Posts Tagged: "copyright infringement"

There’s a season every year where individuals dress-up in homemade costumes and gather for tricks, treats… and comic books? That’s right, it’s comic-con season! Many fans proudly wear costumes that they create themselves, dressing up as their favorite super hero, anime cartoon, or video game character. However, one thing they probably are not considering is whether those costumes could put them in jeopardy of a copyright infringement claim. But, since the costume industry as a whole is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States alone, it is a consideration that could have costly consequences.

On Thursday, June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that should resolve the long-standing question of whether a copyright plaintiff must have a registration in hand when filing suit or, instead, can merely have an application pending. The case is Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com LLC, 17-571… The Solicitor General filed a brief in favor of the court taking the case. That brief urges the high court to adopt the “registration” approach based on the plain language of the statute.

While existing graffiti may indeed provide a tempting edge for a new marketing campaign, or as the backdrop for a great commercial, companies will need to decide if it is worth the legal or public relations risk.  If the original graffiti artist cannot be found, or is unwilling to allow their art to be used, it may end up being less expensive to start from scratch than to manage the fallout from an allegation of stolen artwork, damaged reputation, and a lawyer for the lawsuit that follows.

On Friday, May 11th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila entered an order deciding motions made in a copyright case involving competing musical productions based on the fictional story of the fictional folk hero Zorro. Judge Davila’s orders allows copyright infringement claims asserted by a writer who developed a Zorro musical in the 1990s to move forward against Zorro Productions, the entity which had licensed the Zorro character to entertainment companies going back to the late 1940s. This case is in the Northern District of California.

The opinion acknowledges, in a footnote on page 3, that videos of the type that the Klein’s created, is not unique. Instead, it is part of a growing genre of “reaction videos” in which portions of an original video are interspersed with commentary to create a new creative work… Luckily for the Kleins, their fans were ready and willing to create a legal fund for their use. YouTube has also taken action to protect some content creators subject to false DMCA notices. However, with over 800 unique users, and over 100 hours of new videos being uploaded every minute, clearly YouTube cannot be required to protect all of its content creators from false copyright infringement allegations. In light of this decision, perhaps we are approaching a time where reconsideration, and revision, of the DMCA, is warranted.

Lebron James and Nick Saban are well-known for dominance in their respective sports of basketball and college football. Recently they found themselves opposing each other in an intellectual property controversy. James’ Uninterrupted media company sent the University of Alabama a letter claiming Bama’s new barbershop themed show, “Shop Talk,” is infringing James’ similarly themed show, “The Shop.” The choice to send the demand letter has led to unintended, but foreseeable consequences for Uninterrupted.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein entered an opinion and order denying summary judgment in the Southern District of New York in a case involving the stage musical production of Anastasia currently running on Broadway. Judge Hellerstein denied the motion for summary judgement filed by defendants Anastasia LLC and Terrence McNally, the bookwriter for Anastasia, finding that there were material facts in dispute regarding claims that the Broadway musical was substantially similar to a play which was first registered with the U.S. Copyright Office back in 1948.

Of all of the things NFL quarterback Tom Brady has been accused of ruining over the years, the internet is not necessarily at the top of the list, and certainly not based on an alleged copyright infringement that he had no part in perpetuating. Yet, a photograph of him and Danny Ainge, the general manager of the Boston Celtics, could in fact forever change the internet and online publishing as we know it.

Artist Matt Furie, the creator of the Pepe the Frog anthropomorphic frog character that has gained notoriety for its use in Internet memes, filed a complaint for copyright infringement in the Central District of California. The suit targets a pair of companies managed by far-right conservative radio show host Alex Jones over the use of the Pepe character over the sale of a poster including a likeness of Pepe alongside political figures from the alt-right and the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the song Blurred Lines infringed the copyright in Marvin Gaye’s song Got To Give It Up. See Williams v. Gaye, No. 15-56880. Affirming most of the decision of the district court, the Ninth Circuit also held that the award of actual damages and infringers’ profits, and a running royalty, were all proper. The panel did, however, reverse a piece of the district court ruling, finding that the district court erred in overturning the jury’s general verdict in favor of certain parties because the defendants waived any challenge to the consistency of the jury’s general verdicts.

Attorneys representing Jamaican songwriter Michael May filed a suit for copyright infringement in the Southern District of New York. At issue in the case are musical elements from a 1988 song written by May which were allegedly copied by songwriters for Miley Cyrus 2013 single We Can’t Stop. Although the song lyrics are the only musical element which have been allegedly infringed, the complaint makes plenty of mention of cultural elements which have also been appropriated by Cyrus during the course of her career.

On February 15, 2018 a New York district court judge – in Goldman v. Breitbart News Network – challenged the reasoning of Perfect 10, and she concluded that one who embeds content may be engaged in a public display, thus making the practice far more risky… In Goldman v Breitbart News, Judge Katherine Forrest ruled that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to rely on the Server Test, and that a website thus can face direct liability, under particular circumstances, for making a display by embedding a copyrighted work in a website. The case involved a copyrighted image of Tom Brady, Danny Ainge and others that was first posted by the photographer as a Snapchat Story, but was soon copied by several individuals on Twitter with accompanying tweets.

How big of a role does IP play in Silicon Valley deals? “In almost any size transaction involving a technology company, our client asks us to look carefully at the company’s IP and the agreements the company has entered into with third parties to secure rights in IP and to permit others to use that IP,” said John Brockland, a technology and IP transactions partner at Hogan Lovells. “Depending on how a transaction is structured, the terms on which IP is assigned or licensed between the parties in a deal can also be a critical area of focus for our client.”

So uncreative did Judge Michael Fitzgerald find Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit Shake It Off, he dismissed a copyright infringement case filed against her. In his opinion Judge Michael Fitzgerald explained the allegedly infringing lyrics used by Swift lacked even the modest level of creativity required for copyright protection… “The concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative; it is banal,” Fitzgerald worte. “In the early 2000s, popular culture was adequately suffused with the concepts of players and haters to render the phrases ‘playas … gonna play’ or ‘haters … gonna hate,’ standing on their own, no more creative than ‘runners gonna run,’ ‘drummers gonna drum,’ or ‘swimmers gonna swim.’”

The lawsuit is the latest example of content creators chasing down a third party that does not directly infringe content but rather facilitates infringement through a combination of its own hardware and third-party software… Currently, the increasingly proposed solution for safeguarding digital information is blockchain technology. Blockchain is being implemented in various industries to solve inefficiencies in areas from identity protection to supply chain management… To understand blockchain technology as a potential solution to the problems posed in the digital rights management space, one must first understand what the technology is and how it operates.