The dismissal of a copyright infringement plaintiff’s claims against music publisher Sony Corporation of America and other related defendants pursuant to a mandatory arbitration provision in the agreement that the plaintiff had signed upon entering Sony’s songwriting contest did not warrant an award of attorney fees to Sony as a prevailing party under the Copyright…
A lawsuit brought by figure skater Oksana Baiul accusing NBC Sports of failing to pay her royalties owed for a video production of her ice skating performance in “Nutcracker on Ice” was barred by res judicata, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held. A decision of the federal district court in Los…
A recent decision of the Munich Regional Court marks the first-ever blocking order in Germany against a copyright infringing website (judgment of 1 February 2018 – BeckRS 2018, 2857; English translation available here). If confirmed by higher courts (the judgment is subject to ongoing appeal proceedings), the decision will indeed have paved the way for…
The High Court of England and Wales recently gave judgment in Cantel v Arc ([2018] EWHC 345 (Pat). Of most interest for this blog is the aspect of the case which considers when an infringing party has the requisite knowledge to be liable for secondary acts of infringement (such as importation and sale). The case…
Sampling is a technique used in the music industry which utilises parts of pre-existing recordings in order to create a new music composition. Although sampling has been a common practice and a widely-used method in many modern music productions, its legality under EU law is still to be determined. From the perspective of European copyright…
Whether the online real estate brokerage Redfin exceeded its license to use Alexander Stross’s copyrighted property photographs raised a question of fact for the jury, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals determined, reversing the federal district court in Austin’s decision that Redfin’s license was a complete defense to Stross’s claim of copyright infringement….
Although a professional photographer plausibly alleged that he owned a valid copyright in a photo of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, and that sports apparel company Nike copied the photo to create its “Jumpman” logo that Nike uses in advertisements and on merchandise, the photographer failed to plausibly allege that Nike copied enough of the protected…
The Spanish court has recently given judgment in proceedings brought by various audiovisual producers belonging to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), against a number of telecommunications companies who provide Internet access. The proceedings were aimed at having the latter take measures to block Internet access to certain websites that were making protected audiovisual…
Decision of the German Bundesgerichtshof of September 21, 2017, file no. I ZR 11/16: “Vorschaubilder III” (“Thumbnails III”). In this decision, the Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”) applies the latest CJEU case law on liability for linking, namely Svensson (C-466/12), GS Media (C-160/15), Filmspeler (C-527/15) and BREIN/Ziggo (C-610/15) to search engines and in particular to Google’s picture search….
An artist’s illustration of two dolphins crossing underwater was an idea that was found first in nature and was not protectable under copyright law, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held. The court affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of another artist who created a painting with a…
