to their home computer. The songs were downloaded by Mr. Tenenbaum. Neither he nor his parents met the demand. In 2007, Sony Music… Continue Reading
Welcome Back Demi, Now Please Stay Away From Viacom
Posted in UncategorizedViacom is being sued for copyright infringement in California federal court for using a photograph of Demi Moore on VH1′s website, a popular site averaging approximately 2 million views a month. According to the complaint, VH1′s site generates revenue through advertisements devoted to music and popular culture. The Plaintiff, Los Angeles-based National Photo Group (“NPG”),… Continue Reading
Live to Ride
Posted in UncategorizedA new case, involving an artist’s accusation that Harley-Davidson Inc. has infringed two copyrights, will now delve into the complex relationship between the affirmative defense of laches and the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations. The decision (available here), by Judge Adelman of the United States District Court for the District of Wisconsin provides the setting. Laches… Continue Reading
Madonna Sued in Sampling Lawsuit
Posted in UncategorizedVMG Salsoul LLC filed a complaint for copyright infringement on July 11, 2012 in California District Court against Madonna, Shep Pettibone, and other music industry-related defendants. At the heart of the complaint is a claim for copyright infringement based on illegal sampling. According to the complaint, the timeless Madonna classic, “Vogue” contains intentionally hidden illegal… Continue Reading
Copyright Etiquette
Posted in UncategorizedPinterest is one of the world’s most visited sites, arising interest in and attracting both individual and business users. As of December 2011, Pinterest entered the top 10 social networks in terms of hitwise data, with 11 million visits per week. Today, it closely rivals both Twitter and Facebook in popularity. Unlike, Twitter and Facebook however,… Continue Reading
DC Circuit Declares the Copyright Royalty Board Unconstitutional
Posted in UncategorizedOn Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Copyright Royalty Board—at least as currently established—is unconstitutional. The D.C. Circuit’s decision in Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Copyright Royalty Board and Library of Congress, 11-1083, eliminated portions of the Copyright Act in order to extricate the offensive provisions… Continue Reading
WIPO Treaty Grants Audiovisual Performers New Rights
Posted in UncategorizedThe Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, signed on June 26, is an attempt to harmonize the substantive IP rights of audiovisual performers across the globe. Intended to complement the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996 (the “WPPT”), which only covered audio performances, the Beijing Treaty grants audiovisual performers certain moral and economic rights in… Continue Reading
A Disturbance in the Force? The Second Circuit Clarifies (and Narrows the Application of) the Law of Copyright Preemption
Posted in UncategorizedThough it probably has nothing to with a high count of Midi-Chlorians, Hayden Christensen—the actor that played Darth Vader in the Episodes 2 and 3 of George Lucas’s Star Wars series—had the law in the Second Circuit clarified and reversed in his favor. In what could signal a shift in copyright preemption cases, the Second… Continue Reading
Google Takes Action Against MP3 Conversion Sites
Posted in UncategorizedGoogle fired a warning shot across the world of Internet piracy by threatening legal action against conversion giant YouTube-MP3.org as well as Music-Clips.net and potentially other websites. As reported by torrentfreak.com, a letter was sent out by Google demanding that the popular websites cease using the YouTube API (Application Programming Interface) to allow users to “separate,… Continue Reading
Authors Guild v. Google: Defining Issues of Associational Standing and Adequacy in Class Certification
Posted in UncategorizedA new post on one of our sister blogs, the Class Action Defense Blog, explains Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. from a class action perspective.
Ninth Circuit to Consider the Impact of Viacom
Posted in UncategorizedThe Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court might re-examine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) copyright infringement safe harbor standards. The Ninth Circuit ruled last year in UMG vs. Veoh, a case dealing with user-uploaded music videos, that Veoh, a video-sharing website was protected under the safe harbor provision of the DMCA. Now,… Continue Reading
Megaupload Challenges U.S. Indictment
Posted in UncategorizedIn the latest twist in one of the largest Internet piracy actions brought by the U.S. Government to date, attorneys for Megaupload.com and its founder, Kim Dotcom, are challenging whether the United States had the right to bring the action waged against Megaupload and its executives this past January. On May 30, 2012, Megaupload’s legal… Continue Reading