The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled on Friday that Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay, the widow and son of Ehud Yonay, who authored a 1983 magazine article that inspired the renowned film, Top Gun, were not entitled to damages for copyright infringement related to the 2022 sequel to the film. Yonay authored a magazine article titled “Top Guns,” published in California Magazine on April 21, 1983, that was an account of the experiences of F-14 pilots in training at Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, known as “Top Gun.”
On February 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California’s dismissal of a copyright suit filed against Apple Inc. and other defendants explaining that dismissal was improper at the pleading stage because reasonable minds could differ on the issue of substantial similarity. The suit was brought by Francesca Gregorini—writer, director, and producer of the film The Truth About Emanuel. She claimed that the first three episodes of Defendants’ AppleTV+ series, Servant, infringed her copyright. In May 2020, U.S. District Judge Walters dismissed Gregorini’s complaint on the ground that the works were not substantially similar as a matter of law. Gregorini appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Monday granted Katy Perry’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) and vacated the jury’s verdicts regarding liability and damages. In particular, the court found that the plaintiffs did not satisfy the extrinsic test, whereby the court determined whether any elements of plaintiffs’ eight-note ostinato (defined as “a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm”) from the song “Joyful Noise” were protected and objectively similar to the allegedly infringing eight-note ostinato from Perry’s song “Dark Horse.”
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently issued an opinion in Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, which vacated-in-part a judgment out of the Central District of California that Led Zeppelin’s hit classic rock song “Stairway to Heaven” was not substantially similar to “Taurus,” a song written by the late songwriter Randy Wolfe, a member of the band Spirit. The case was remanded back to the district court after the appellate court found that certain instructions given by the district court to the jury were erroneous and prejudicial.