Justia Copyright Opinion Summaries

Stan Lee Media claimed to own intellectual-property rights in a number of popular Marvel Enterprises comic-book characters. Its claims derived from a 1998 contractual agreement with Stan Lee, in which he transferred all of his ownership rights in characters he created while working at Marvel to Stan Lee Media in exchange for salary and other benefits. Stan Lee Media brought copyright infringement claims against Marvel Enterprises' corporate owner, The Walt Disney Company. Disney disputed whether Stan Lee Media had any interest whatever in the Marvel characters. The Ninth Circuit addressed the complex question of ownership in "Stan Lee Media, Inc. v. Lee," (2014 WL 5462400 (9th Cir. Oct. 29, 2014)), finding that Stan Lee Media could not even allege any right to ownership of the disputed properties. The Tenth Circuit concluded that the Ninth Circuit’s decision on the ownership issue was entitled to collateral-estoppel effect in subsequent cases involving claims for relief premised on that issue. Thus, because Stan Lee Media was precluded from alleging ownership of the at-issue intellectual properties, Stan Lee Media’s copyright-infringement claim failed here as a matter of law. View "Stan Lee Media v. Walt Disney Company" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from litigation regarding the ownership of the composition copyright to the song Whoomp! (There It Is), writen and produced by Tag Team. The district court concluded that plaintiff owned the copyright and DM Records was liable for copyright infringement, and the jury awarded $2 million in damages. DM Records appealed on several grounds. In regards to DM Record's arguments related to the district court's interpretation of the Recording Agreement as assigning a single fifty percent interest to Alvert Music, the court concluded that none of the pieces of allegedly conflicting evidence cited by DM Records presents a factual issue, and Bellmark Records waived its right to bring a Rule 50(b) motion by not raising its second argument at trial. In regards to DM Records' challenge to the district court's denial of its Rule 60(b) motion for relief from judgment based on fraud and lack of standing, DM Records is not entitled to Rule 60(b) relief on the basis of the allegedly withheld Security Agreement because standing is determined at the time of suit and the 2006 Security Agreement does not establish that plaintiff did not own the copyright in 2002 when he commenced the suit. The court also concluded that the district court did not plainly err in instructing the jury and that the jury could have determined that plaintiff was properly awarded 100 percent of the royalties from which it could pay Tag Team its share. Finally, it was not plain error for the district court to allow plaintiff's closing statement and not to grant DM's motion for a new trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Isbell v. DM Records, Inc." on Justia Law

“Musical work” and the owner’s exclusive right to perform the work in public are protected by 17 U.S.C. 106(4). Broadcast of a musical work is a performance and requires a license from the copyright owner. Copyright Act amendments afford the copyright owner of a sound recording “the narrow but exclusive right ‘to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.’” The law requires “certain digital music services . . . to pay recording companies and recording artists when they transmit[] sound recordings” and provides for appointment of three Copyright Royalty Judges. If sound recording copyrights owners are unable to negotiate a royalty with digital music services, the Judges may set reasonable rates and terms. The Judges set royalty rates and defined terms for statutorily defined satellite digital audio radio services (SDARS) and preexisting subscription services (PSS). SoundExchange, which collects and distributes royalties to copyright owners, argued that the Judges set rates too low and erred in defining “Gross Revenues” and eligible deductions for SDARS. A PSS that provides music-only television channels appealed, arguing that PSS rates were set too high. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, concluding that the Judges of the Board acted within their broad discretion and on a sufficient record. View "Music Choice v. Copyright Royalty Bd." on Justia Law

BMI and others filed a copyright infringement action against Evie's Tavern and its owner (collectively, appellants), alleging that appellants publicly performed six copyrighted works without a license despite numerous cease and desist letters and phone calls. On appeal, appellants challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment and contend that there are material issues of fact in the chain of title for each of the five titles at issue. The court concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment in BMI's favor on each of the five titles at issue; because the district court properly granted summary judgment in BMI's favor on each title, any error in granting summary judgment to other appellees was harmless; the district court did not need to make a finding as to whether appellants' infringement was innocent or willful to grant summary judgment or to award statutory damages within the default range; the district court's decision considered all of the appropriate factors, its damages determination was plausible, and thus the award of statutory damages was not an abuse of discretion; the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining the award of attorneys' fees; and the district court adequately evaluated the eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. factors and it did not clearly err in awarding a permanent injunction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and award of damages, attorneys' fees, and a permanent injunction. View "Broadcast Music, Inc., et al. v. Evie's Tavern Ellenton, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three publishing houses, alleged that members of the Board of Regents at GSU infringed their copyrights by maintaining a policy which allows GSU professors to make digital copies of excerpts of plaintiffs' books available to students without paying plaintiffs. The district court found that plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case of infringement in twenty-six instances, that the fair use defense applied in forty-three instances, and that defendants had infringed plaintiffs' copyrights in the remaining five instances. The district court found that defendants were the prevailing party and awarded them costs and attorneys' fees. The court declined to address defendants' Eleventh Amendment argument; the court held that the district court did not err in performing a work-by-work analysis of individual instances of alleged infringement in order to determine the need for injunctive relief; however, the district court did err by giving each of the four fair use factors equal weight, and by treating the four factors mechanistically; the district court should have undertaken a holistic analysis which carefully balanced the four factors; the court found that the district court abused its discretion in granting the injunction and the related declaratory relief; the district court erred in designating defendants as the prevailing party and awarding fees and costs to defendants; and therefore, the court reversed the judgment, vacated the injunction, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Albert, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Paul Ellington, an heir and grandson of Duke Ellington, filed this breach of contract action to recover royalties allegedly due under a royalty provision contained in a 1961 United States copyright renewal Agreement between Duke Ellington and Mills Music, Inc., now EMI Music, Inc. The Agreement assigned to a “Second Party” - defined as consisting of a group of music publishers including Mills Music - the right to renew the copyright to certain music compositions written by Duke Ellington, subject to the payment of royalties. The royalty provision of the Agreement required the Second Party to pay Duke Ellington and named members of his family a percentage of the net revenue received from a foreign publication of the musical publication. Plaintiff claimed that by using affiliated foreign subpublishers, EMI breached the Agreement by diluting Plaintiff’s share of the royalties. Supreme Court dismissed the complaint in its entirety, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the disputed terms of the Agreement were clear and unambiguous and that the Appellate Division correctly held that Plaintiff did not state a cause of action for breach of the Agreement. View "Ellington v. EMI Music, Inc." on Justia Law

CBD designs and builds restaurants. Its client, Mongolian House, wanted to renovate an upscale Chicago restaurant called “Plan B.” CBD designed the interior and in 2006 filed blueprints to obtain a “repair and replace” building permit. CBD completed the construction work in 2007. In 2008 a CBD employee visited the city’s offices on other business and chanced upon blueprints for Plan B that were labeled with another architect’s name. The city refused to provide a copy, saying the blueprints were exempt from disclosure. Mongolian House defaulted on payments to CBD. In 2009 the city issued a new building permit for Plan B based on the 2008 blueprints. In 2012 CBD sued, alleging copyright infringement and state-law claims. The district court dismissed the claims under the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations, 17 U.S.C. 507(b), reasoning that CBD was on “inquiry notice” of a possible copyright violation when its employee happened upon the 2008 blueprints. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court recently clarified that the Act’s limitations period establishes a “separate accrual rule” so that “each infringing act starts a new limitations period.” CBD’s complaint alleges potentially infringing acts within the three-year look-back period from the date of suit. View "Chicago Bldg. Design, P.C. v. Mongolian House Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves statements made by plaintiff Vehicle Market Research, Inc. (VMR) in a breach of contract case that were allegedly inconsistent with earlier statements by its sole owner, John Tagliapietra. VMR developed and owned certain intellectual property, including a software system to calculate the value of a total loss of an automobile for the purposes of the automobile insurance industry and certain “pre-existing software tools, utilities, concepts, techniques, text, research or development” used in the development of the software. When Mr. Tagliapietra filed for personal bankruptcy, he asserted that his shares in VMR were worth nothing. A few years later, as the bankruptcy was winding down, VMR sued Mitchell International, Inc., a company which held an exclusive license to VMR's technology. That case sought $4.5 million in damages for the alleged misappropriation of that technology. The question this case presented to the Tenth Circuit was whether the statements by VMR and Mr. Tagliapietra in the litigation against Mitchell were so clearly contrary to the statements made by Mr. Tagliapietra in his bankruptcy proceeding that VMR should have been judicially estopped from proceeding with its suit against Mitchell. After review, the Court concluded that neither VMR’s litigation claim for payments nor Mr. Tagliapietra’s deposition testimony in that lawsuit was clearly inconsistent with his valuation of 0.00 for his VMR stock at the time of his bankruptcy petition in 2005, the date when the initial bankruptcy representations were made. "If there were grounds for judicial estoppel, it would have to be based on a duty by Mr. Tagliapietra to amend his bankruptcy pleadings to report a possible increased value for his VMR stock at least as of the time that VMR filed its suit against Mitchell in 2009. However, our precedent is not clear on whether a debtor has a continuing duty to amend his bankruptcy schedules when the estate’s assets change in value. Given our reluctance to invoke judicial estoppel, and keeping in mind that judicial estoppel is an affirmative defense that its proponent must prove, we conclude that in this case Mitchell has not met its burden of showing any clearly inconsistent statements that would warrant that relief." View "Vehicle Market Research v. Mitchell International" on Justia Law

While a student at University of Wisconsin in 1969, Soglin attended the first Mifflin Street Block Party. Now in his seventh term as Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, Soglin wants to shut down the annual event. For the 2012 Block Party, Sconnie sold 54 t-shirts and tank tops displaying an image of Soglin’s face and the phrase “Sorry for Partying.” Photographer Kienitz accused Sconnie of copyright infringement. Sconnie conceded starting with a photograph that Kienitz took at Soglin’s inauguration that it downloaded from the city’s website. The picture was posterized, background was removed, and Soglin’s face was turned lime green and surrounded by multi-colored writing. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, applying the fair use statutory defense to infringement, 17 U.S.C. 107. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that a shirt is no substitute for the original photograph; Kienitz does not argue that defendants reduced demand for the original work or any use that he is contemplating. Defendants removed so much of the original that, “as with the Cheshire Cat, only the smile remains.” What is left, besides a hint of Soglin’s smile, is the outline of his face, which cannot be copyrighted. Defendants chose the design as a form of political commentary, not for profit. View "Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation, LLC" on Justia Law

Oracle filed suit against SAP alleging that TomorrowNow, an enterprise software company recently acquired by SAP, was engaging in systematic and pervasive illegal downloading of Oracle's software. SAP stipulated to liability and the parties went to trial solely on damages. On appeal, Oracle challenged several of the district court's rulings. The court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law to SAP where the hypothetical-license damage award was based on undue speculation and Oracle failed to provide sufficient objective evidence of the market value of the hypothetical license underpinning the jury's damages award; for the same reasons, the court affirmed the district court's grant of SAP's motion for a new trial based on remittitur; and the court rejected Oracle's claim that the district court erred in limiting the second trial to damages based on a lost-profits and infringer's-profits theory, barring Oracle's pursuit of hypothetical-license damages. The court concluded that the district court, in selecting a $272 million remittitur amount, abused its discretion in selecting the $36-million lost-profits figure rather than the $120.7-million one. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded to the district court for it to offer Oracle the choice between a $356.7-million remittitur and proceeding to a second trial. The court affirmed on the four rulings related to the second trial and did not reach the questions presented by the other three rulings. View "Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG" on Justia Law