Justia Copyright Opinion Summaries

When legendary blues musician Robert Johnson died intestate in 1938, he had no money and appeared to have left no assets to distribute to heirs, so no estate was opened at that time. But the increasing popularity of Johnson's music over the years following his death led Steven LaVere, a music producer from Tennessee who owned Delta Haze Corporation, to contact Johnson's half-sister, Carrie Thompson, about previously unpublished photographs of Johnson. Believing Thompson to be Johnson's only heir, LaVere requested the photographs to launch a new release of Johnson's music. The legatees of Carrie Thompson sought to recover royalties and fees from the use of two photographs that were ultimately used in the project. Among the several reasons the trial court denied their claim was that the statute of limitations had expired. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Anderson v. LaVere" on Justia Law

Brownstein and Lindsay worked at LSDI, a direct mailing list company. In 1993 Lindsay began developing rules for categorizing names by ethnicity. Lindsay enlisted Brownstein to create computer programs that did everything from rewriting names into proper data format to turning the rules into computer code. The combined system of Lindsay’s rules and Brownstein’s computer code was called the LCID. Lindsay received a copyright registration for the rules in 1996, entitled “Ethnic Determinant System — Knowledge and Rule/Exception Basis,” including a copy of Brownstein’s programs as a “deposit copy” for the registration, 17 U.S.C. 407(a) and referencing associated “computer process” and “codes.” Lindsay listed herself as the only author. She gave Brownstein a copy of the registrations. He claims that he never reviewed them. Subsequently, LSDI demanded that Lindsay turnover the copyright registration. Lindsay and Brownstein left LSDI in 1997. Lindsay handled all business affairs and, over the next several years, executed several agreements to form new business entities to promote and transfer ownership of the LCID. There were several lawsuits with LSDI. In 2009, Brownstein left on bad terms, filed an oppressed shareholder lawsuit, and sought his own copyright registrations. He then sought a declaratory judgment of joint authorship of LCID under the Copyright Act. The district court found the claim time-barred and insufficient on the merits. The Third Circuit remanded, holding that an authorship claim accrues when a plaintiff’s authorship has been “expressly repudiated” and that courts have no authority to cancel copyright registrations. View "Brownstein v. Lindsay" on Justia Law

Swatch filed suit against Bloomberg for copyright infringement after Bloomberg obtained a copy of a recording of a conference call convened by Swatch to discuss the company's recently released earnings report with invited investment analysts. Bloomberg used the sound recording without authorization and disseminated it to paying subscribers. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Bloomberg based on Bloomberg's affirmative defense of fair use pursuant to the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 107. After balancing the fair use factors, the court concluded that Bloomberg's use was fair use. The court granted Swatch's motion to dismiss Bloomberg's cross-appeal where Bloomberg lacked appellate standing and the court lacked appellate jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court and dismissed the cross-appeal. View "Swatch Group v. Bloomberg" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, as representative of the estate of his father, filed suit against several entities with whom his father, Ronald Louis Smith, Sr., recorded music in the late 1970s. The estate alleged infringement of Smith's copyright in a musical composition entitled "Spank," along with a claim for breach of contract and a claim seeking a declaration of the validity of copyright transfer terminations the estate filed under 17 U.S.C. 203. Where a publisher has registered a claim of copyright in a work not made for hire, the court concluded that the beneficial owner has statutory standing to sue for infringement. The court held that the estate has adequately alleged facts to support its statutory standing to sue for infringement of the "Spank" copyright. Because the district court concluded that amendment of the complaint would be futile because the estate lacked statutory standing, the district court abused its discretion in denying leave to amend the complaint. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of the estate's motion to amend the complaint. View "Smith, Jr. v. Casey, et al." on Justia Law

Inhale claimed copyright protection in the shape of a hookah water container that it first published in 2008 and registered with the United States Copyright Office in 2011. Inhale filed suit against Starbuzz for copyright infringement, claiming that Starbuzz sold water containers that were identical in shape to Inhale's container. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Starbuzz after determining that the shape of the water container was not copyrightable. The court concluded that the shape of a container is not independent of the container's utilitarian function - to hold the contents within its shape - because the shape accomplishes the function. Therefore, the district court correctly concluded that the shape of Inhale's hookah water container was not copyrightable. Further, the district court did not abuse its discretion under 17 U.S.C. 505 by awarding attorneys' fees to Starbuzz. Moreover, the court awarded attorneys' fees incurred in the defense of this appeal to Starbuzz under section 505 in an amount to be determined by the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment and remanded. View "Inhale, Inc. v. Starbuzz Tobacco, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Andrew Diversey sued several administrators and members of the Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico (UNM) for infringing his copyright to an unpublished dissertation. The district court dismissed plaintiff's complaint as untimely. The issue before the Tenth Circuit centered on the determination of when claims of copyright infringement accrue, and, in particular, whether accrual is delayed until a continuing course of infringement ceases. Barring the application of an appropriate tolling principle, a copyright infringement claim must be brought within three years of the date on which the plaintiff becomes aware of an act of infringement or becomes chargeable with knowledge of it. Applying this rule, the Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Diversey v. Schmidly, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for criminal copyright infringement based on his sale of Adobe software. The court applied the willfulness standard for criminal copyright cases as recently clarified in United States v. Liu and concluded that the jury instruction was flawed but did not rise to the level of plain error; the evidence of uncharged acts was properly admitted as intrinsic to the charged conduct and the court affirmed the conviction; and the district court erred in failing to award restitution reflecting the victim's actual loss and the court vacated the restitution order and remanded for reconsideration. View "United States v. Anderson, Jr." on Justia Law

This case concerned a dispute over the Baltimore Ravens "Flying B" logo. After the Ravens had played their first season in 1997, plaintiff filed his first lawsuit against them and the NFL, alleging that the logo infringed the copyright in three of his drawings. In this appeal, plaintiff challenged the NFL's use of the logo in three videos featured on its television network and various websites, as well as the Baltimore Ravens' display of images that included the logo as part of exhibits in its stadium "Club Level" seating area. The court affirmed the district court's finding that defendants' limited use of the logo qualified as fair use. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants. View "Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Ltd." on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from Seven Arts's attempts to establish ownership of copyrights in several motion pictures: "Rules of Engagement," "An American Rhapsody," and "Who is Cletis Tout?" Seven Arts filed suit against Paramount and Content Media for copyright infringement, a declaration of ownership rights, and an accounting, seeking a declaration that neither Content Media, nor its predecessors-in-interest, CanWest, was the owner or grantee of rights to the films. The action was filed over three years after Paramount plainly and expressly repudiated Seven Arts's copyright ownership by choosing to continue paying royalties to CanWest and Content Media, rather than to Seven Arts's predecessors. The court joined its sister circuits in holding that an untimely ownership claim will bar a claim for copyright infringement where the gravaman of the dispute was ownership, at least where, as here, the parties were in a close relationship. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court, concluding that the district court properly dismissed the suit because it was apparent from the complaint that Paramount clearly and expressly repudiated Seven Arts's ownership of the copyrights more than three years before Seven Arts brought suit. View "Seven Arts v. Content Media" on Justia Law

Swift, Schaltenbrand, and Siddle entered into an informal partnership arrangement to operate a mail-order pharmacy, divide the profits from that business, and eventually sell the book of customers to another pharmacy. After some initial success, the partners began taking profit distributions that far exceeded agreed‐upon percentages. Swift eventually filed lawsuits against Schaltenbrand and Siddle. The district court listened to 14 days of testimony before ruling against Swift on most of his claims. The court invalidated a copyright registration that Swift’s marketing company obtained for a logo used by the partnership, finding that Swift knowingly misrepresented a material fact in the application to register a copyright in the logo. The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, agreeing that Swift failed to prove Schaltenbrand and Siddle breached their obligation to provide him with a share of profits. Swift waived fraud claims by declining to include them in the final pretrial order. The district court erred by invalidating the copyright registration without first consulting the Register of Copyrights as to the significance of the inaccurate information. The Copyright Act requires courts to perform this “curious procedure” before invalidating a registration based on a fraud on the Copyright Office.View "Swift v. Medicate Pharm., Inc." on Justia Law