Posts in Copyright

A copyright infringement battle of intergalactic proportions between Plaintiffs CBS and Paramount Pictures, and the company (along with its principal Alec Peters) looking to produce the crowdfunded Star Trek fan film Axanar (“Defendants”) is heating up. The parties have filed numerous motions in the past month, and the Court’s recent ruling on the parties’ motions for summary judgment means the case is inching closer and closer to its January 31 trial date… The Court then concluded that the “Axanar Works have objective substantial similarity to the Star Trek Copyrighted Works,” and therefore it “leaves the question of subjective substantial similarity to the jury.”

This week’s news headlines include nomination hearings for the potential incoming U.S. Commerce Secretary, the Supreme Court’s granting certiorari for an important case in biologics, a patent infringement suit targeting the NFL, the expiration of copyright protecting the works of a very influential science fiction author from the early 20th century, and another sports figure — this time UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor — filing trademark applications.

For the year patent infringement cases dropped by 22 percent from the previous year, from 5,823 cases in 2015 down to 4,520 cases in 2016. 2016 actually saw the lowest number of patent infringement lawsuits filed since 2011, when 3,578 cases were filed. There was no month during 2016 where more than 460 patent suits were filed; both 2014 and 2015 had at least one month where more than 650 patent suits were filed in district court.

A patent and copyright squabble involving two players in the networking space for information technology (IT) development, which has ramped up in recent years, saw an interesting round of events play out in federal court and regulatory agencies this past December. At the center of the brouhaha is American networking and telecommunications giant Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) of San Jose, CA, which has filed multiple legal actions against Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) of Santa Clara, CA, alleging that Arista has moved into the networking equipment market using technologies developed and patented by Cisco, specifically through former Cisco employees who founded Arista.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is where any action relating to intellectual property reform will be played out during the 115th Congress, at least on the Senate side of the Capitol. Unlike in previous years, we enter 2017 without much support for a fresh round of patent reform, but at least some patent reform measures are sure to be introduced during the 115th Congress… Look for efforts to grant the Copyright Office greater autonomy and independence during the 115th Congress, even a push to remove the Copyright Office out form under the Library of Congress… Without further ado, meet the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Disney decided to add the State of Israel as a defendant since the Haifa port Customs unit that held the allegedly infringing goods is an Israeli government entity. Adding the state as a defendant, albeit a technical one, would allow, according to the Israeli territorial jurisdiction regulations, the Tel Aviv District Court to have jurisdiction… The Court rejected Disney’s claim and transferred the case to Haifa. In his decision, Judge Maor stated that ‘the dispute is between the Petitioners and the Plaintiff. The State is not a necessary and not a substantial party to the disagreements between them, but merely a “technical” one since it is holding the allegedly infringing goods…’.

Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions filed a copyright infringement complaint against New York City-based Christie’s, Inc. and Christie’s database subsidiary Collectrium. The suit alleges that Christie’s and Collectrium engaged in stealing copyright-protected images and lifted other private data from Heritage’s servers in order to drive its own sales… Heritage first identified this July that a crawling “spider” software program was operating on its servers accessible through HA.com, Heritage’s official website for offering online-only auctions and providing image catalogues of items available through live auctions. In its complaint, Heritage noted that the activities conducted by the spider software program, including database scraping or copying content for commercial purposes, is prohibited under terms of a Website User Agreement to which each registered user of HA.com agrees upon creating an account.

It is one again time to take a moment to look back on the year that was, reflecting on the biggest, most impactful moments of 2016. For us that means looking backward at the most impactful events in the world of intellectual property. This year we received such a good response from our panel of experts that we decided to break this column into two…

We know that not only are copyrights grounded in the constitution, but core copyright industries contribute approximately $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy annually, and employ over 5.5 million American workers. At the same time, however, we are acutely aware that, unfortunately, copyright theft online is rampant, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has increasingly become ill equipped to address even flagrant, willful copyright infringement in the digital world. What we don’t know, however, is how President-Elect Trump and the Trump Administration will view copyright issues, and whether pro-creator copyright reforms will be on the President’s agenda come January 20, 2017. We can, however, make some educated guesses based on Trump’s entertainment industry ties, his potential Supreme Court nominees, and those he is surrounding himself with on his Transition Team and in a Trump Administration that is increasingly taking shape.

On Thursday, December 15th, Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) subsidiary and over-the-top (OTT) television delivery service Sling TV unveiled a new cloud-based digital video recording (DVR) technology. Customers using Sling to access live television programming can store up to 100 hours of content including full-length movies, single episodes and entire television series. Automatic deletion of oldest-watched content and simultaneous recording options are also included with the service. Sling’s cloud DVR service appears to only be available to customers accessing Sling through Roku devices in this first rollout of the program and the DVR service only works with certain channels.

Entities owning the copyrights to music created by the late pop star Prince had filed suit against Roc Nation, the entertainment company owned by rapper Jay Z, which is affiliated with the streaming music service Tidal. Plaintiffs NPG Records and NPG Music Publishing allege that Tidal and Roc Nation have engaged in copyright infringement by adding a series of 15 unauthorized Prince albums to the Tidal catalog this June. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on his first day in office. So ends more than five years of often heated negotiations led by President Barack Obama’s administration as part of an overall strategy to strengthen the US position in the Pacific Rim region… Pulling out of the TPP is a missed opportunity for the US to pursue its IPR agenda in the Pacific Rim economies.

On Monday, November 21st, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.) issued a decision allowing a copyright case involving the well-known spiritual song and 20th century civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to go forward. At the center of this case is the question of whether or not “We Shall Overcome” is part of the public domain in the United States, and the recent decision by S.D.N.Y. Judge Denise Cote indicates that the song could in fact be public domain material. “Resolution of the issues of originality and ownership will require discovery and a more developed record,” Cote’s decision reads.

A recent report from French consulting firm PMP Conseil made waves in the media for indicating that public performance exemptions in U.S. copyright law, such as Section 110 exemptions, cost copyright owners $150 million each year in lost royalties, $44 million of which is attributable to U.S. copyright owners in Europe. On November 11th, this study was presented by the International Council of Creators of Music (CIAM) at it’s annual conference in London. CIAM maintains that the U.S. is one of two “more economically developed countries” that have an exemption in place for playing music in bars, restaurants and retail establishments by radio or television.

On November 1st, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (8th Cir.) issued a decision in a case brought by motion picture entertainment company Warner Bros. and appealed by a group of defendants who licensed images culled from publicity material for some of Warner’s most famous entertainment properties. A panel from the 8th Cir. found in favor of Warner Bros. and affirmed an earlier verdict, which has helped to define whether publicity material for films and animated shows are available in the public domain. This decision is the second time that 8th Cir. has issued a judgment in this case.