Source: https://copyrightlitigation.blogspot.com/2013/09/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:51:55+00:00

Document:
Copyright Law - Second Circuit - Will Ghost Rider Renewal Rights Come Back to Haunt Disney At Trial?
According to plaintiff, in 1971 Gary Friedrich conceived of and wrote a synopsis of an original story featuring a flame-skulled character clad in leather on a motorcycle called Ghost Rider. Working with Marvel, Friedrich worked with an artist to flesh out and publish a comic book based on the character. According to Marvel’s version, Friedrich merely presented Marvel with uncopyrightable ideas in 1971. Because Marvel raised triable issues of fact, the Second Circuit remanded for a trial on the issue of ownership. Additionally, in 1978, Marvel asked Friedrich to execute a “work for hire” agreement. The issue in this action is if Friedrich was the sole author or a joint author, then who owns the renewal rights? Did the 1978 assignment convey Friedrich’s renewal rights in the pre-existing Ghost Rider character to Marvel? The district court granted summary judgment awarding copyright ownership to Marvel. The Second Circuit vacated and remanded for trial. The Second Circuit characterized the operative facts governing ownership of Ghost Rider as “heavily disputed”. The Second Circuit found the 1978 work-for-hire agreement to be ambiguous and the extrinsic evidence not to be clear as to the parties’ intent. Additionally, the Second Circuit found Marvel’s evidence going to the statute of limitations issue to also be disputed. Under the Copyright Act, where copyright ownership has been repudiated, a true owner generally has three years to sue. Marvel claimed that it repudiated Friedrich’s copyright ownership claim, publicly, privately and through implied repudiation. The Second Circuit did not find Marvel’s copyright notice in the 1971 comic book to be a public repudiation of any renewal rights. The Court found that Marvel did not expressly repudiate renewal rights until it wrote a letter in 2004, within three years of the action, making Friedrich’s claims timely. Finally, the court found the evidence of implied repudiation to be unpersuasive.
To read Judges Winter, Chin, and Droney's decision, click here.
Copyright Law - Second Circuit - Is A Picture Of A House The Same Thing As A House?
Scholz Design, Inc. v. Sard Custom Homes, LLC, 691 F.3d 182 (2d Cir. 2012).
The district court dismissed a claim for copyright infringement based on copying of architectural drawings created in 1988 and 1989 pursuant to a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court reasoned that because the drawings contained insufficient detail from which to construct a building and because the drawings pre-dated the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (“AWCPA”), the drawings were unprotected by copyright. The Second Circuit reversed, finding that the drawings were original pictorial works subject to copyright and had been exactly copied and published on Defendants’ website. Because the claim was not based on protections granted by the AWCPA but on protections in the Copyright Act generally covering pictorial works, the plaintiff had stated a valid claim.
To read Judges Leval, Sack, and Hall's decision, click here.
Copyright Law - Second Circuit - Is It Copyright Infringement If You Play It In Russian?
Russian Entertainment Wholesale, Inc. v. Close-Up International, Inc., 2012 WL 1525080 (2d Cir. 2012).
Where licensee had licensed “Russian language only” or “English language only” rights to distribute Russian language films in the United States, could the licensor claim copyright infringements over production of DVDs with multilingual functionality? The Second Circuit found the answer in New York contract law. The parties could have agreed that functionality in DVDs that permitted subtitles or other languages could have been disabled, but did not agree to do so. Additionally, facilitating viewers watching a video with an added or missing language did not rise to contributory or vicarious copyright infringement as a matter of law.
To read Judges Calabresi, Raggi and Chin's summary order and judgment, click here.
Copyright Law - Fourth Circuit - Throwing The Book At A Tattoo Parlor?
Tattoo artist created images for tattoo stencils and inspirations for tattoo designs and licensed them to tattoo parlor. Images were compiled in 24 books of 50 sheets, each of which contained several images. License covered a number of years with royalty payments and minimum guarantee. Parlor breached by failing to pay and account for royalties. Following termination of license agreement, parlor recolored the images and continued to use, sell and reproduce the images. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s award of damages for breach of contract and failure to pay royalties of $18,000. In addition, the trial court found each of the 24 books to be a “compilation copyright” because only one copyright registration was filed for each book. Accordingly, for the period following the termination of the license agreement, the Court affirmed the trial court’s allowance 24 awards statutory damages per registered compilation for a total additional award of $480,000. The Court rejected appellant’s argument that the Copyright Act required an election of remedies between actual and statutory damages where actual damages occurred during the license period and statutory damages covered only post-termination infringements.
To read Judges Traxler, Wilkinson, and Agee's decision, click here.
Copyright Law - First Circuit - Can You Prove You Own That Song?
Latin American Music Co., Inc. v. Media Power Group, Inc., 705 F.3d 34 (1st Cir. 2013).
Music licensing organization asserted copyright infringement claims against “Radio Isla” in Puerto Rico. The district court found collateral estoppel on certain songs barred some claims that LAMCO had previously litigated and lost. Other ownership claims were submitted to the jury, some after the district court had ruled on summary judgment at trial. LAMCO lost on all claims, and appealed the district court’s referral of the ownership issue to the jury. Because the pretrial order asserted that ownership was a contested issue at trial and because LAMCO did not object to a special jury verdict form that asked the jury to decide the question, the ownership issue was properly before the court. On several songs, the First Circuit affirmed LAMCO’s claims for failure to prove registration. Instead of proving copyright registration of individual songs, LAMCO’s registration certificates only reflected a recording of an assignment to rights in the songs. Accordingly, it was held that this was insufficient proof of a registration of the copyright in the underlying works.
Click here to read Judges Torruella, Howard, and Thompson's decision.
Copyright Law - Sixth Circuit - Is Hearsay Admissible To Prove An Ancient Work-For-Hire?
Brumley v. Albert E. Brumley and Sons, Inc., --- F.3d --- (2013), 2013 WL 4105842 (6th Cir. 2013).
Songwriter Albert Brumley began writing and composing “I’ll Fly Away” in 1928 or 1929. In 1932, the Hartford Music Co. secured the copyright by publishing it in a songbook. In 1947, the songwriter’s eponymous Albert E. Brumley and Sons, Inc. purchased Hartford’s assets. Songwriter said in a 1977 interview recorded with his son that he sold the rights to “I’ll Fly Away” for three dollars. Newspaper articles from 1977 and 1986 said that the songwriter was a salaried employee of Hartford. The district court granted a pre-trial motion in limine and admitted the songwriter’s son’s 1977 recorded interview with his father under the residual exception to the hearsay rule. Fed. R. Evid. 807. Also on the motion in limine, the district court then excluded the newspaper articles, even though the articles would have been admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 803(16)(ancient documents) and Fed. R. Evid. 902(6)(self-authenticating newspapers and periodicals), applying Fed. R. Evid. 403 (relevance) because the newspaper articles did not note the basis for the author’s statements therein. With respect to the trial court’s admission of the sound recording, the Sixth Circuit noted that this was a question of first impression. The Sixth Circuit upheld the admissibility of the recording under the residual exception to the hearsay rule and concluded that the recording had the “requisite guarantees of trustworthiness”. With respect to the newspaper articles, the Sixth Circuit reversed. The newspaper articles were properly admissible as self-authenticating and ancient documents under Rules 902 and 803(16) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The evidentiary weight of the challenged articles should have been left to the discretion of the jury.
To read Judges Keith, Martin, and Cole's decision, click here.
Copyright Law - First Circuit - Is A $675,000 Judgment Against A Student For Downloading and Distributing Thirty Songs Constitutionally Excessive?
SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, 719 F.3d 67 (1st Cir. 2013).
From 1999 through 2007, Tenenbaum downloaded as many as five thousand songs. In discovery, he lied about his activities and tried to blame burglars and a foster child. Thirty violations were proven at trial and the jury awarded Sony $22,500 for each violation (15% of the statutory maximum) for a total of $675,000. The district court accepted the argument that the award was so excessive as to violate Tenenbaum’s right to due process, relying on a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that an excessive award of punitive damages can violate due process and reduced the award to $67,500. Sony appealed and obtained a vacate and remand. On remand, the district court found that the award did not violate due process. Tenenbaum appealed. On this appeal, the First Circuit found that an award of statutory, as opposed to punitive damages, violates due process only “where the penalty prescribed is so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable.” Three key factors are to be considered in determining whether an award is constitutionally excessive. First, the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct; Second, the ratio of the punitive award to the actual or potential harm suffered by the plaintiff; and Third, the disparity between the punitive award issued by the jury and the civil or criminal penalties authorized in comparable cases. The First Circuit applied Supreme Court precedent that permits Congress to link statutory damages to the “public wrong” that the statute was designed to address and rejected the district court’s linking of statutory damages to actual damages, particularly given the difficulty of proving actual damages in a copyright infringement case. Accordingly, the award of $675,000 was held to be constitutionally permissible.
To read Judges Lynch, Torruella, and Howard's decision, click here.
Copyright Law - Second Circuit - Are Google's Book Snippets Fair Use?
Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 2013 WL 3286232 (2d Cir. 2013).
The Authors Guild and several individual authors sued Google for its “Google Books” tool. The Google Books tool was developed by copying millions of books without authorization of the copyright owners and displaying “snippets” of the books to persons searching the internet. The district judge certified a proposed class of copyright owners pursuant to Rule 23.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Google appealed. On this appeal, the Second Circuit vacated and remanded for a consideration of Google’s defense of fair use. Google persuaded the Second Circuit that a fair use analysis would inform and perhaps moot the Court’s consideration of class certification issues including those relating to the commonality of plaintiff’s injuries, the typicality of their claims, and the predominance of common questions of law or fact.
To read Judges Leval, Cabranes, and Parker's decision, click here.

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