The Briefing: Supreme Court Holds Copyright Damages Can Go Beyond 3 Years (Podcast)
SCOTUS applies the "discovery rule" in timely copyright infringement claim; Cher wins in Marital Settlement Agreement vs Copyright Grant Termination Notices; Student Athletes Win Revenue Share and NIL
Podcast: The Briefing - Court Rejects Post-Warhol Fair Use Defense in Photographer’s Copyright Lawsuit
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - What Now for Fair Use After Warhol v. Goldsmith
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: What Now for Fair Use After Warhol v. Goldsmith
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - The Essential Purpose of the Short Form Copyright Assignment (Archive)
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Miami Dolphins Coach Gets Sacked on Motion to Dismiss
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - Miami Dolphins Coach Gets Sacked on Motion to Dismiss
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - SCOTUS Issues First IP Ruling of 2022 in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Maurits, LP
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: SCOTUS Issues First IP Ruling of 2022 in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Maurits, LP
Podcast - The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: A Spooky Copyright Decision for Producers of Friday the 13th Franchise
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: A Spooky Copyright Decision for Producers of Friday the 13th Franchise
Jones Day Talks: Women in IP: The Supreme Court's "Copyright Day"
Managing Legal Risks as a Start-up
On May 9, 2024, the Supreme Court in Warner Chappell, Music Inc. v. Nealy settled a longstanding circuit split and ruled 6-3 that the Copyright Act entitles a copyright owner to recover damages for any timely claim, no matter...more
The 1970s were the heyday of the now-extinct television genre known as the variety show: a weekly extravaganza headlined by a well-known entertainer, generally accompanied by a supporting cast of singers, dancers and...more
Thank you for reading the February 2024 issue of Sterne Kessler's MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we discuss the advertising rights of luxury resellers and important updates to the Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy...more
On February 21, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. et al. v. Nealy et al. The case involves whether plaintiff music producer Sherman Nealy may recover damages for...more
On September 29, 2023, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, a case that should resolve a split among the U.S. Courts of Appeal relating to the scope of damages available to copyright...more
Addressing for the first time whether California law establishes a right of public performance for the owners of pre-1972 sound recordings, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found no such right for music and...more
On March 9, 2020, Led Zeppelin won a major copyright battle over claims that they stole part of their signature song “Stairway to Heaven.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling en banc, upheld a 2016 jury verdict that...more
On December 12, 2018, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s ruling favoring several major record company plaintiffs in a copyright infringement case against a digital music resale site. Defendant...more
So you’ve already written and recorded a song and determined who owns it, but now what can you as an owner do with it? What rights in the song do you have, that no one else does? The owner of the copyright in a work has...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in reversing a grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants, found that digitally remastered pre-1972 sound recordings were not entitled to protection under federal law as...more
As we reported this spring, the “Music Modernization Act” (MMA) working through Congress avowed to bring the royalty determination formula for digital music services into the 21st Century. In April, the House of...more
We are pleased to introduce a new blog series. Music Law 101 will be a recurring bi-weekly series consisting of posts covering a wide variety of legal topics relevant to artists, musicians, songwriters, producers, and others...more
As we promised in our prior post, we have an update on the “Music Modernization Act” (MMA) that promises to advance copyright law governing digital transmissions of sound recordings into the 21st Century. In a rare act of...more
Musical scores incorporated into films are usually produced with the specific film in mind. In the U.S., we call such works “works made for hire,” meaning that the artist does not retain authorship rights to the music....more
The US Copyright Act of 1976 allows artists, writers, and musicians to “get back” grants of copyrights that had been previously licensed or assigned away. Specifically, artists can “terminate” their copyright arrangements...more
On December 20, 2016, the New York Court of Appeals (New York’s highest court) issued a landmark state copyright law decision, holding in response to a certified question from the Second Circuit in Flo & Eddie, Inc. v. Sirius...more
The Second Circuit recently decided Capitol Records, LLC, et al. v. Vimeo, LLC (2d Cir. June 16, 2016) (“Vimeo”), a landmark decision concerning the interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the...more
Copyright Opinions - Samples in Madonna's “Vogue” Too Trivial to Be Infringing: VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Ciccone, Nos. 13-57104, 14-55837 (9th Cir. June 2, 2016) - Graber, J. In a suit claiming infringement of both...more
Supreme Court: Status Quo in Cuozzo - Why it matters: On June 20, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee, where it rejected challenges to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes...more
Objective Reasonableness Must Receive “Substantial Weight” in Copyright Attorney-Fee Shifting Decisions:Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., No. 15-375 (U.S. June 16, 2016) - Kagan, J. In a unanimous decision, the...more
Copyright Opinions - Sixth Circuit Upholds Siblings' Termination of Brother's Copyright Assignment: Brumley v. Albert E. Brumley & Sons, Inc., No. 15-5429 (6th Cir. May 16, 2016) - Sutton, J. In a declaratory...more
The "Dancing Baby" Case—Ninth Circuit Rules That "Fair Use" Must First Be Considered Before Sending Takedown Notices Under the DMCA - Why it matters: On September 14, 2015, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Lenz v. Universal...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a suit brought by the sole beneficiary of the Ray Charles estate, concluding that the Ray Charles Foundation had standing to challenge...more
In a recent blog, I wrote about whether the U.S. Copyright Act’s work-made-for-hire doctrine applies to copyrights in sound recordings as that status affects artists’ termination rights in transfers. The responses I received...more
On July 31, 2015, the Ninth Circuit reversed the Central District of California’s dismissal of an action brought by the Ray Charles Foundation, seeking, among other things, a judicial determination of the validity and...more