Musician Miley Cyrus, record label RCA Records, and songwriter Michael May (a/k/a Flourgon) settled the parties’ dispute over Cyrus’s hit song “We Can’t Stop.” Flourgon alleged Cyrus’s hit unlawfully infringed copyrighted material in his previously recorded song “We Run Things.” What does the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 (the “Copyright Act”) provide regarding music, and what damages are available to the owner of an infringed copyright? The Basics of Copyright Law As discussed in Lindley Law’s prior blog post, a copyright protects an original work of authorship “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” “Copyright” is not a single right, in the literal sense. Instead, it refers to…
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FREDERICK ALLEN and NAUTILUS PRODUCTIONS, LLC v. ROY A. COOPER, III, et al.: a Battle over Piracy and Sunken Treasure
The plaintiffs in Frederick L. Allen and Nautilus Productions, LLC v. Roy A. Cooper, III,, et al., a four-year civil lawsuit over the rights to video and photographic footage of the recovery of the wreckage of the Queen Anne’s Revenge (the ship captained by the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard), recently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking the United States Supreme Court to rule on the dispute. The History of the Queen Anne’s Revenge In the early eighteenth century, Blackbeard commandeered the slave ship La Concorde, renaming it the Queen Anne’s Revenge and captaining the ship for years near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. …
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NO MORE COURT TIME FOR JORDAN “JUMPMAN” COPYRIGHT DISPUTE
Is there a better time than March Madness to talk about basketball? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a claim by photographer Jacobus Rentmeester that sports apparel company Nike infringed a copyright owned by Rentmeester. The Plaintiff created this photograph – Michael Jordan airborne dunking a basketball – for a Life magazine article covering athletes who would soon feature in the 1984 Olympic Games. Jordan, then a student-athlete at the University of North Carolina, would go on to play for the United States Men’s Basketball Team in the Olympics that summer. Nike later utilized a similar photograph of Jordan to create its…
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This Suit is Bananas – Halloween Edition
Halloween is just around the corner and if you or your kids are planning on going to a party or trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, you’ve probably already purchased costumes. Afterall, Halloween is a booming business for retailers and Americans will spend around $3.4 billion on costumes this year. If you purchased a banana suit from Kmart this year, you might be frightened to learn that a costume company, Rasta Imposta, sued Kmart over that very banana suit. Never fear, Kmart is the one that might be on the hook, not you. Rasta Imposta filed a complaint in federal court last month alleging copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and unfair…