On March 23, 2020, a unanimous, if slightly fractured, Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Cooper, 140 S. Ct. 994 (2020), that Congress did not properly abrogate sovereign immunity when it enacted the Copyright Remedy...more
A unanimous decision from the Supreme Court of the United States in Allen v. Cooper affirmed a previous ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and held that states cannot be sued for copyright infringement,...more
On March 23, 2020, in Allen v. Cooper, the Supreme Court held that Allen, who spent over two decades, photographing the shipwreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge, better known as the flagship for the pirate Blackbeard, cannot sue the...more
Edward Teach, more popularly known as Blackbeard, roamed the seven seas and terrorized merchant vessels off the U.S. and Caribbean coasts during the colonial period. He ultimately met his demise when the colony of Virginia...more
On March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state cannot be sued for copyright infringement because Congress lacked authority to abrogate the states’ immunity from copyright infringement suits when it enacted the...more
In a case where the subject matter (copyrights relating to footage of a salvaged pirate ship) is arguably more intriguing than the question presented, the Supreme Court held that a section of the Copyright Act allowing...more
The Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s decision upholding State sovereign immunity against claims of copyright infringement.[i] The case arose over Petitioner Allen’s suit against North Carolina’s...more
On March 23, 2020, in a decision containing not a small amount of whimsy (more regarding that aspect anon), Justice Kagan, joined almost unanimously by her brethren, upheld a State's ( North Carolina) sovereign immunity...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s busy intellectual property term (with six copyright and trademark cases) rolls on. On March 23, SCOTUS ruled in Allen v. Cooper, 589 U.S. ___, No. 18-877 (Mar. 23, 2020), that states, absent consent,...more
The Supreme Court held in Allen v. Cooper that legislation enacted by Congress revoking the sovereign immunity of states for acts of copyright infringement is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court reasoned that Article 1 of the...more
In June 2019, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Allen v. Cooper, No. 18-877. The case presents a question “whether Congress validly abrogated state sovereign immunity via the Copyright Remedy...more
The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in a sovereign immunity copyright case to consider the abrogation issue in the context of copyright law. Allen v. Cooper, Case No. 18-877 (S. Ct. June 5, 2019). ...more
On June 3, 2019, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Congress validly abrogated State sovereign immunity for copyright infringement claims by passing the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (“CRCA”), 17 U.S.C. §...more