Source: http://the1709blog.blogspot.ca/2016/11/
Timestamp: 2017-04-27 07:13:15
Document Index: 358086454

Matched Legal Cases: ['CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU\n', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ']

Richard Prince was sued on November 16 by yet another
photographer over the use of a photograph in his New Portraits series. The
case is Eric McNatt v. Richard Prince,
1:16-cv-08896, Southern District of New York (SDNY). Readers of this blog may remember that Richard Prince used
various photographs protected by copyright to create his New Portraits exhibition. He had commented, cryptically, or
nonsensically, whatever your mood is, below several photographs which had been
uploaded by others on Instagram. He then printed the results on canvas to
create a series of works, New Portraits,
which has been shown in New York. Prince has been sued by some of the copyright
holders of the original works (see here
One of these cases, Donald Graham v.
Prince, is still pending at the SDNY. This time, it is photographer Eric McNatt who is suing
Richard Prince and the Blum and Poe Gallery for copyright infringement. The
complaint alleges that Richard Prince reproduced a photograph taken
by Plaintiff of Kim Gordon, a founding member and bassist of Sonic Youth, by
downloading it from the web, where it had been published with a copyright
notice, and uploading it on his own Instagram account. Prince has since deleted
this account. Prince then wrote three lines of comments under the photograph: “Portrait of Kim Gordon,” then “Kool Thang You
Make My Heart Sang You Make Everythang Groovy” and finally added a string of
music-related emojis. This Instagram post and
its comments was then printed and added to the New Portraits exhibition, which was shown in
the spring of 2015 by the Blum & Poe gallery in Tokyo and featured in
of the exhibition. Will TCA Television Corp. v. McCollum
Influence the Outcome of this Case? The Donald Graham v.
Richard Prince case is still pending at the SDNY. On November 4, attorneys
for Donald Graham sent a letter to Judge
Sidney Stein from the SDNY, who is presiding over the case, to alert him of the
recent TCA Television Corp. v. McCollum
Second Circuit case (2nd Circ. Oct. 11, 2016), which, in their view,
“undermines Defendants ‘motion to dismiss
on fair use grounds.” In TCA Television Corp.,
the author of the play Hand of God had
been sued by the heirs of Abbot and Costello over the use of their famous “Who’s on First” routine. The main
character of the play recites the routine verbatim
in the play with his trusty (but evil) sock puppet acting as sidekick. Judge
Daniels from the SDNY had dismissed
the copyright infringement suit, finding the use of the routine in the play to
be fair use. The Second Circuit affirmed,
but on alternative grounds: the use of the routine was not transformative
enough to be fair use, but the heirs had not proven that they owned the
copyright in the routine. Attorneys for Prince sent their own letter a few days
later, where they argued that the holding in TCA Television is distinguishable from the case, that the TCA Television case is not even related
to fair use and that thus “the entire
discussion of fair use is dicta.” They also argue that the Second Circuit
did not find the use of the routine to be fair because, according to the Court,
“the extent of defendants’ taking is identically
comedic to that of the original authors, that is, to have two performers expand
on a singular joke in order to generate increasing audience laughter.” Attorneys for Prince also argued in the letter, that, “[b]y
contrast, Prince used Graham’s photograph for a highly transformative purpose:
as a commentary on social media. This new meaning and message is apparent to
any reasonable observer who looks at the artwork. “Prince’s attorneys also
argued that “Prince’s transformative
purpose [was] to provide a commentary on social media
[and thus] required the incorporation of the entire Instagram post… to accomplish that purpose. “
McNatt Photograph Transformative Enough to be Fair Use? What is transformative use? We still do not have a “so
transformative it is fair use” test. However, the TCA Television case may influence the McNatt v. Prince case. If we consider that Prince’s purpose for
reproducing Eric McNatt’s photograph of Kim Gordon was to comment on social
media, as claimed by Prince’s attorneys in the Graham v. Prince case, then it is fair use under Cariou if Prince added something
materially new or provided a different aesthetic. The Second Circuit had found
in Cariou v. Prince that Prince’s use
of Cariou’s photographs was fair use, because he had used them to create new
works and had “employ[ed] new
aesthetics with creative and communicative results distinct from Cariou.” Judge Daniels from the SDNY had found in TCA
Television that the use of the routine was fair use, explaining that “[t]he
contrast between Jason's seemingly
soft-spoken personality and the actual outrageousness of his inner nature,
which he expresses through the sock puppet, is, among other things, a darkly
comedic critique of the social norms governing a small town in the Bible Belt.
Thus, Defendants' use of part of the
Routine is not an attempt to usurp plaintiffs’ material in order to "avoid
the drudgery in working up something fresh." Campbell, 510 U.S. at 580,
114 S.Ct. 1164. Nor is the original performance of the [r]outine "merely
repackaged or republished." Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, 755 F.3d
87, 97 (2d Cir.2014).”
The Second Circuit found that the use was not fair because
it had not transformed the routine's aesthetic, it had appropriated the routine
extensively, and “[n]o new dramatic purpose was served by so much
copying” and “there is nothing transformative
about using an original work in the manner it was made to be used.”
If we apply this to our case, then Prince must prove that he
used the original work in a different manner than it was made to be used. Should
we only look at the comments written by Prince to decide if the use is
transformative enough to be fair, or at the ensemble, work and comments? In
both ways, the Prince’s work could be considered fair use if proven to be a critique
on the desperate banality of social media and social media comments. But is it?
As noted by the Complaint, “Kool Thang You Make My Heart Sang You make Everythang Groovy” is “a
transliteration of lyrics to the 1960 song “Wild Thing,”written by Chip Taylor, except that the word “Kool” replaces the word
“Wild.” “Kool Thing” is the title of
Sonic Youths first major label record single.” As itself, this comment may
not be original enough to be protected by copyright yet it is more creative
than most social media comments. The emojis chosen by Prince, however, are quite
banal and so their banality may comment on banality. Pass the aspirin. Image is courtesy of Flickr user torbakhopper under a CC BY 2.0 license. Posted by
Eric McNatt v. Prince,
Ruchard Prince,
TCA Television v. McCollum
Earlier this month the appeal to The Football Association Premier League Limited v Anthony William Luxton was dismissed. In the latest case against publicans who use foreign decoder cards, the Court maintained the distinction between the lawful enforcement of intellectual property rights from any alleged anti-competitive agreements between FAPL and foreign broadcasters to restrict the supply of foreign commercial cards outside the territory in which that broadcaster operates. Background: In 2014, summary judgment was awarded against Mr Anthony Luxton, who used a satellite card from a Danish broadcaster to show football matches to customers who frequented his public house in Swansea. Despite Mrs Justice Rose expressing concern that the status quo of territorial protection in relation to broadcast licences appeared to be maintained notwithstanding the previous ruling of the CJEU in Premier League v. QC Leisure, she held that, as QC Leisure had effectively decided the plea in this defence, FAPL had a right to prevent the unauthorised communication of its copyright (see here for previous coverage on the High Court case). Court of Appeal:
While the Court did not agree that the QC Leisure case had conclusively decided this case, the decision to dismiss the appeal was based on similar reasoning. Lord Justice Floyd did not agree with Luxton that the proceedings were an illicit attempt by FAPL to prevent the use of foreign decoders cards as they were entitled to prevent a domestic card from being used for commercial purposes (nothing to show FAPL would only enforce if foreign domestic). In addition, it was held that use of the foreign domestic card was not a direct consequence of FAPL practices or agreements with foreign broadcasters, and at most it only provided the occasion for such use. Due to this insufficient link between Luxton’s infringement of FAPL’s copyright and the alleged anti-competitive practices the appeal was dismissed. http://the1709blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/murphys-law-of-licensing.html
FAPL v Luxton,
Pre 1972,
The CJEU decision in Soulier: what does it mean for laws other than the French one on out-of-print books? As reported by the IPKat through a breaking news post, yesterday the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its decision in Soulier and Doke, C-301/15. This is a further updated posted by Eleonora Rosati on the IPKat on the same case, and one we though we shoukd share in the 1709 Blog.
As explained more at length here, by introducing into the French Code de la propriété intellectuelle (CPI) a new chapter [Chapter IV - Articles L 134-1 to L 134-9, subsequently amended] to Title III of Book I, this piece of legislation has vested approved collecting societies with the right to authorise the reproduction and the representation in digital form of out-of-print books, while allowing the authors of those books, or their successors in title, to oppose or put an end to that practice subject to certain conditions. More specifically, the relevant implementing decree has established a legal framework intended to encourage the digital exploitation of works reproduced in books published in France before 1 January 2001 which are no longer commercially distributed by a publisher and are not published in print or digital format. In that case the right to authorise the reproduction or performance of those books in digital format is exercised, six months after their registration in a publicly accessible database for which the National Library of France is responsible, by collecting societies approved to do so by the Ministry of Culture.
The other authorat the centre of the case:Sara Doke
The most straightforward consequence of this is that [para 34], subject to the exceptions and limitations laid down exhaustively in Article 5, any use of a work carried out by a third party without such prior consent (of the author) must be regarded as infringing copyright in that work. The form and substance of consent
The Court also added that the InfoSoc Directive does not prohibit Member States from granting certain rights or certain benefits to third parties, such as publishers, as long as those rights and benefits do not harm the rights which that directive gives exclusively to authors. When the author of a work decides to put an end to the future exploitation of that work in a digital format, that right must be capable of being exercised:
Yesterday’s decision marked an important moment in CJEU copyright jurisprudence. Any freedom left?
Secondly, although not referring explicitly to the notion of EU preemption [on which see also here], the CJEU fully embraced it. In this sense, there is no gap between the CJEU judgment and the AG Opinion [paras 55-57], which rejects the view that the national legislation at issue would not affect the protection of copyright because it simply constitutes an arrangement for managing certain rights which the InfoSoc Directive does not preclude. What matters - for both the CJEU and the AG - is whether authors have had the possibility to express their individual consent. From a practical perspective
In light of all this one may wonder whether another piece of French legislation, ie the law on freedom of creation, architecture and cultural heritage, is against EU law. As this blog reported, among other things this introduced new provisions [Articles L 136-1 to 136-4] into the CPI to regulate the exercise of the exclusive rights of reproduction and representation vis-à-vis automated image referencing services. Article 136-2(1) CPI clarifies that the publication of a plastic artwork, graphic or photographic work by an online communication service is subject to the consent - not of authors - but rather one or more collecting societies appointed to this end by the French Ministry of Culture. It would appear that an author only has the right to indicate which collecting society would undertake this task (lacking such indication, then a presumption would operate in favour of a designated collecting society), but not also authorise the relevant collecting society to authorise the making of acts restricted by copyright.
On a similar note, as suggested by Sylvie Nérisson on the Kluwer Copyright Blog at the time of the AG Opinon, also certain national licensing schemes - including systems of extended collective licensing - may fall short of what EU law requires in terms of authors' consent. All in all ... a subtle message from the CJEU
"Member States shall provide that when a collective management organisation, on behalf of its members, concludes a non-exclusive licence for non-commercial purposes with a cultural heritage institution for the digitisation, distribution, communication to the public or making available of out-of-commerce works or other subject-matter permanently in the collection of the institution, such a non-exclusive licence may be extended or presumed to apply to rightholders of the same category as those covered by the licence who are not represented by the collective management organisation, provided that: (a) the collective management organisation is, on the basis of mandates from rightholders, broadly representative of rightholders in the category of works or other subject-matter and of the rights which are the subject of the licence; (b) equal treatment is guaranteed to all rightholders in relation to the terms of the licence; (c) all rightholders may at any time object to their works or other subject-matter being deemed to be out of commerce and exclude the application of the licence to their works or other subject-matter."
In all this, yesterday's CJEU decision does not necessarily mean the end for all these sorts of initiatives - whether at the national or EU levels. However, what is (now?) required is a more careful approach by relevant legislators to ensure that the principles established at the level of the InfoSoc Directive and elaborated further in yesterday's CJEU decision are fully respected. As a final note - although the CJEU did not bring fundamental rights into the picture this time - as I also discussed here, these may matter in a situation in which authors are deprived of their ability to authorise the making of acts restricted by copyright. In fact, it may be argued that all this could amount to a deprivation of authors' fundamental right to intellectual property protection, as per Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. --Posted By Eleonora Rosati to The IPKat on 11/17/2016 09:35:00 am
C-301/15,
Soulier and Doke