Source: http://blog.jnslawoffices.com/category/law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:28:49+00:00

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I recently wrote an article for CD Baby, explaining how music libraries work and some things to consider before signing with one.
On June 1, I’ll be speaking at the first SheTek Conference. The conference is in New York City at 151 w. 26th street between 6th and 7th aves from 11 am to 6 pm.
Tickets are available here. Each panel is $25 or pay $100 for the entire conference.
Lindsay Lohan lost her lawsuit against hip hop artist Pit Bull, which claimed that the line “.. I got it locked up, like Lindsay Lohan” in Pit Bull’s song “Give Me Everything” was a violation of her rights of publicity and caused emotional distress. The court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that NY Civil Rights law didn’t apply here because the song is a work of art and also is protected under the First Amendment. Additionally, the court held that her name wasn’t used for purposes of trade or advertising, which could trigger infringement of Lohan’s right of publicity, and the fact that her name was only in one line would also give cause for her losing.
Songwriter Jay Livingston (“Silver Bells,” “Mona Lisa,” “Whatever Will Be, Will Be”) is suing Warner Music for breaching their publishing administration contract by wrongfully withholding royalties and not complying with audit requirements under the contract.
Another royalty dispute… RZA, front man of the Wu Tang Clan, is seeking a court declaration that the 2010 Kanye West song he produced, “Dark Fantasy,” does not infringe the recording copyrights held by JVC Kenwood Holdings. RZA’s label, Island Def Jam, was withheld more than $50,000 in royalties based on the accusations by JVC Kenwood that “Dark Fantasy” contains a sample from one of their works.
Pandora is suing ASCAP, one of the largest performance rights organizations, to implement lower statutory rates for songwriters. Pandora has called the current rates as “ill suited and not reasonable”. The major problem with this suit is that publishers, on the other hand, are trying to drive statutory rates up, not down. This is because Pandora currently pays record labels over ten times more on a song play than they do to publishers and songwriters. Furthermore, Sony/ATV isn’t making the suit easier for Pandora, since after recently acquiring EMI’s publishing catalog, Sony/ATV is pushing for their own independent royalty rates. This move by Sony/ATV is yet another reason why Pandora is pushing so hard to lower the rates.
A 2006 divorce between Tory Burch and Chris Burch has turned into a legal battle between the two, totally unrelated to any actual marital issues. In October 2011, Chris had opened up his own store, C Store, that is more affordable than the Tory Burch company line. However, the C Store’s appearance and inventory look a little too similar to the Tory Burch company’s merchandise and stores. Meanwhile, both Tory and Chris still own stake in the popular clothing line company. Mr. Burch filed a complaint earlier this month accusing Tory of delaying the sale of his shares of the Tory Burch company, along with other accusations regarding inappropriate board behavior (a breach of fiduciary duties). Tory answered the complaint with various counterclaims, including accusations that he is stealing the company’s trade secrets. The bottom line issue is whether the existence of C Wonder will negatively effect the value of the Tory Burch company. We will have to wait and see.
The Talent Agencies Act (TAA) in California is under attack by former personal managers of various stars. The TAA states that only licensed agents can procure employment for their clients. It was further decided that this restriction applies not only to talent agents, but personal managers, as well. In mid-November, The National Conference of Personal Managers (NCOPM) sued the CA governor, attorney general, and labor commissioner, claiming that the TAA is entirely unconstitutional and that is violates “due process, equal protection, involuntary servitude, and interferes with interstate commerce and free speech”. Essentially, clients can fire their managers and refuse to pay any commission to them because they weren’t licensed and technically not legally employable under the TAA.
Hurricane Sandy left quite a path of destruction, not only physically, but now also legally. New York resident, Irwin Bard, and his son are suing Cablevision for $250 million for non-existent cable, Internet, and phone services during the time of the power outages. Bard demands a rebate to all customers who were affected by this unfair charge. Cablevison assured their customers, however, that anyone who was overcharged can visit the Cablevision website and ask for a credit back. However, the issue is whether this should be automatic versus an “opt-in” action. The case is still undecided as of now.
Sister Sledge is suing Warner Music Group in an attempt to re-categorize digital sales as licenses, a change that could mean millions in extra royalties.
Kenny Rogers is also suing his label, Capitol/EMI, over the issue of digital royalty calculations as well as false accounting. His suit additionally alleges that Rogers received no compensation following EMI’s successful settlements with Limewire, Grokster, and Napster. For a full description of Rogers’ claims against Capitol, check out this Digital Music News article.
An anti-merger lawsuit was filed against SAG and its officers, alleging that that proposal to merge the two unions omits “necessarily due diligence” and is “deceptive.” The merger would merge the unions, but not the pension and health plans, which are legally separate entities. Plaintiffs include Martin Sheen, Edward Asner, Ed Harris, Valerie Harper, Nancy Sinatra, former guild president Alan Rosenberg and current board members Anne-Marie Johnson and David Jolliffe.
A federal judge rejected a lawsuit brought by Michael Jordan against Jewel-Osco for a congratulatory ad the company ran when Jordan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame three years ago. The court rejected Jordan’s argument that the ad infringed upon his trademark and instead determined that the advertisement was “noncommercial speech,” protected by the First Amendment, and that there was no indication of a “commercial transaction” in the ad.
Paramount Pictures has sued the estate of Mario Puzo, author of the book The Godfather on which the iconic films are based. The estate released sequels to the book in 2004 and 2006 and is set to release another one later this year. Paramount is seeking damages and preliminary and permanent injunctions to stop the sequel’s release, arguing that the sequels violate its trademark and copyright interests in the Godfather franchise and story.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that Proposition 8, California’s voter-enacted ban on gay marriage, is unconstitutional. The decision did not go as far as requiring that every state recognize gay marriage but held that Proposition 8 violated the 14th Amendment by stigmatizing a minority group without a legitimate reason. The 128 page decision may face an appeal where it would be reviewed by an expanded 9th Circuit court or the Supreme Court. By focusing on the California statute, rather than the broader constitutionality of restrictions on gay marriage, the holding will likely pass further scrutiny.
Six states currently permit gay marriage and the topic is likely to be a hot issue in upcoming elections.
The WSJ presents a detailed overview of the history of the fight for legalized gay marriage in California.
‘Marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationships that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.
EMI is suing MP3 reselling startup ReDigi.
More EMI lawsuits.. The company (via the Irish Music Rights Association) has now sued the entire country of Ireland in a High Court action for not doing enough to require ISPs to block websites that are engaging in piracy.
The Velvet Underground has sued the foundation that manages the legacy of Andy Warhol arguing that the artist of their iconic ‘banana’ album cover artwork has no copyright or trademark ownership over the image.
PacketVideo and Spotify have settled the lawsuit brought by PacketVideo, alleging that Spotify infringed its patent relating to streaming music from a central source. Details of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Former Disney executive VP Glen Lajeski filed a lawsuit against the studio alleging that his contract was breached when the company fired him last June. Lajeski was let go purportedly without any cause and without the opportunity to cure. His employment contract was not due to expire until January 1, 2013.
The Supreme Court of the United States published a decision yesterday regarding the constitutionality of section 104A of the US Copyright Act. In order to comply with the Berne Convention, 17 USC 104A was revised in 1994 to restore the copyrights in foreign works that were previously not protected in the United States because they did not meet the US formalities of copyright protection (such as copyright renewal or proper copyright notice) or because of a lack of an international treaty between the US and the work’s country of origin. As a general rule (with exceptions, of course), the works had to be protected in their country of origin as of Jan. 1, 1996, but if they were, they were automatically granted protection in the US, “restoring” them to a protected state and removing them from the public domain. Controversy arose because one year following the “restoration,” royalty payments and derivative work restrictions would be imposed on anyone using the works, even if their use originated before the restoration of copyright. In Golan v. Gonzales, the section was challenged as a violation of the Copyright and Patent clause (Article I, §8, Clause 8) as well as the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. In a 6-2 vote, the majority opinion by Justice Ginsberg found that section 104A, as amended by section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act in 1994, is constitutional and did not exceed Congress’ authority under the Copyright Clause.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne), which took effect in 1886, is the principal accord governing international copyright relations. Berne’s 164 member states agree to provide a minimum level of copyright protection and to treat authors from other member countries as well as they treat their own. Of central importance in this case, Article 18 of Berne requires countries to protect the works of other member states unless the works’ copyright term has expired in either the country where protection is claimed or the country of origin. A different system of transnational copyright protection long prevailed in this country. Throughout most of the 20th century, the only foreign authors eligible for Copyright Act protection were those whose countries granted reciprocal rights to American authors and whose works were printed in the United States. Despite Article 18, when the United States joined Berne in 1989, it did not protect any foreign works lodged in the U. S. public domain, many of them works never protected here. In 1994, howev- er, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights mandated implementation of Berne’s first 21 articles, on pain of enforcement by the World Trade Organization.
In response, Congress applied the term of protection available to U. S. works to preexisting works from Berne member countries. Sec- tion 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) grants copyright protection to works protected in their country of origin, but lacking protection in the United States for any of three reasons: The United States did not protect works from the country of origin at the time of publication; the United States did not protect sound record- ings fixed before 1972; or the author had not complied with certain U. S. statutory formalities. Works encompassed by §514 are granted the protection they would have enjoyed had the United States main- tained copyright relations with the author’s country or removed formalities incompatible with Berne. As a consequence of the barriers to U. S. copyright protection prior to §514’s enactment, foreign works “restored” to protection by the measure had entered the public do- main in this country. To cushion the impact of their placement in protected status, §514 provides ameliorating accommodations for parties who had exploited affected works before the URAA was enacted.
Petitioners are orchestra conductors, musicians, publishers, and others who formerly enjoyed free access to works §514 removed from the public domain. They maintain that Congress, in passing §514, exceeded its authority under the Copyright Clause and transgressed First Amendment limitations. The District Court granted the Attorney General’s motion for summary judgment. Affirming in part, the Tenth Circuit agreed that Congress had not offended the Copyright Clause, but concluded that §514 required further First Amendment inspection in light of Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U. S. 186. On remand, the District Court granted summary judgment to petitioners on the First Amendment claim, holding that §514’s constriction of the public domain was not justified by any of the asserted federal interests. The Tenth Circuit reversed, ruling that §514 was narrowly tailored to fit the important government aim of protecting U. S. copyright holders’ interests abroad.
1. Section 514 does not exceed Congress’ authority under the Copy- right Clause. Pp. 13–23.
(a) The text of the Copyright Clause does not exclude application of copyright protection to works in the public domain. Eldred is largely dispositive of petitioners’ claim that the Clause’s confinement of a copyright’s lifespan to a “limited Tim[e]” prevents the removal of works from the public domain. In Eldred, the Court upheld the Cop- yright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which extended, by 20 years, the terms of existing copyrights. The text of the Copyright Clause, the Court observed, contains no “command that a time prescription, once set, becomes forever ‘fixed’ or ‘inalterable,’ ” and the Court declined to infer any such command. 537 U. S., at 199. The construction peti- tioners tender here is similarly infirm. The terms afforded works re- stored by §514 are no less “limited” than those the CTEA lengthened. Nor had the “limited Tim[e]” already passed for the works at issue here—many of them works formerly denied any U. S. copyright protection —for a period of exclusivity must begin before it may end. Pe- titioners also urge that the Government’s position would allow Congress to legislate perpetual copyright terms by instituting successive “limited” terms as prior terms expire. But as in Eldred, such hypothetical misbehavior is far afield from this case. In aligning the United States with other nations bound by Berne, Congress can hardly be charged with a design to move stealthily toward a perpetual copyright regime. Pp. 13–15.
(b) Historical practice corroborates the Court’s reading of the Copy right Clause to permit the protection of previously unprotected works. In the Copyright Act of 1790, the First Congress protected works that had been freely reproducible under State copyright laws. Subsequent actions confirm that Congress has not understood the Copyright Clause to preclude protection for existing works. Several private bills restored the copyrights and patents of works and inventions previously in the public domain. Congress has also passed generally applicable legislation granting copyrights and patents to works and inventions that had lost protection. Pp. 15–19.
(d) Considered against this backdrop, §514 falls comfortably within Congress’ Copyright Clause authority. Congress had reason to believe that a well-functioning international copyright system would encourage the dissemination of existing and future works. And tes- timony informed Congress that full compliance with Berne would expand the foreign markets available to U. S. authors and invigorate protection against piracy of U. S. works abroad, thus benefitting copyright-intensive industries stateside and inducing greater investment in the creative process. This Court has no warrant to reject Congress’ rational judgment that exemplary adherence to Berne would serve the objectives of the Copyright Clause. Pp. 22–23.
(a) The pathmarking Eldred decision is again instructive. There, the Court held that the CTEA’s enlargement of a copyright’s duration did not offend the First Amendment’s freedom of expression guaran- tee. Recognizing that some restriction on expression is the inherent and intended effect of every grant of copyright, the Court observed that the Framers regarded copyright protection not simply as a limit on the manner in which expressive works may be used, but also as an “engine of free expression.” 537 U. S., at 219. The “traditional contours” of copyright protection, i.e., the “idea/expression dichotomy” and the “fair use” defense, moreover, serve as “built-in First Amendment accommodations.” Ibid. Given the speech-protective purposes and safeguards embraced by copyright law, there was no call for the heightened review sought in Eldred. The Court reaches the same conclusion here. Section 514 leaves undisturbed the idea/expression distinction and the fair use defense. Moreover, Congress adopted measures to ease the transition from a national scheme to an international copyright regime. Pp. 23–26.
(b) Petitioners claim that First Amendment interests of a higher order are at stake because they—unlike their Eldred counterparts— enjoyed “vested rights” in works that had already entered the public domain. Their contentions depend on an argument already consid- ered and rejected, namely, that the Constitution renders the public domain largely untouchable by Congress. Nothing in the historical record, subsequent congressional practice, or this Court’s jurisprudence warrants exceptional First Amendment solicitude for copyrighted works that were once in the public domain. Congress has several times adjusted copyright law to protect new categories of works as well as works previously in the public domain. Section 514, moreover, does not impose a blanket prohibition on public access. The question is whether would-be users of certain foreign works must pay for their desired use of the author’s expression, or else limit their exploitation to “fair use” of those works. By fully implementing Berne, Congress ensured that these works, like domestic and most other foreign works, would be governed by the same legal regime. Section 514 simply placed foreign works in the position they would have occupied if the current copyright regime had been in effect when those works were created and first published. Pp. 26–30.
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined. KA- GAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

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