Posts Tagged: "copyright law"

In a ruling earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the Central District of California granted partial summary judgment in favor of Onika Tanya Maraj, who performs rap under the stage name Nicki Minaj, resolving a copyright infringement dispute originally filed in 2018 by singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman over Minaj’s unauthorized use of Chapman’s 1988 single “Baby Can I Hold You.” In ruling that Minaj had established a fair use defense to Chapman’s copyright infringement claims, Judge Phillips affirmed the important role of experimenting with copyrighted works prior to licensing as a common practice within the recording industry.

Our music copyright law is out of tune in several ways. The recent multi-million-dollar jury verdict this summer against Katy Perry and Capitol Records illustrates a lack of harmony between music creation and the copyright law that is designed to “protect” it. According to a California jury, Perry’s runaway smash hit “Dark Horse” infringed a Christian rap “Joyful Noise” by the rapper, Flame. The jury awarded Flame nearly $2.8 million in damages. If that verdict withstands an appeal, it will be a dark day for the music industry. I fear the clouds are already brewing. The verdict exposes some major structural problems with how our music copyright law works.  

Rentmeester is asking the nation’s highest court to answer the question of whether copyright protection for a photograph is limited solely to the photographer’s selection and arrangement of unprotected elements or rather that such protection also covers elements of the photograph that express original creative judgments of the photographer. At issue in this case is an iconic image of basketball superstar Michael Jordan captured by Rentmeester in a 1984 photograph shot for LIFE Magazine. The image, which features Jordan mid-air and flying towards a basketball hoop with his left arm and both legs outstretched, was ranked by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential images of all time.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently issued a decision in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc. affirming a previous finding out of the Southern District of New York that ReDigi’s digital music file reselling platform infringed upon the plaintiffs’ copyright to the music files being resold. The Second Circuit panel upheld the lower court’s decision over ReDigi’s arguments that its platform enabled the lawful resale of digital music files under the first sale doctrine.

Copyrights protect original works of authorship.  This gives a copyright holder exclusive rights to modify, distribute, perform, display, and copy the work. However, as with other forms of intellectual property, there are important things copyright holders need to know in order to best protect and utilize their copyrights. You do not need to register a work to be protected by copyright.  However, registration is encouraged as it provides enhanced protection for copyright holders.  For example, a registered copyright is considered prima facie evidence in litigation, meaning the court will accept, on face value, that the copyright is valid unless it can be proven otherwise. 

There is a dangerous movement afoot; the idea that registration of your images on the blockchain is a cheap and simple alternative to registration with the United States Copyright Office. It is not…. While the costs of registration with the US Copyright Office can be significant, especially if you are shooting thousands of photos, don’t be deluded into thinking that the blockchain is some cheap cure-all for legally protecting your copyrighted work. The blockchain is not a government registry, but rather by definition is a distributed ledger without any central authority. Anyone can inscribe whatever they want in the blockchain without any legal recourse.

a bipartisan group of Representatives serving on the House Judiciary Committee introduced the Music Modernization Act (H.R. 5447) into the U.S. House of Representatives. Along with broad political support, the Music Modernization Act reportedly has wide support among both song creators and distribution platforms within the industry. The bill, which would enact the largest changes to U.S. music copyright law in 20 years if passed, also incorporates elements of other music copyright laws which have been introduced but failed to pass in recent years.

Some IP commentators love to hate the Blurred Lines music copyright decision. A primary critique has stoked unnecessary fear in musicians that the decision blurs the line between protectable expression and unprotectable style or genre. Much of the animosity, however, is based on misunderstanding or misconstruing the law or facts. This post clarifies this aspect of the case to show why the district court decision was reasonable and should be affirmed in the current appeal at the Ninth Circuit.

Like other opinions in the IP arena, the Supreme Court’s decision in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands has created a new legal rule with limited practical guidance that will inevitably lead to less predictability in an already-murky area of copyright law.  Its new “imaginative separability” test for copyright eligibility for useful articles, such as footwear, clothing, and furniture, may be so easy that few designs will fail to qualify.  Yet, ultimately, Star Athletica may have the unimagined consequence of making copyright protection less desirable for qualifying designs. For those who seek the benefits of the Court’s undeniable expansion of potential copyright protection for useful designs, a bit of caution may be the appropriate response.

When it comes to television shows, it not always clear what is “copyrightable.” Sometimes, filmmakers and screen writers can get into serious trouble if they don’t follow specific television copyright laws accordingly. Austin-based filmmaker Lex Lybrand watched the June 4th episode of the hit HBO series “Silicon Valley” to shockingly find strong similarities between the episode “The Patent Troll” and his own film “The Trolls.” Jed Wakefield of Fenwick & West recently sat down with IPWatchdog to discuss Lybrand’s case and the impact of copyright infringement when it comes to movie scripts.

A few weeks ago, a New York federal judge ruled that Hip-Hop Artist Drake was protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine when he sampled a spoken-word jazz track on his 2013 song “Pound Cake,” saying the artist had transformed the purpose of the clip. Drake used 35 seconds of Jimmy Smith’s 1982 “Jimmy Smith Rap” without clearing the clip, but Judge William H. Pauley said Drake’s purpose in doing so was sharply different from the original artist’s goals in creating it.

Businesses were recently given a harsh reminder about the effects of failing to obtain permissions when using photography for commercial purposes when a California woman sued Chipotle earlier this year for $2.2 billion. According to the complaint in the Chipotle case, in 2006, a photographer approached the plaintiff outside of a Chipotle restaurant and asked her to sign a consent form about some photographs taken inside the restaurant. The woman refused, but in 2014 and 2015, she found a photograph of herself edited into promotional materials placed on the walls of several Chipotle restaurants in California and Florida. This case serves as a reminder that any business that uses a person’s image for commercial purposes must first obtain that person’s consent.

In Star Athletica Breyer laments that the majority is ignoring the statute, refers to copyrights as a monopoly, and explains that copyrights are a tax on consumers… These seemingly innocent comments demonstrate a breathtaking dishonesty, which is hardly a newsworthy conclusion, or even much of a revelation to anyone in the patent community. Still, over the past few days the drivel that has been sprinkled into Supreme Court opinions has been particularly nauseating. The ends justify the means for the Supreme Court. When it is convenient they defer to Congress and wax poetically about the importance of stare decisis, as they actually had the gall to do in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment. When adhering to well-established rules and expectations of an entire industry is inconvenient, they create exceptions to statutes, ignore statutory schemes altogether, and overrule generations of well-established law.