Justia Copyright Opinion Summaries

Rafters Bar and Grill, a golf-course restaurant in Canton, Ohio, offers music and dancing, sometimes turning on a recording, sometimes bringing in live performers, but it hosts performances of the music without getting the copyright owners’ permission. BMI, an organization of songwriters and composers that licenses music and collects royalties on behalf of its members, sent Rafters more than a score of letters, warning the restaurant not to infringe its copyrights and offering to license its music. It got no response. BMI sued for copyright infringement. Roy, the owner of Rafters, argued that he did not perform any of the copyrighted music. The bands that played at the restaurant and the people who turned on the recordings did that. The district court granted BMI summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting that a defendant becomes vicariously liable for a direct infringement of a copyright “by profiting from [the] infringement while declining to exercise a right to stop or limit it.” A defendant’s ignorance about the infringement or the performances does not negate vicarious liability. View "Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Meadowlake Ltd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an architect, and the company through which he does business, filed suit asserting that he created then licensed numerous designs for colonial homes to two construction companies and that these companies and their contractors infringed his copyright in these designs by using them in ways the licenses did not permit after the licenses had expired. Plaintiff also alleged that defendants' actions violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. 1202(b). The district court dismissed plaintiff's claims against some defendants, granted summary judgment in favor of the remaining defendants, and granted attorney's fees to two defendants. The court affirmed in part and held that (1) any copying of plaintiff's designs extended only to unprotected elements of his works, and (2) plaintiff failed to plead a violation of the DMCA. The court vacated in part and held that the district court misapplied the incorrect legal standard in awarding attorney's fees, remanding for the district court to apply the correct standard. View "Zalewski v. Cicero Builder Dev., Inc." on Justia Law

AF Holdings, represented by Prenda Law, filed suit in district court against 1,058 unnamed John Does who it alleged had illegally downloaded and shared the pornographic film "Popular Demand" using a file-sharing service known as BitTorrent. Prenda Law's general approach was to identify certain unknown persons whose IP addresses were used to download pornographic films, sue them in gigantic multi-defendant suits that minimized filing fees, discover the identities of the persons to whom these IP addresses were assigned by serving subpoenas on the Internet service providers to which the addresses pertained, and then negotiate settlements with the underlying subscriber. The providers refused to comply with the district court's issuance of subpoenas compelling them to turn over information about the underlying subscribers, arguing that the subpoenas are unduly burdensome because venue is improper, personal jurisdiction over these Doe defendants is lacking, and defendants could not properly be joined together in one action. The court agreed, concluding that AF Holdings clearly abused the discovery process by not seeking information because of its relevance to the issues that might actually be litigated here. AF Holdings could not possibly have had a good faith belief that it could successfully sue the overwhelming majority of the John Doe defendants in this district. Although AF Holdings might possibly seek discovery regarding individual defendants in the judicial districts in which they are likely located, what it certainly may not do is improperly use court processes by attempting to gain information about hundreds of IP addresses located all over the country in a single action, especially when many of those addresses fall outside of the court's jurisdiction. Given AF Holdings' decision to name and seek discovery regarding a vast number of defendants who downloaded the film weeks and even months apart - defendants who could not possibly be joined in this litigation - one can easily infer that its purpose was to attain information that was not, and could not be, relevant to this particular suit. Accordingly, the court vacated the order and remanded for further proceedings, including a determination of sanctions, if any, for AF Holdings' use of a possible forgery in support of its claim. View "AF Holdings, LLC v. Does 1-1058" on Justia Law

Sun developed the Java computer programming platform, released in 1996, to eliminate the need for different versions of computer programs for different operating systems or devices. With Java, a programmer could “write once, run anywhere.” The Java virtual machine (JVM) takes source code that has been converted to bytecode and converts it to binary machine code. Oracle wrote 37 packages of computer source code, “application programming interfaces” (API), in the Java language, and licenses them to others for writing “apps” for computers, tablets, smartphones, and other devices. Oracle alleged that Google’s Android mobile operating system infringed Oracle’s patents and copyrights. The jury found no patent infringement, but that Google infringed copyrights in the 37 Java packages and a specific routine, “rangeCheck.” It returned a noninfringement verdict as to eight decompiled security files. The jury deadlocked on Google’s fair use defense. The district court held that the replicated elements of the 37 API packages, including the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization, were not subject to copyright and entered final judgment in favor of Google on copyright infringement claims, except with respect to rangeCheck and the eight decompiled files. The Federal Circuit affirmed as to the eight decompiled files that Google copied into Android and rangeCheck. The court reversed in part, finding that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection, and remanded for consideration of fair use.View "Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc." on Justia Law

Conrad, the “Banana Lady,” a self‐employed singer and dancer, performs in a giant banana costume. After performing a “singing telegram” at a credit union trade association event, she sued, charging infringements of intellectual property rights. Although Conrad claims that she stated that her performance was not to be recorded, except for “personal use,” photos were posted on websites. The district judge dismissed, finding most of the claims precluded by an earlier Wisconsin state court suit, also dismissed. The judge rejected a claim of copyright infringement, over which federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, on the merits. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, first questioning Conrad’s copyright on the costume, because similar costumes are a common consumer product. The performance was not copyrightable, not being “fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” 17 U.S.C. 102(a). While she has the exclusive right to create or license reproductions of and derivative works from works that she has validly copyrighted, 17 U.S.C. 106(1), (2), it is unlikely that the photos and videos were derivative works. The Act forbids unauthorized recording of a musical performance, 17 U.S.C. 1101(a), and unauthorized display of copyrighted musical or choreographic work, section 106(5), but she did not cite either provision. The court noted Conrad’s “incessant filing of frivolous lawsuits” and suggested that the lower courts “consider enjoining her from filing further suits until she pays her litigation debts.” View "Conrad v. AM Cmty Credit Union," on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against publisher Wiley under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., based on Wiley's publication of textbooks containing eight of plaintiff's photographs. The district court concluded that the applicable three-year statute of limitations barred none of plaintiff's infringement claims because plaintiff, exercising reasonable diligence, did not discover the infringements until fewer than three years prior to bringing the suit. Nonetheless, the district court granted Wiley's motion for summary judgment as to several of the infringement claims on the ground that plaintiff had failed to register the relevant photographs with the Copyright Office prior to instituting suit pursuant to section 411(a). The court held that copyright infringement claims did not accrue until actual or constructive discovery of the relevant infringement and that the Act's statute of limitations did not bar any of plaintiff's infringement claims; the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's claims relating to the Narcoleptic Dog and Dinamation photos where the district court acted within its discretion to partially deny plaintiff leave to amend his complaint; the court discerned no error in the district court's denial of Wiley's motion for remittitur or a new trial; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to alter the jury's award of statutory damages. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Psihoyos v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff–Appellant Hornady Manufacturing Company, Inc., appealed a district court order granting summary judgment to Defendant–Appellee DoubleTap, Inc., on Hornady's trademark infringement claims. Hornady manufactured and sold firearm ammunition and related products. Since 1997, Hornady sold various products under the name "TAP," short for "Tactical Application Police." Hornady acquired trademark registration for the nonstylized word mark, "TAP." Photographs in the record indicated that the packaging for Hornady's products conspicuously features the TAP mark, both as a stand-alone mark and as incorporated within a shield resembling a police officer's badge. DoubleTap has been described as a "niche" ammunition manufacturer. Photographs in the record indicated that, as of 2006, packaging for DoubleTap's products displayed its mark as two separate words, "Double Tap," within a blue oval and flanked to the left by two bullet holes. Both parties moved for summary judgment, arguing that they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law on whether DoubleTap infringed on Hornady's TAP mark. Reviewing the record de novo, the Tenth Circuit held hold that two factors, strength of the mark and similarity of products and marketing, favored Hornady. The remaining four factors favored DoubleTap. "The tilt of the scales does not determine the issue. However, the key inquiry, the similarity of the marks, strongly favors DoubleTap." Hornady failed to raise a genuine factual issue regarding the likelihood of confusion, and the district court properly awarded summary judgment to DoubleTap. View "Hornady Manufacturing Co. v. Doubletap" on Justia Law

Alaska Stock, a stock photography agency, registered large numbers of photographs at a time under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., listing only some of the authors and not listing titles for each photograph. Alaska Stock licensed Houghton Mifflin to use pictures it had registered, for fees based on the number of publications. After Houghton Mifflin greatly exceeded the number of publications it had paid for, Alaska Stock filed suit for injunctive relief, actual and statutory damages, attorneys' fees, and costs. The court concluded that Alaska Stock successfully registered the copyright both to its collections and to the individual images contained therein; the statute required identification of the author and title of the "work," which was the collective work, and extended registration to the component parts if the party registering the collective work owned the copyright to the component parts, as Alaska Stock did; the procedure applied for over three decades by the Register of Copyrights to registration by stock photo agencies complied with the statutory requirements and did not violate any clear requirement to list individual authors and titles of the components within the work; the Register of Copyrights' reading that a collection of stock photos may be registered without individual titles, and without naming more than three of the authors and merely designating the number of authors, pursuant to an assignment in the language Alaska Stock used, was reasonable and persuasive; and therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal. View "Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were Massachusetts-based producers of “reggaeton” music. This case centered on seven songs released on an album distributed by Defendants that allegedly infringed upon copyrights held by Plaintiffs and breached contracts to which Plaintiffs claimed to be parties and/or third-party beneficiaries. The district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, concluding (1) with respect to the copyright claims, Plaintiffs failed to register their copyrights in the underlying compositions they claimed were infringed, as required under 17 U.S.C. 411(A); and (2) with respect to the breach of contract claims, there was no evidence of a direct agreement between the parties or of third-party beneficiary status. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment for Defendants on the copyright and contract claims. View "Alicea v. Ayala" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was cast in a minor role in an adventure film with the working title "Desert Warrior." The film never materialized and plaintiff's scene was used, instead, in an anti-Islamic film titled "Innocence of Muslims." The film was uploaded to YouTube.com and her brief performance was dubbed over so that she appeared to be asking, "Is your Mohammed a child molester?" An Egyptian cleric subsequently issued a fatwa, calling for the killing of everyone involved with the film. After Google refused to take it down from YouTube, plaintiff sought a restraining order seeking removal of the film, claiming that the posting of the video infringed the copyright in her performance. The district court treated the application as a motion for a preliminary injunction but denied the motion. The court concluded that plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits where plaintiff had an independent copyright interest in her performance; the work for hire doctrine was inapplicable in this instance because plaintiff was not a traditional employee and the filmmaker was not in the regular business of making films; and although plaintiff granted the filmmaker an implied license to use plaintiff's performance, the filmmaker exceeded the bounds of the license when he lied to plaintiff in order to secure her participation and she agreed to perform in reliance on that lie. The court also concluded that plaintiff faced irreparable harm absent an injunction where plaintiff took legal action as soon as the film received worldwide attention and she began receiving death threats; the harm plaintiff complained of was real and immediate; and plaintiff demonstrated a causal connection because removing the film from YouTube would help disassociate her from the film's anti-Islamic message and such disassociation would keep her from suffering future threats and physical harm. Finally, the balance of the equities and the public interest favored plaintiff's position. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion for a preliminary injunction. The court reversed and remanded. View "Garcia v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law