A seller of karaoke equipment whose insurance carrier paid over $1 million to music publishers to settle infringement claims over the alleged unlicensed distribution of song recordings, in exchange for dismissal of the claims with prejudice, was not the “prevailing party” for purposes of the Copyright Act’s fee-shifting provision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in…
A magistrate judge properly ruled that a property owner who had intentionally burned a replica of a 16th-century Spanish galleon—a work of art that two plaintiffs had constructed over a used school bus for a Nevada arts festival—did not violate the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has…
A federal district court did not err in ruling that Amazon.com and its founder, Jeff Bezos, did not exceed the scope of their publishing license by failing to pay the full amount of royalties that were allegedly owed to a self-published author, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has ruled (Carlin v. Bezos, May…
Four children of the deceased gospel music composer and publisher Albert Brumley successfully terminated Brumley’s assignment of the copyright to the song “I’ll Fly Away” to their brother, Robert, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has held (Brumley v. Albert E. Brumley & Sons, Inc., May 16, 2016, Sutton, J.). The Copyright Act allowed…
The saga over the legality of the Google Books project finally came to an end on April 18, 2016, when the Supreme Court of the US refused to intervene in the case over alleged copyright infringement for scanning millions of books and making them searchable online. This was a final blow to authors’ representatives who…
The federal district court in Los Angeles did not err in determining that 2012 motion picture “Trouble with the Curve” was not substantially similar to a screenplay written by Ryan A. Brooks to support a finding of copyright infringement, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco (Gold Glove Productions, LLC v. Handfield,…
The federal district court in Manhattan properly awarded over $250,000 in attorney fees and costs to hip-hop star Jay Z (aka Shawn Carter) and his companies, Roc Nation and Roc-A-Fella Records, for their successful defense against time-barred claims brought by sound engineer Chauncey Mahan, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City has held….
A 2001 letter from an attorney representing the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerome Siegel effectively transferred all copyrights in the Superman character to DC Comics, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has decided (Larson v. Warner Bros Entertainment, February 10, 2016, per curiam). Siegel’s daughter, Laura Siegel Larson, could not go forward with…
A copyright claim brought by hip-hop artist Tyrone Simmons—who purchased an exclusive license to use a beat known as the “I Get Money Instrumental”—against the beat’s creator (William Stanberry, Jr.) and a group of defendants associated with rapper Curtis Jackson, known professionally as “50 Cent,” who used the beat in a hit song, was time-barred…
Recordings used by defendants Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (collectively, Blizzard) of a former employee’s voice for a character in a video game constituted a “work made for hire” under the Copyright Act, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco (Lewis v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., December 18, 2015, per curiam)….
