Famous Music Copyright Cases Revisited: Ed Sheeran, Led Zeppelin, Katy Perry and More; Variety, April 27, 2023

 Thania Garcia, Variety; Famous Music Copyright Cases Revisited: Ed Sheeran, Led Zeppelin, Katy Perry and More

"To help better understand the nuances of a copyright infringement trial, Variety revisits five of the most talked-about intellectual property lawsuits against musicians and songwriters that actually went all the way to a verdict… (and, in the case of appeals and judicial reversals, sometimes much further still)."

Do AI images violate copyright? A lawyer explains the Stable Diffusion lawsuit; Boing Boing, January 23, 2023

MARK FRAUENFELDER, Boing Boing; Do AI images violate copyright? A lawyer explains the Stable Diffusion lawsuit

"Three artists have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against several AI art generators, including Stability.ai and Midjourney. The lawsuit alleges that the artists' copyright was violated when Stability.ai and other art generators trained their software using billions of images, which included copyrighted art created by the artists. 

In this video, attorney Jake Watson breaks down the arguments in the lawsuit and compares them to related lawsuits and court decisions. He thinks the AI art companies have a good fair use argument for using copyrighted images in its training data."

Sound familiar? Taking songwriters to court; CBS News, April 3, 2022

CBS News; Sound familiar? Taking songwriters to court

"Sound familiar? Taking songwriters to court

When two songs share a melody, some chords, or even just a vibe, can the songwriter be taken to court? Correspondent David Pogue looks at how music copyrights have become an increasingly disharmonious area of litigation."

How a Dracula Lawsuit Helped Create the Modern Vampire; CBR, April 2, 2022

 CARLOS T. LOPES, CBR; How a Dracula Lawsuit Helped Create the Modern Vampire

"Dracula and the elements that make a vampire didn't all come from Bram Stoker's novel. After Nosferatu first premiered in Germany, exactly 100 years ago, Florence Stoker, the author's widow, attempted to sue the filmmakers over a freely adapted script, later creating a copyright lawsuit nightmare that almost killed the movie. The aura around this subject fascinated audiences and artists, which created the lore that defines modern vampires today."

Supreme Court Clarifies That, Yes, You Have to Register Your Copyright, and No, You Cannot Recover Your Expert Witness Fees in Copyright Cases; Lexology, March 5, 2019

Squire Patton Boggs - Joseph A. Meckes and Theresa Rakocy, Lexology; Supreme Court Clarifies That, Yes, You Have to Register Your Copyright, and No, You Cannot Recover Your Expert Witness Fees in Copyright Cases 

"In a pair of unanimous rulings on March 4, 2019, the Supreme Court clarified (1) that the U.S. Copyright Office must issue a registration certificate before a plaintiff can commence suit and (2) that a prevailing plaintiff cannot recover fees for expert witnesses, jury consultants or other “costs” that are not specifically called for in the relevant statutes."

The Blurred Lines of Copyright Law Are Limiting Musical Creativity; The Recorder, Law.com, May 14, 2018

Christopher J. Buccafusco, The Recorder, Law.com; The Blurred Lines of Copyright Law Are Limiting Musical Creativity

"The real issue, however, is that pop musicians simply may be running out of creative space. And this problem is being exacerbated by the behaviors of what we might call “legacy” interests—parties who own copyright interests in already-created songs but who won’t be making any new music.

I have argued, with my colleagues Stefan Bechold and Christopher Sprigman, that any field of creative production has a certain “innovation space.” This space represents the world of possible solutions to a given creative problem. At the beginning of a field, whether sonata form or smartphone design, the innovation space is wide open. Anyone is free to do almost anything. Over time, however, portions of the innovation space get filled by intellectual property rights. The earliest creators fill up the innovation space with their copyrights and patents, limiting the options for newcomers. Newer creators are faced with a dilemma in which they must either find a portion of the innovation space that hasn’t been claimed or pay a license fee to one of their predecessors."

Copyright infringement lawsuits make Indy skyline photo worth a lot more than 1,000 words; IndyStar, May 8, 2018

Mark Alesia, IndyStar; Copyright infringement lawsuits make Indy skyline photo worth a lot more than 1,000 words

"There have been about 200 infringement cases, including two judgments of $150,000 apiece in Bell's favor. Usually, companies or their liability insurance settle the claim. Those who don't settle or don't respond will become part of his steady stream of copyright infringement lawsuits in federal court in Indianapolis. 

Just in higher education, Bell has gone after Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Indianapolis and Marian University. Even the University of Washington.

"It happened to be a professor on the University of Washington staff that used it," Bell said. "He was promoting a conference he was having in Indianapolis.""

Sci-Hub’s cache of pirated papers is so big, subscription journals are doomed, data analyst suggests; Science, July 27, 2017

Lindsay McKenzie, Science; Sci-Hub’s cache of pirated papers is so big, subscription journals are doomed, data analyst suggests

"Q: What were the main findings of your study? 

A: The most simple result was that Sci-Hub contains 69% of all scholarly articles. We also found that the site preferentially covers articles from closed-access publishers and high-impact journals. [Editor’s Note: A breakdown can be found here.] I think it's interesting that Elsevier and the American Chemical Society had some of the highest coverage and those are the publishers that have sued Sci-Hub. Maybe they realized that basically their entire corpus was in Sci-Hub. There were a lot of journals where Sci-Hub has every single article.

Q: What about the other 31%?

A: Just because an article isn’t in Sci-Hub’s database, that doesn’t mean it can’t get it for you. We estimated that Sci-Hub was able to fulfill requests 99% of the time—that suggests the 31% of articles that aren’t covered by Sci-Hub are things that people really aren’t requesting."

Is the threat of a copyright lawsuit stifling music?; BBC News, July 12, 2017

Chi Chi Izundu, BBC News; Is the threat of a copyright lawsuit stifling music?

"You would be hard-pushed to find a musician in the charts whose work hasn't taken inspiration from their idols and contemporaries.

Now though, music experts have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme that artists are being advised not to mention publicly who has inspired them.

This is because of a high-profile copyright infringement case in which US jurors ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, on their song Blurred Lines, had copied Marvin Gaye's Got To Give It Up."

Who owns your ink? Tattoos artists turn to lawsuits to protect intellectual property; Australian Broadcasting Company, 10/26/16

Antony Funnell, Australian Broadcasting Company; Who owns your ink? Tattoos artists turn to lawsuits to protect intellectual property:

"Professor Johnson said she had never heard of a situation where a judge has ordered the physical removal of a tattoo. Most disputes are resolved before the need for court intervention.

"Oftentimes when there is a lawsuit, they settle very quickly because the tattoo artist a lot of times doesn't have much to lose. They are very, very interested in getting justice," she said.

"But we do have a lot of settlement talks, a lot of negotiations where people are trying to figure out how to agree in this particular capacity."

Her advice for anyone thinking of getting a tattoo in this modern litigious world?

"Get a release very early. Get a contract signed between you as the tattooed individual and the tattoo artist," she said.

"That is one of the best things an individual can do if they find themselves running afoul of some copyright-related claim, some type of contract.""

Cassandra Clare Created a Fantasy Realm and Aims to Maintain Her Rule; New York Times, 4/23/16

Penelope Green, New York Times; Cassandra Clare Created a Fantasy Realm and Aims to Maintain Her Rule:

"These high stakes may be why so many young-adult and fantasy authors find themselves ensnared by lawsuits.

In February, Ms. Clare was sued for copyright infringement, among other charges, by Sherrilyn Kenyon, an American young-adult author who writes an urban fantasy series about demon killers named Dark-Hunters. Ms. Clare’s lawyer, John R. Cahill, said he expected the suit to be dismissed and issued a statement that read, in part, “The lawsuit failed to identify a single instance of actual copying or plagiarism by Cassie.”

But the dispute puts Ms. Clare in good company: Ms. Meyer; Rick Riordan, another successful author who drew from Greek mythology when he created his young-adult series; and Ms. Rowling have all been sued for plagiarism, often more than once."

'Dumb and Dumber To' Piracy Leads to Copyright Lawsuits (Exclusive); Hollywood Reporter, 2/13/15

Hollywood Reporter; 'Dumb and Dumber To' Piracy Leads to Copyright Lawsuits (Exclusive) :

"The rights-holder of Dumb and Dumber To, last year's sequel starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, is the latest to jump aboard the legal stratagem of suing anonymous users of BitTorrent for sharing copyrighted work.

At least five lawsuits were filed in Oregon federal court on Thursday with "Does" and their IP addresses listed as defendants. In court papers, the rights-holder says that the film is currently one of the top 10 most downloaded movies though BitTorrent and with over 1,000 IP addresses from Oregon alone. The plaintiff says it is seeking relief because it is "suffering notable and irreparable harm though piracy."

The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site; New Yorker, 5/15/14

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Jay Z sued by TufAmerica over alleged copyright infringement; Guardian, 11/8/13

Guardian; Jay Z sued by TufAmerica over alleged copyright infringement: "Jay Z is being sued for allegedly sampling Eddie Bo's 1969 single Hook and Sling – Part 1 without permission. TufAmerica, the label representing Bo, claims that the sample appears in Jay Z's 2009 single Run This Town, which also featured Rihanna and co-producer Kanye West... TufAmerica has a history of suing over copyright infringement, with claims filed against the Beastie Boys, Christina Aguilera and West."

Digital Notes: Grooveshark Wins a Battle, But Can It Win the War?; New York Times, 7/11/12

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Digital Notes: Grooveshark Wins a Battle, But Can It Win the War? :

"Grooveshark, an online service that streams millions of songs free, is fighting for its life in multiple lawsuits filed against it by the major powers of the business...

This week, Grooveshark’s parent company, Escape Media Group, won a glimmer of hope with a court decision that undercut one of the Universal Music Group’s two copyright infringement cases against it, and also opened the door for it to countersue the label for what could be millions of dollars in damages."

Google Begins to Scale Back Its Scanning of Books From University Libraries; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/9/12

Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education; Google Begins to Scale Back Its Scanning of Books From University Libraries:

"Google has been quietly slowing down its book-scanning work with partner libraries, according to librarians involved with the vast Google Books digitization project. But what that means for the company's long-term investment in the work remains unclear."

In Twist, Jeff Koons Claims Rights to ‘Balloon Dogs; New York Times, 1/20/11

Kate Taylor, New York Times; In Twist, Jeff Koons Claims Rights to ‘Balloon Dogs'" :

"The artist Jeff Koons has developed a distinctive style, and made a lot of money, by appropriating pop-culture imagery and mass-produced objects, from inflatable toys to vacuum cleaners and kitschy greeting cards. Over his three-decade career that approach, while helping to make him famous, has also brought accusations of exploiting other people’s copyrighted images. He has been sued for copyright violation four times, losing three of the cases...

Andy Warhol, for example, often used other people’s photographs as sources for his paintings, prompting complaints from several photographers; the disputes were settled out of court. But today the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts vigorously protects its copyrights when it comes to commercial merchandise.

If “you decide to create a calendar with a bunch of well-known Andy Warhol images,” Mr. Landes said, “you’re going to be sued for sure.”"

Courts to Rule on Fan - Created Music Videos; Reuters via New York Times, 1/15/10

Reuters via New York Times; Courts to Rule on Fan - Created Music Videos:

"More than a decade after the launch of Napster, the recording industry's complicated legal relationship with Web-savvy music fans seems no closer to resolution. But a number of cases winding their way through the courts may bring a bit of clarity in 2010 to one particularly fuzzy area of the law: fan-created online videos that contain music.

The major labels have all worked out deals with YouTube to split ad revenue with the site after a user uploads a music video. But considering that labels don't issue explicit licenses to users and YouTube continues to warn against uploading copyrighted material, it isn't clear whether the labels actually want fans to upload their music in the first place. Meanwhile, other copyright owners who don't have deals with YouTube, such as Viacom and music publisher Bourne, are still pursuing copyright infringement suits against the video-sharing giant...

FEW PRECEDENTS

There is surprisingly little case law on this topic. In September, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled against Universal Music Group in its infringement suit against Veoh.com, saying the video-sharing site was protected by the DMCA. But that case isn't binding on a New York federal court, and UMG is appealing. And in a case involving peer-to-peer site isoHunt, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in December that safe harbors are simply unavailable to sites that "induce" infringement.

The other major legal question in the EMI suit is whether lip dubs and similar mash-ups of amateur and professional content are infringing. Copyright reform activists argue that they're examples of fair use tolerated under copyright law as an accommodation to noncommercial, transformative creativity. Of course EMI will point out that, whatever the motivation of the amateur lib-dubber, Vimeo is anything but "noncommercial."

Sources familiar with the labels' thinking on the issue acknowledge these videos' promotional value, but they also note that other video-sharing sites like YouTube have struck deals with the labels and dismiss the notion that copyright owners should forgo a revenue stream simply because it also promotes their artists.

Elsewhere, Stephanie Lenz is still battling UMG over its takedown of a video she had uploaded to YouTube of her toddler son dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." Lenz wants damages for the removal of a video she considers an obvious fair use; UMG maintains it acted in good faith to protect its copyright. And Don Henley's suit against U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R-Calif.) over the use of "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" in "parody" political videos is moving forward in federal court in Santa Ana, Calif.

U.S. courts have yet to provide clear guidance regarding the legality of pairing copyrighted music with amateur video and then broadcasting it to the world. That may finally change in 2010."

http://tv.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/15/arts/entertainment-us-copyright.html?scp=6&sq=copyright&st=cse

Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books; New York Times, 12/13/09

Motoko Rich, New York Times; Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books:

"William Styron may have been one of the leading literary lions of recent decades, but his books are not selling much these days. Now his family has a plan to lure digital-age readers with e-book versions of titles like “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and Mr. Styron’s memoir of depression, “Darkness Visible.”

But the question of exactly who owns the electronic rights to such older titles is in dispute, making it a rising source of conflict in one of the publishing industry’s last remaining areas of growth.

Mr. Styron’s family believes it retains the rights, since the books were first published before e-books existed. Random House, Mr. Styron’s longtime publisher, says it owns those rights, and it is determined to secure its place — and continuing profits — in the Kindle era.

The discussions about the digital fate of Mr. Styron’s work are similar to the negotiations playing out across the book industry as publishers hustle to capture the rights to release e-book versions of so-called backlist books. Indeed, the same new e-book venture Mr. Styron’s family hopes to use has run into similar resistance from the print publisher of “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller.

On Friday, Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, sent a letter to dozens of literary agents, writing that the company’s older agreements gave it “the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats.”

Backlist titles, which continue to be reprinted long after their initial release, are crucial to publishing houses because of their promise of lucrative revenue year after year. But authors and agents are particularly concerned that traditional publishers are not offering sufficient royalties on e-book editions, which they point out are cheaper for publishers to produce. Some are considering taking their digital rights elsewhere, which could deal a financial blow to the hobbled publishing industry.

The tussle over who owns the electronic rights — and how much the authors should earn in digital royalties — potentially puts into play works by authors like Ralph Ellison and John Updike.

Some publishers have already made agreements with authors or their estates to release digital editions. All of Ernest Hemingway’s books, for example, are available in electronic versions from his print publisher, Scribner, a unit of Simon & Schuster.

But with only a small fraction of the thousands of books in print available in e-book form, there are many titles to be fought over.

“This is a wide open frontier right now,” said Maja Thomas, senior vice president for digital and audio publishing at the Hachette Book Group.

While most traditional publishers have included e-book rights in new author contracts for 15 years, many titles were originally published before e-books were explicitly included in contracts.

And with electronic readers like the Kindle from Amazon and the Nook from Barnes & Noble attracting new readers and sales of e-books growing exponentially, authors and publishers are trying to figure out how best to harness the new technology...

There is some precedent for arguments over e-book versions of backlist titles. In 2002, Random House sued RosettaBooks, an e-book publisher, for copyright infringement when Rosetta signed contracts with authors — including Mr. Styron — to release digital versions of previously published novels.

In its suit, Random House relied on wording in its contracts that granted it all rights to publish the works “in book form.” In its letter to agents on Friday, Random House invoked the same wording to defend its right to publish e-books of backlist titles.

In 2002, a federal judge in Manhattan denied Random House’s request for a preliminary injunction against RosettaBooks, ruling that “in book form” did not automatically include e-books. An appellate court similarly denied Random House’s request.

The case never went to trial. In a settlement, Random House granted Rosetta a license to release e-book versions of 51 titles. Under a different agreement with Mr. Styron, Rosetta also published two of his books, though its license to do so has since expired.

Agents say some authors and their estates are seeking alternative routes for e-books in part because they are dissatisfied with the digital royalty rate offered by most traditional publishers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/media/13ebooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=e-books&st=cse

Minn woman who lost music-share suit gets replay; YahooNews.com, 6/13/09

Steve Karnowski, AP Writer, via YahooNews.com; Minn woman who lost music-share suit gets replay:

"The Minnesota woman who became the nation's only music file-sharing defendant so far to go to trial is getting a replay two years after losing the case.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four and self-described "huge music fan," will be armed with aggressive new lawyers when her retrial begins in federal court here Monday.

The lawsuit is among the last vestiges of an anti-piracy campaign that the recording industry ultimately dropped amid widespread criticism. The Recording Industry Association of America said in December it had stopped filing lawsuits like these and would work instead with Internet service providers to cut access to those it deems illegal file-sharers. But the recording industry plans to proceed with cases that are already filed.

Thomas-Rasset is the rare defendant who has fought back.

Music companies have filed more than 30,000 similar copyright lawsuits in recent years against people they accused of illegally swapping songs through Internet file-sharing services such as Kazaa. None of the others has made it to trial yet.

Faced with huge legal bills, most settled for an average of about $3,500, even if they insisted they had done nothing wrong. Thomas-Rasset's new lawyer, K.A.D. Camara, notes the settlements add up to more than $100 million; the RIAA contends its legal costs exceeded the settlement money it brought in.

The lawsuits have turned into a public relations nightmare for the recording industry, putting music companies in the position of going after their most ardent fans...

Corryne McSherry, a staff attorney with the digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new defense team is taking a creative approach. She said it would have been interesting to see how all the cases that settled might have turned out if those defendants had free lawyers who were willing to push as hard.

"This case could end up being the tail end of a frankly shameful and certainly failed campaign to go after users," McSherry said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090613/ap_en_ot/us_tec_music_downloading