Justia Copyright Opinion Summaries

Fox filed suit against Dish Network for copyright infringement and breach of contract, seeking a preliminary injunction. At issue were two Dish products: (1) "PrimeTime Anytime," which allowed a cable subscriber to set a single timer to record any and all primetime programming on four major networks; and (2) "AutoHop," which allowed users to automatically skip commercials. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that Fox did not establish a likelihood of success on its direct infringement claim. In this case, Dish's PrimeTime Anytime program created the copied program only in response to the user's command and the district court did not err in concluding that the user, not Dish, made the copy. Operating a system used to make copies at the user's command did not mean that the system operator, rather than the user, caused copies to be made. Although Fox established a prima facie case of direct infringement by Dish customers, Dish met its burden of demonstrating that it was likely to succeed on its affirmative defense that its customers' copying was a "fair use." Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Fox was unlikely to succeed on its claim of secondary infringement. Applying a very deferential standard of review, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction based on alleged contract breaches. Finally, even if Fox was likely to succeed on its claims that Dish directly infringed Fox's copyrights and breached the no-copying clause of the contract at issue by making "quality assurance" copies, the court agreed with the district court that Fox did not demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable harm resulting from these copies. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Fox Broadcasting Co. v. Dish Network" on Justia Law

AHRN appealed the district court's entry of a preliminary injunction order prohibiting AHRN's display of MRIS's photographs on AHRN's referral website. The parties are competitors in the real estate listing business and MRIS contended that AHRN's unauthorized use of its copyrighted material constituted infringement under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. The court concluded that MRIS was not barred from asserting infringement of its copyrighted photographs, which were registered as component works in its automated database registrations; MRIS was likely to succeed against AHRN in establishing its ownership of copyright interests in the copied photographs; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Metropolitan Regional Info. Sys. v. American Home Realty Network" on Justia Law

In 1982 Hobbs was working as a photographer on a Russian cruise ship where he had a brief affair with a Russian waitress. Based on the experience, he wrote a song, “Natasha” about an ill-fated romance between a man from the U.K. and a Ukrainian woman. In 1983, he registered his copyright to “Natasha” in the United Kingdom and sent the song to several music publishers, including a company that published songs composed by Elton John and Bernard Taupin. Hobbs’s efforts to find a publisher for “Natasha” were unsuccessful. In 1985, Elton John released his very successful song, “Nikita,” in which a singer from “the west” describes his love for Nikita, whom the singer saw “by the wall” and who is on the other side of a “line” held in by “guns and gates.” Hobbs filed a copyright infringement claim 27 years later. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the songs were not substantially similar. The Copyright Act does not protect general ideas, such as a romance between a western man and a woman from behind the iron curtain, but only the particular expression of an idea. View "Hobbs v. John" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, an association of authors and several individual authors, filed suit against Google alleging that it committed copyright infringement through the Library Project of its "Google Books" search tool by scanning and indexing more than 20 million books and making available for public display "snippets" of most books upon a user's search. On appeal, Google challenged the district court's grant of class certification. The court believed that the resolution of Google's fair use defense in the first instance would necessarily inform and perhaps moot the court's analysis of many class certification issues and that holding the issue of certification in abeyance until Google's fair use defense has been resolved would not prejudice the interests of either party. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to consider the fair use issues. View "The Authors Guild Inc., et al. v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

From 1999 to at least 2007, Defendant illegally downloaded and distributed copyrighted music without authorization. In 2007, a group of recording companies (collectively, "Sony") filed this action against Defendant under the Copyright Act, seeking damages and injunctive relief. Sony pursued claims for thirty copyrighted works, although Defendant allegedly distributed far more than that amount. After a trial, the jury awarded $675,000 in damages, which represented $22,500 for each of thirty songs whose copyright Defendant violated. Defendant appealed, arguing that the award was so large that it violated his constitutional due process rights. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the jury's award did not violate Defendant's right to due process. View "Sony BMG Music Entm't v. Tenenbaum" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Marvel, contending that he conceived the comic book character "Ghost Rider," the related characters, and the origin story. Plaintiff also claimed that he owned the renewal term copyrights in those works. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Marvel, holding that plaintiff had assigned any rights he had in the renewal term copyrights to Marvel when he executed a form work-for-hire agreement (the Agreement), six years after the initial publication of the issue in question. The court, by applying the "strong presumption against the conveyance of renewal rights," concluded that the district court erred in holding as a matter of law that plaintiff had assigned his renewal rights to Marvel by signing the Agreement; plaintiff's claim was not untimely as a matter of law because there were genuine disputes regarding whether plaintiff should have known about Marvel's repudiation of his claim of ownership; and there were genuine disputes of material fact that precluded granting summary judgment on the issue of authorship. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for trial. View "Gary Friedrich Enters., LLC v. Marvel Characters, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed complaints against defendants alleging that defendants infringed its "diamond kilim" design by selling rugs and other home goods bearing the design. The district court subsequently entered judgment awarding damages against defendants, and sub silentio denying injunctive relief. Defendants timely filed a renewal motion for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Civil Rule 50(b), as well as a timely motion for a new trial under Rule 59. The district court denied both motions and plaintiff then filed, without support in the Federal Civil Rules, a "Motion for a Permanent Injunction." The district court construed the motion as one for reconsideration under Rule 60(b), and denied that motion. Construing the motion for permanent injunction as a motion for reconsideration under Rule 60(b), as the district court did, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to file the motion within ten days after entry of judgment. Therefore, the court lacked jurisdiction to decide the appeal. View "Classic Concepts, Inc. v. Linen Source, Inc." on Justia Law

In a copyright infringement case, Enterprise Management Limited, Inc. and Mary Lippitt appealed a summary judgment in favor of Donald Warrick. Lippitt contended, contrary to the district court's holding, she demonstrated a prima facie case of copyright infringement. At issue was a diagram Lippitt created in the course of her work in organizational management. The diagram aimed to encapsulate and communicate the results of her research on the failures of complex organizational change initiatives. She created and registered the first version of the diagram in 1987; sometime around 1996, she updated it. She registered the update as part of a larger work in 2000; it was also included in materials she registered in 2003. In his motion for summary judgment, Warrick argued: (1) Lippitt could not prove she held a valid copyright on the diagram because she could not produce the diagram from the materials accompanying her 1987 registration to show its similarity to Warrick's diagram; (2) Lippitt's diagram was not copyrightable; and (3) Warrick's diagram did not infringe on any protected expression in Lippitt's diagram. After hearing arguments, the court granted Warrick's motion without issuing a written opinion. Lippitt contended summary judgment was inappropriate. In her view, her copyright infringement claim was viable because her diagram was entitled to copyright protection and Warrick admits to copying her duly registered diagram. Finding no merit to Warrick's arguments on appeal, the Tenth Circuit reversed the district court and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Enterprise Management Limited, Inc. v. Warrick" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed separate copyright infringement suits against defendants for posting articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal online without authorization. In consolidated appeals, the court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacked standing in both cases because agreements assigning plaintiff the bare right to sue for infringement did not transfer any associated exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. Because plaintiff lacked standing, the court also concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the fair use claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the motions to dismiss in both cases, but vacated the portion of the district court order in Hoehn granting summary judgment on fair use. View "Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn" on Justia Law

In 1974, songwriter, recording artist, producer, and performer Tilmon, composed the song “You’re Getting a Little Too Smart.” In 1976, Tilmon assigned all of his rights to the song to Bridgeport Music. In 1997, rapper Rashaam A. Smith a/k/a Esham A. Smith released the song “You & Me,” which, according to Bridgeport, unlawfully contained samples of the composition “Smart.” In 2003, plaintiffs, including Bridgeport, sued for copyright infringement. In 2004, plaintiffs obtained default judgments. In 2005, plaintiffs recorded the judgments with the U.S. Copyright Office. In 2011, Tilmon’s widow and a nonparty to the lawsuit, moved, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), to set aside the default judgments because she was the legal owner of the copyright by operation of law at the time the lawsuit was filed. The district court denied the motion. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the motion was untimely because the widow was on constructive notice of the judgment and had not established an inference of fraud on the court. View "Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Smith" on Justia Law