The federal district court in Indianapolis, Indiana, did not abuse its discretion by imposing monetary sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 and 28 U.S.C. § 1927 against an attorney who had represented a company accused of publishing an unauthorized copy of photographer Richard Bell’s photograph of the Indianapolis skyline, the U.S. Court of…
The Copyright Act’s registration requirement was a non-jurisdictional element of a copyright infringement claim; therefore, a lawsuit brought by online legal research provider Fastcase, Inc., against a competitor to resolve a dispute over the publication of regulations for the State of Georgia should not have been dismissed on the ground that the district court lacked…
On remand in a dispute between three academic publishers and Georgia State University about the university’s practice of distributing to students digital excerpts of copyrighted works without paying the publishers, a federal district court misinterpreted the mandate of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta and misapplied the defense of fair use when it granted…
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has vacated in part a district court’s judgment after a jury trial in favor of the defendants and remanded for a new trial in a copyright infringement suit alleging that Led Zeppelin and members of the band copied the classic rock hit “Stairway to Heaven” from the…
The novel “The Light Between Oceans” and a major motion picture based on it did not infringe a complaining author’s copyright in an unproduced screenplay, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City has decided. The Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s determination that, as a matter of law, the novel and film were…
The federal district court in Manhattan erred in dismissing copyright infringement claims brought by a group of professional sports photographers against the National Football League (NFL) and its teams, the Associated Press (AP), and Replay Photos, LLC (Replay), the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City has ruled. The photographers—who had granted licenses for…
The Third Circuit affirmed a federal district court’s dismissal of copyright infringement claims by an individual who wrote and produced a three-episode television series titled Cream against the director and producers of the Fox television series Empire. The district court correctly determined that the two shows were not substantially similar as to their protected elements,…
Although the author of a four-page treatment describing a concept for a television show failed to assert plausible copyright infringement claims against the producers and the creators of the popular musical drama television series “Empire,” the author should have been given permission to amend his complaint, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has…
The federal district court in Portland, Oregon, erred in declining to award attorney fees to a film distributor as the prevailing party in a copyright infringement suit against a BitTorrent peer-to-peer network user who had stipulated to judgment of infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled. The district court abused its…
North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and various state officials acting in their official capacities—who were sued in a copyright infringement action brought by a videographer and his affiliate who produced photos and videos depicting a salvaged ship of Blackbeard the pirate—were entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in…
