Source: http://www.internetlibrary.com/topics/copyright.cfm
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 23:45:00+00:00

Document:
Philip Ahn v. Midway Manufacturing, et al.
Plaintiffs, whose videotaped movements served as models for software defendants created for Mortal Kombat games, held not to be joint authors of software under Copyright Act because, inter alia, the source code which reduced this software to a form of fixed tangible expression was created solely by defendants. Such claim was also barred by an agreement between the parties, pursuant to which plaintiffs granted defendants all rights they had in the copyright of the images in question. The court further held that defendants' use of these images did not violate plaintiffs' common law right of publicity, as such claims were preempted by the Federal Copyright Act.
CoStar Group, Inc., et al. v. LoopNet Inc.
Fourth Circuit holds that web site operator is not guilty of direct copyright infringement as a result of the posting on its site by third parties of images of commercial real estate in which plaintiffs hold the copyright. In reaching this result, the Court reaffirms the validity of Religious Technology Center v. Netcom, which holds that a party must engage in "volitional conduct" that contributes to the infringement to be liable for direct copyright infringement.
Importantly, the Court reached this result notwithstanding the fact that defendant's involvement in the posting of images to its site was not completely passive - rather defendant conducted a limited screening of all images presented by third parties to determine if they should be posted, eliminating those that either 1) exhibited obvious evidence of copyright infringement (such as a copyright notice in someone other than the poster) or 2) did not depict commercial real estate.
In a strong dissent, Circuit Judge Gregory argued that because of this gatekeeping activity, defendant's actions were not passive and thus were not entitled to protection under Netcom. According to Judge Gregory, Netcom protects a defendant only when its involvement in the copying of copyrighted work is passive, and the automatic result of the operation of its facilities by a third party.
Jerry Greenberg v. National Geographic Society, et al.
The 11th Circuit holds that pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Section 201(c), the republication of 1200 National Geographic magazines in a 30 disc cd-rom set titled ‘the Complete National Geographic’ is a permitted revision of those collective works for which the National Geographic, the owner of the copyright therein, does not need additional license or permission from plaintiff, the owner of the copyright in various photos contained in these magazines. The fact that this cd-rom set also contained a new 25 second video montage of the covers of 10 of the magazines it contained did not alter this conclusion. In reaching this result, the 11th Circuit followed the decisions of the Second Circuit in Faulkner v. Nat’l Geographic Society, 409 F.3d 26 (2d Cir.) cert denied – US --, 126 S.Ct. 833 (2005) and the Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001). The 11th Circuit accordingly reversed its prior contrary decision, and remanded the case to the District Court for further consideration of plaintiff’s claim that the inclusion of one of his photographs in a magazine cover contained in this new 25 second montage infringed his copyright therein.
The court's ruling that this represented a fair use was based predominantly on its determination that defendant's use was "transformative" of and "very different" from the original work. Said the court: "Plaintiff's photographs are artistic works used for illustrative purposes. Defendant's visual search engine is designed to catalog and improve access to images on the Internet. The character of the thumbnail index is not esthetic, but functional; its purpose is not to be artistic, but to be comprehensive."
Defendant's separation of the image from its copyright management information did not constitute a violation of Section 1202(b)(3) of the DMCA, because defendant did not have reasonable grounds to believe such separation would cause copyright infringement. The court reached this conclusion because defendant posted warnings on its site concerning the possibility of use restrictions, and referred the user to the originating web site, which could be visited via a provided link, to ascertain any applicable restrictions before copying. What made the images vulnerable to copying, according to the court, was their display by plaintiff on a web site.
Court issues preliminary injunction, enjoining defendant from continuing to manufacture and sell Smartek microchips for use in connection with plaintiff's toner cartridges. Defendant's chips contain software that circumvents authentication procedures installed by plaintiff in its own toner cartridges, which authentication procedures prevent use of unauthorized cartridges in printers manufactured by plaintiff. These chips also contain a copy of Toner Loading software programs in which plaintiff holds a copyright, which programs are used in the operation of the printer. In issuing this injunction, the Court finds that plaintiff is likely to prevail on its claim that defendant's conduct infringed plaintiff's copyright in its Toner Loading Programs, as well as on its claim that defendant's chips are products which circumvent technological measures used by plaintiff to restrict access to its copyrighted works in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
9th Circuit held computer repair company guilty of copyright infringement, as a result of its use of computer's operating software resident on the customer's computer to display the computer's system error log for the purpose of aiding repair. To cause the customer's computer to display such software, the software was retrieved from the client's computer storage system, and placed in the computer's Random Access Memory ("RAM"). Such constituted the creation of a copy of the software. As this use was unauthorized by the plaintiff, the manufacturer of the computer being repaired, it was held to constititue copyright infringement.
Plaintiffs were permitted to copy court decisions published by West in a series of compilations, because the changes West made to those decisions, including the addition of parallel citations and the subsequent history of the case, together with the identification of the judge and attorneys involved in the action, and correction of citation errors, were insufficient to create a derivative work protectable under copyright law. The plaintiffs did not, nor did the court permit, the copying of West's key number head note system.
Bret Michaels v. Internet Entertainment Group, Inc.
Court enjoined Internet Entertainment Group ("IEG") from distributing on its adult-oriented subscription website a video tape depicting plaintiff and Pamela Anderson Lee engaging in sexual activity. Such dissemination would infringe plaintiff's and Ms. Lee's copyright in the video, as well as violate their rights of publicity and privacy. In so holding, the court rejected IEG's claim that, for $16,500, it had purchased a non-exclusive license to display the video. This claim was disproven by statements from both plaintiff and Ms. Lee that they had not conveyed such license, by evidence that plaintiff had rejected a $1 million dollar offer to grant such a license and finally, by evidence that the alleged source of this license admitted that he did not have (and therefore could not convey) a right to distribute the tape. The Court also held that IEG could not display small excerpts or stills from the video under the guise of the fair use doctrine.
Mist-On Systems, Inc. v. Gilley's European Tan Spa, et al.
Court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed copyright infringement claim brought by plaintiff, who asserted that defendants had copied a series of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) found on plaintiff's website. The court held that a comparison of the parties' respective FAQs did not support plaintiff's contention of copying. While there were similarities between the FAQs, they arose from the fact that the parties each created their FAQs to answer factual questions about their respective tanning products, which were themselves similar. These similarities were not the product of copying. As neither the ideas and facts presented in these FAQs nor the FAQ format itself could be copyrighted, plaintiff's copyright infringement claim failed. The balance of plaintiff's claims - unfair competition and trademark infringement arising from the same alleged copying - were dismissed on preemption grounds.
New York Times Co., Inc., et al. v. Tasini, et al.
The Supreme Court holds that The New York Times and various other publishers, by licensing all of the content of various editions of their newspapers and magazines to operators of electronic databases, which in turn permit users to search those databases for, and retrieve individual articles that appeared in such newspapers and magazines, violated the copyrights possessed in such articles by the freelance authors thereof. The Supreme Court held that Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act does not provide either the Times or other publishers who are parties to this litigation with the right to so license their publications, because the databases at issue reproduce the individual articles separate and apart from the collective work in which the publishers hold a copyright.
Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l Inc.
The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that both laws and the judicial opinions of the courts are not copyrightable. As such, the Fifth Circuit directed the dismissal of copyright infringement claims brought by the Southern Building Code Congress International ("SBCCI") arising out of plaintiff's posting on his not-for-profit website of model building codes authored by the SBCCI and adopted as law by two Texas municipalities. Plaintiff had obtained a CD-Rom from SBCCI, and copied the building code it contained onto his website. The Court held that the building code, once adopted as law, became a "fact" no longer subject to the protection of copyright. As there was only one way to express the "idea" represented by the code, that expression, as found in the SBCCI's CD-Rom, was not subject to the protection of the copyright statutes, and its copying could not, therefore, give rise to a copyright infringement claim. This result, held the court, was mandated by appropriate application of the merger doctrine. Finally, the court held that the SBCCI maintained its copyright in the model building codes it authored until such time, as any, as the code became enacted into law.

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