Copyright - Sherman Library at Nova Southeastern University

We are all familiar with the way any fact can be "spun" in the media. In a recent case involving yet another courtroom tilt over BitTorrent file sharing, you could write as a headline:

COURT IMPOSES SANCTIONS ON COPYRIGHT TROLL MALIBU MEDIA!

Or you could write

MALIBU MEDIA DEFEATS APPEAL BY BITTORRENT DEFENDANT!

And both would be correct. On March 26, 2015, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued what looked to be an important ruling on the endless stream of litigation over BitTorrent file sharing. However, on closer examination, there are problems with the ruling that make its further application unclear. The case, Malibu Media v. Pelizzo,[ref]Malibu Media v. Pelizzo or 2015 WL 1346241[/ref] involved an appeal by a successful defendant in a BitTorrent lawsuit. He challenged the District Court Judge's determination that despite being the prevailing party, he was not entitled to have Malibu Media pay the attorneys' fees and costs he incurred in his successful defense. The plaintiff, Malibu Media, should be familiar to faithful readers of this blog.[ref]Copyright Infringement Litigation Over Bit Torrent File Sharing: Truth or Troll?[/ref] Malibu Media, an adult film company operating under the brand name "X-Art," files more copyright infringement lawsuits than any other person or corporation in the United States.[ref]Copyright Blog Update: Court of Appeals Rejects "Transformative Use" Test & Malibu Media Marches Along[/ref] As usual, Malibu Media used "geo-locater" technology to determine the location of an IP address that was using BitTorrent to download a "genuinely phenomenal number of films."[ref]Malibu Media v. Pelizzo, Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals 2015 WL 1346241[/ref] In response to a subpoena from Malibu Media, Pelizzo's internet service provider (ISP) identified Pelizzo as the person to whom that IP address was assigned. This was a unit owned by Pelizzo in a 700 unit condominium.[ref]Id.[/ref] Pelizzo denied the allegations, stating that while he owned the unit, he did not live there,[ref]Id.[/ref] and further alleged that he was out of the country when the infringements occurred, offering copies of his passport and visas as proof.[ref]Malibu Media v. Pelizzo, Order Overruling Defendants' Objections, Adopting Magistrate's Report and Recommendations, and Closing Case U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Case 1:12-cv-22768-PAS Document 58 Entered on FLSD Docket 03/28/2014 at page 4[/ref] Based upon this evidence, Malibu Media took the deposition of a representative of Hotwire, Pelizzo's ISP. It was at this deposition that it became apparent that the ISP had probably fingered the wrong person.[ref]Id. at 2[/ref] Malibu Media offered to dismiss the case. Pelizzo's attorney in turn demanded that Malibu Media pay $17,500 in accrued attorneys' fees to not oppose the motion for dismissal.[ref]Id.[/ref] From there, the case descended into what attorneys call a "pissing contest." This is when the egos of the legal counsel involved cause them to take hyper-aggressive or immovable positions, rather than move to a sensible resolution of the case. For Malibu Media's part, it was sending out volumes of discovery requests for a case that obviously needed to be dismissed.[ref]Malibu Media v. Pelizzo, Report and Recommendation RE: Defendants' Verified Motion for Attorneys fees and Costs U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Case 1:12-cv-22768-PAS Document 53 Entered on FLSD Docket 02/18/2014 at 4[/ref] For Pelizzo's part, it was refusing Malibu's offer to dismiss the case and pay $13,000 in attorneys' fees, instead demanding $24,000 in fees.[ref]Id. at 5[/ref] Malibu Media moved for a voluntary dismissal, which was granted with the Court retaining jurisdiction to consider the ward of attorneys' fees.[ref]Id.[/ref] Pelizzo filed a motion "seeking an award of fees against [Malibu Media] pursuant to the Copyright Act and/or an award of fees as a sanction against Plaintiff's counsel pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927."[ref]Id.[/ref] Unlike many parts of the world, where in civil litigation the loser is expected to pay the winner's attorneys' fees (the so-called "English rule"),[ref]English rule (attorney's fees)[/ref] in America, each side is expected to pay their own attorneys' fees regardless of who wins.[ref]Id.[/ref] The only exception to this is if there is "loser pays" language in a contract between the parties or there is language in a statute to that effect. The Copyright Act is one of those laws. Section 505 of the Copyright Act reads as follows: "In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorney's fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs." Note that the statute says "may," not "shall." This makes the award of attorneys' fees discretionary, not mandatory. In his Motion for Fees, Pelizzo advanced these theories:

"[Malibu Media] is motivated by the desire to extort settlements out of and funds from innocent internet users who, in order to avoid the embarrassment associated with being accused of infringing adult video content, are willing to pay [Malibu Media] to go away without regard to the merits of its case."[ref]Order Overruling Defendants' Objections, at 3[/ref]
The investigative techniques used by Malibu Media to identify infringers are inherently unreliable and the therefore the suit is frivolous.[ref]See generally Order Overruling Defendants' Objections, at 5, Report and Recommendation at 9[/ref]
"[Once Malibu Media] was provided with passport and visa documentation demonstrating that Mr. Pelizzo had not been in the United States for a range of dates including February 6, 2012, [their] claims became frivolous."[ref]Order Overruling Defendants' Objections, at 4[/ref]

In other words, Malibu Media is an evil "copyright troll" and deserves to be punished. Neither the Magistrate, nor the District Court Judge was buying any of it.

"[Pelizzo] has not directed the Court to any evidence that would support even an inference that [Malibu Media] filed this suit to shame [Pelizzo] into a pre-suit settlement. [Pelizzo] has not provided a single communication from [Malibu Media] wherein it sought to settle this matter in exchange for thousands of dollars either before or after filing suit."[ref]Report and Recommendation at 7[/ref]
"[It] remains unrefuted that someone using the IP address named in the pleadings infringed 14 movies a total of 337 times prior to the commencement of this suit and 25 movies a total of 549 times by the time the infringement ceased. (citation omitted) [Pelizzo] makes a half-hearted attempt to undermine the detection methods employed by IPP Limited, but those methods have been relied upon in hundreds of lawsuits across the country and by law enforcement to locate criminals."[ref]Report and Recommendation at 9[/ref] To that, the District Court Order added: "This conclusion is based upon the affidavit of a twenty-two year veteran of the Palm Beach County Sheriffs' Department. Eleven of Officer, and later Detective Paige's years with the Sheriffs' Department were spent in the computer crimes unit."[ref]Order Overruling Defendants' Objections, at 5[/ref]
"Expecting [Malibu Media] to immediately dismiss the lawsuit upon receipt of [Pelizzo's] affidavit explaining he was out of the country during the time of infringement is unrealistic. At a minimum, [Malibu Media] would have been well within its rights to test the veracity of [Pelizzo's] assertions through discovery. [Pelizzo] cites no authority for the proposition that the pursuit of this lawsuit became objectively unreasonable the moment [Pelizzo] came forward with potential exculpatory evidence. Further, the Court finds [Pelizzo's] assertion that [Malibu Media] should have dismissed this action immediately following Murphy's deposition on March 13, 2013, confounding since the record reflects that is exactly what [Malibu Media] attempted to do. It was only because of [Pelizzo's] demand for all of its costs and attorney's fees ($17,500) that the matter was not dismissed at that time."[ref]Report and Recommendation at 10[/ref]

The magistrate recommended that no "prevailing party" attorneys' fees be awarded to Pelizzo.[ref]Report and Recommendation at 16[/ref] However, Malibu Media did not get away scot-free. The magistrate found that Malibu Media had acted in a manner constituting "bad faith and a willful abuse of the judicial process"[ref]Report and Recommendation at 15[/ref] by "threatening protracted, future litigation"[ref]Id.[/ref] at a time when it was clear the matter should have been dismissed along with asking Pelizzo's attorney "to inform his client that he would be penniless at the conclusion of this case while also owing [Malibu Media] hundreds of thousands of dollars."[ref]Id.[/ref] While Pelizzo might have been thrilled about the stinging rebuke of Malibu Media's attorney, he was doubtlessly less thrilled with the amount awarded as a sanction, only $6,815.50,[ref]Report and Recommendation at 16[/ref] or about half of what he had been offered previously by Malibu Media to settle the matter. He filed objections to the Report and Recommendation of the magistrate. The District Court Judge denied all of his objections and adopted the findings of the magistrate. He appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals hoping for a better result. It was not forthcoming. In a terse and rather curious opinion, the Eleventh Circuit held the following:

"We find no abuse of discretion in the district court's conclusion under Section 505 and Fogerty that Malibu's subjective motivation for filing suit was not improper or that the suit was not frivolous, the first two Fogerty factors. To whomever the subject IP address was subscribed, it is undisputed that a genuinely phenomenal number of films was being downloaded using it."[ref]Malibu Media v. Pelizzo, Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals 2015 WL 1346241 at page 2[/ref]
"We also find no abuse of discretion in the district court's conclusion that Malibu, up to a point, acted in an objectively reasonable manner and in a manner that served the purposes of the Copyright Act: compensation and deterrence. (footnote omitted) Contrary to Pelizzo's assertion, Malibu could not have been expected simply to take his word for the fact that he had not infringed Malibu's copyrights, given the substantial evidence implicating Pelizzo."[ref]Id.[/ref]
"If Malibu's claims were properly brought and properly maintained, then they properly served the purposes of the Copyright Act."[ref]Id.[/ref]

This decision is curious for a number of reasons. First, the Court seems to be pulling its punches. Saying that the District Court did not "abuse its discretion" is not the same thing as holding that the District Court ruling was completely correct. This only means that the District Court did not make "a clear error in judgment."[ref]Id.[/ref] Second, the opinion of the Eleventh Circuit is marked "do not publish."[ref]Id. at 1[/ref] This is important as the decision is now not considered binding precedent that must be followed by District Courts within the Eleventh Circuit.[ref]FRAP 36. Entry of Judgment; Notice[/ref] Here is the text of the Eleventh Circuit rule: "11th Cir. R. 36-2 Unpublished Opinions. An opinion shall be unpublished unless a majority of the panel decides to publish it. Unpublished opinions are not considered binding precedent, but they may be cited as persuasive authority."[ref]Id.[/ref] This is significant. One of the main defense strategies in BitTorrent litigation is to attack how the Defendant is located and identified. "An IP address is not a person," is their mantra. Of course, this is correct, but the Plaintiff's response points out it can lead you to the correct person, and at least one Judge has observed that the films did not download themselves. Somebody had to be at the computer to make this happen. The District Court in Pelizzo found that the methodology was reliable and let the case go forward. As noted in my previous blog post, Judge Ursula Ungaro, a judge in the same District as the Pelizzo case was tried, takes the exact opposite position, namely "There is nothing that links the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing Plaintiff's videos and establishing whether that person lives in this District."[ref]Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe, Case no. 1:14-cv-20213-UU (Southern District of Florida)[/ref] This decision has been cited by many BitTorrent defendants in an effort to get their case dismissed at the outset. If the Pelizzo decision was published, it seems it would have the effect of over-ruling Judge Ungaro's position. Since it is unpublished, it can only be cited as persuasive precedent that her position is incorrect. So now the precedential value of the Eleventh Circuit decision has been reduced by quite a bit. If you are potentially a Plaintiff in a BitTorrent lawsuit, and you are going to file your case in the Southern District of Florida, whether your case will go forward or not depends entirely on which Judge that it lands in front of. A curious result indeed.

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The “Art of No Deal” Will Cost Trump Plenty in Copyright Infringement Case

On September 13, 2024, a Federal Court Judge issued summary judgement against Donald Trump and his campaign in the long running copyright infringement dispute with Barbadian based musician Eddy Grant over the Trump campaign’s use of Grant’s song “Electric Avenue” in a Trump campaign video. 1 I have been following this case for a long time and have blogged about it previously. 2 To anyone who read the Judge’s initial ruling on Trump’s Motion to Dismiss, the ruling against Trump should not be surprising. The only real surprise is why the case got this far.As I suggested in my previous blog post, the case should have quickly been settled. Yet for whatever reason, including Trump’s own pugnacious personality, it was not, and now it will cost him. According to the complaint, Grant is seeking $300,00 in statutory damages, the maximum for infringement of not only the song “Electric Avenue” but sound recording as well. 3 The attorney’s fees, for four years of litigation, will easily top the amount of damages. And Trump is personally liable for both amounts.“It’s everything we asked for,” one of Grant’s lawyers, Brett Van Benthysen, told Business Insider. “100%.” 4The real question is why litigate? This crops up time and time again in copyright cases, where copyright defendants take to the costly step of litigating such malleable issues as “fair use” when a simple settlement, or license fee for that matter, would resolve the issue once and for all and make it go away, for a lot less money. And for Trump, the result is the prospect of a very large judgment against him, creating a lot of negative publicity around him at a time when negative publicity is very much not in his best interest. To which we can add the recent injunction granted against Trump for his use of “Hold On, I’m Comin” and a lawsuit filed by The White Stripes over use of the song “Seven Nation Army.” 5As I noted three years ago:Many times, an [infringement claim] occurs when songs are used at campaign rallies. The composers feel that this is an implied endorsement. The campaigns usually rely on a license from the performing rights organizations. However, sometimes the use is in a campaign video, and since this is a “synchronization” use, it absolutely requires a license and absolutely requires permission, even in the internet age. 6To this, Trump trots out the same fair use argument that got pummeled in the Court’s rejection of his Motion to Dismiss. Indeed, large sections of the Court’s opinion on summary judgement could have been cut and pasted from its previous ruling. For the fine details of that ruling, I invite you to read my previous blog post. 7The only new matter Trump brings to the Court is the contention that the “Electric Avenue” sound recording was not properly registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.Interestingly enough, there is no discussion about whether the “Electric Avenue” sound recording had to be registered with the Copyright Office in the first place. Eddy Grant was born in Ghana, raised in the UK, and presently resides in Barbados, 8 and as such is protected by the Berne Convention.In that situation, according to the expert folks at the Copyright Alliance:“A foreign author may bring a copyright infringement action in a U.S. district court without registering his or her work with the U.S. Copyright Office. However, a foreign author must register his or her work with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to obtain certain statutory benefits that are provided under the 1976 Copyright Act, such as the presumption of validity and the ability to claim statutory damages and attorney’s fees in an infringement action.” 9So, Grant’s lawsuit would have been sustainable in any event. The real crux would be his ability to ask for statutory damages and attorneys fees, which he clearly is asking for.Now, while the song “Electric Avenue” was registered for copyright in the U.S. in 1983, 10 it does not appear that the sound recording was registered until many years later. “Electric Avenue” was recorded at Grant’s studio in Barbados and he is the sole musician on the recording, so the sound recording copyright unquestionably belongs to him. The sound recordings rights to “Electric Avenue” (amongst others) were licensed to Warner Music UK in 2001 for a five-year period, and for a territory which included the United States. 11 During this agreement, a “Greatest Hits” compilation was released which included “Electric Avenue.” This collection of sound recordings was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2002. 12 The license agreement expired in 2006, by which all rights reverted to Grant. 13For his part, Trump contends the “Greatest Hits” registration was insufficient to register the component part of “Electric Avenue.” All of these arguments fail.The Court cites to previous Second Circuit precedent that held:“a publisher that filed collective works copyright registrations for issues of its magazine would have thereby obtained copyright registration for…the articles contained in the issue if the publisher owned the copyrights for those articles.” 14The Court also notes that:“[Trump argues] that the registration for a collective work does not include the registration for any previously published part but have failed to point out any case that supports that position.” 15Not a good strategy.Also in his answer, Trump asserted that he had “absolute presidential immunity” from Grant’s lawsuit. 16 This argument was apparently so ridiculous that it didn’t even merit discussion in the summary judgement opinion.But once again, why litigate this issue when a quick settlement and a much smaller fee would have made the entire matter disappear from the public eye? Further, why not take the video down after the cease and desist letter? Why wait until a lawsuit is filed until the video is removed from the public eye?I’m not alone in this thought. As my colleague David Newhoff wrote at the Illusion of More website:“When I wrote about the Grant v. Trump copyright case on October 1, I was wrong about one thing: that Team Trump would quickly settle the matter as a relative storm in a teacup within the legal tornadoes swirling around the ex-president.” 17Even the website Torrent Freak wondered:“In an ideal world, the failure of Trump’s motion to dismiss in September 2021 should’ve been seen as an opportunity to settle the case privately.A very small slice of humble pie and some tea, perhaps, so that everyone could move on. Or even negotiating the terms of the settlement Grant offered in August 2020 before filing the lawsuit.” 18And as a high-profile individual that once published a book under his name about “The Art of the Deal,” Trump should have known that “The Art of No Deal” can be much costlier.Notes:Grant v. Trump 2024 WL 4179057 SDNY 2024 (citations are to the WestLaw pagination) ↩“Electric Avenue” Derails Trump Train ↩Donald Trump Loses ‘Electric Avenue’ Legal Battle With Eddy Grant; Jury Could Be Convened Over Compensation From Ex-POTUS – Update ↩Donald Trump loses legal fight over using Eddy Grant song without permission ↩Id. ↩“Electric Avenue” Derails Trump Train ↩“Electric Avenue” Derails Trump Train ↩Wikipedia – Eddy Grant ↩Are Foreign Creators Protected in the US? ↩Grant v. Trump at 1 ↩Id. at 2 ↩Id. ↩Grant v. Trump at 2 ↩Grant v. Trump at 3 ↩Grant v. Trump at 5 ↩Trump Claims “Absolute Immunity” in Eddy Grant Copyright Suit ↩Id. ↩Eddy Grant Wins: Trump’s ‘Fair Use’ of ‘Electric Avenue’ Was Anything But ↩...

Test

Many headlines were generated on September 24, 2021, when Marvel Characters, Inc. filed a series of lawsuits against many former Marvel Comics illustrators.1 The suits, filed in New York and Los Angeles, all have the same basic fact pattern and asked for the same relief. The suits sought a declaratory decree that the termination notices served on Marvel by the authors and heirs of the former Marvel illustrators were invalid. At stake are the characters Iron Man, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, Dr. Strange, Black Widow, Falcon, Thor and more.2When the Copyright Act was re-written, eventually enacted in 1976, for the first time, the right of an individual author to terminate a grant of copyright, and reclaim ownership, was added. But to make matters even more confusing, there were two different termination schemes enacted, one for post-1978 grants3 and one for pre-1978 grants.4 Yet, both systems have the same legal trap, the author cannot terminate a work that was prepared as a “work made for hire.” That is the central dispute in the suits that were filed. Yet, what constitutes a work made for hire after 1978, is largely governed by the Copyright Act. For pre-1978 works, it is largely a question of court decisions on the topic. Unfortunately for the Marvel illustrators, the case law does not favor their position.The case law on the subject indicates that a pre-1978 creative work is “made for hire” when it is prepared at the “instance and expense” of the hiring party. This is the rule in the Second, Ninth and Fifth Circuits, and cited as controlling by a Bankruptcy Court ruling involving, interestingly enough, Marvel Comics.5“If the employer can meet its burden to show some credible evidence that an employee worked at the ‘instance and expense’ of the employer, then the court will presume that the employer holds the copyright to the material produced.”6The Second Circuit defines “instance and expense” as “when the ‘motivating factor in producing the work was the employer who induced the creation.’”7The Fifth Circuit adds that another factor is “whether the employer had the right to direct and supervise the manner in which the work was being performed. Actual exercise of that right is not controlling, and copyright is vested in the employer who has no intention of overseeing the detailed activity of any employee hired for the very purpose of producing the material.”8According to the Second Circuit: “[t]he ‘expense’ component refers to the resources the hiring party invests in the creation of the work. We have, at least in some cases, continued the tradition of treating the incidents of a traditional employment relationship as relevant to the analysis. (Citation omitted) We have, moreover, suggested that the hiring party’s provision of tools, resources, or overhead may be controlling…In other cases, however, we seem to have focused mostly on the nature of payment: payment of a ‘sum certain’ suggests a work-for-hire arrangement; but ‘where the creator of a work receives royalties as payment, that method of payment generally weighs against finding a work-for-hire relationship.’”9The last quote is telling, as it came in a lawsuit bearing what Marvel calls “virtually identical circumstances,” Marvel Characters, Inc. against former Marvel illustrator Jack Kirby.That case described in detail “The Marvel Method”:“Under the Marvel Method, [Stan] Lee would not write a detailed script for a story before assigning an artist to draw it. Instead, at a ‘plotting conference,’ or in a ‘plot outline,’ Lee gave the artist the general contours of the story he had in mind: an outline of the plot, a description of the hero, and suggestions for how the story should look. The artist would draw the story along the lines of Lee’s ‘main theme.’ After an artist completed the pencil drawings, Lee edited his work and added dialogue and captions. Use of the Marvel Method allowed Lee to keep multiple artists working on assignments simultaneously.”10Here’s where it starts to get sticky. Stan Lee was certainly an employee of Marvel. Whatever his contributions to the creation of a character were certainly works for hire which would remain with Marvel. Even though individual authors can terminate individual author’s shares, the questions then become “who created what” and “is this still relevant today”?Let’s take Daredevil for example. His original costume was yellow. Who decided to change it to all red? So does the termination notice apply to “yellow” Daredevil or “red” Daredevil?Or let’s look at Iron Man, whose suit of armor and look have changed vastly over the years:Does the termination only apply to the original Iron Man? Who gets authorship over the changes? Or, let’s take on the character of Tony Stark. For the most part, Stark has been Iron Man. Sometimes Iron Man has been other characters, most notably James Rhodes.11This is important because despite termination, Marvel gets to keep the derivative versions of the character made while they held the copyright.12And then we get to the problems of proof on these issues. Stan Lee is dead. So are Gene Colan, Don Heck and Don Rico.13 Stan Lee was deposed extensively in the Jack Kirby litigation, but these may not have any bearing on the creation of Iron Man or Spider-Man. While it is true that Marvel as Plaintiff has the burden of proof, how are the various defendants going to introduce evidence to the contrary?Then there is the ruling on how “the Marvel Method” results in a decision of “work made for hire.”“In the work-for-hire context, ‘an essential element of the employer-employee relationship is the right of the employer to direct and supervise the manner in which the [artist] performs his work.’ (citation omitted) If the hiring party ‘took the initiative in engaging [the artist]’ and had ‘the power to accept, reject, or modify her work, then the work is a work for hire. (citation omitted) It is undisputed that at all times between 1958 and 1963 Lee had complete editorial and stylistic control over all work that Marvel published…. If Lee did not approve of the artist’s work, it was not published. (citation omitted) Kirby was no exception. Lee edited Kirby’s work and reviewed and approved all of his work prior to publication. (citation omitted) Lee’s testimony is consistent with the recollection of Kirby’s daughter, Susan Kirby, who testified that Lee asked her father to ‘redo pages.’ (citation omitted) Neal Kirby testified about one instance where Lee rejected a ‘cover’ created by Kirby.”14In affirming, the Second Circuit wrote:“Understood as products of this overarching relationship, Kirby’s works during this period were hardly self-directed projects in which he hoped Marvel, as one of several potential publishers, might have an interest; rather, he created the relevant works pursuant to Marvel’s assignment or with Marvel specifically in mind. Kirby’s ongoing partnership with Marvel, however unbalanced and under-remunerative to the artist, is therefore what induced Kirby’s creation of the works…Marvel’s inducement, right to supervise, exercise of that right, and creative contribution with respect to Kirby’s work during the relevant time period is more than enough to establish that the works were created at Marvel’s instance.”15As to the “expense” prong:“The facts underlying the expense component are not in dispute. Marvel paid Kirby a flat rate per page for those pages it accepted, and no royalties. It did not pay for Kirby’s supplies or provide him with office space. It was free to reject Kirby’s pages and pay him nothing for them. The record contains anecdotal evidence that Marvel did in fact reject Kirby’s work or require him to redo it on occasion, if less often than it did the work of other artists, but with what frequency is unclear… In the final analysis, then, the record suggests that both parties took on risks with respect to the works’ success—Kirby that he might occasionally not be paid for the labor and materials for certain pages, and Marvel that the pages it did pay for might not result in a successful comic book. But we think that Marvel’s payment of a flat rate and its contribution of both creative and production value, in light of the parties’ relationship as a whole, is enough to satisfy the expense requirement.”16Given that the facts surrounding the current dispute are bound to be the same, how does the Marvel illustrator’s cases succeed?According to the Marvel illustrator’s attorney, “At the core of these cases is an anachronistic and highly criticized interpretation of ‘work-made-for-hire’ under the 1909 Copyright Act that needs to be rectified.”17Except that in this instance the appellate court in both jurisdictions where the suits have been filed have both affirmed the “instance and expense” test.And if they succeed, what do they get? Certainly not total ownership of the copyrights at issue, since, as noted, Stan Lee was definitely an employee of Marvel. Co-ownership?Co-ownership of a copyright means all parties own the copyright equally. And being a co-owner means that you can license a work without the permission of the other co-owners, subject to your duty to account for all the compensation one would receive. Could this happen?Doubtful. The movie business is not like other businesses and thrives on exclusivity. Would a movie company really make a deal for one of the Marvel characters knowing that they would not have exclusive rights and that Disney would in essence be looking over their shoulder?All likely outcomes point to a settlement at some point. This is what happened to the Kirby case even after the affirmance by the Second Circuit.18Notes:The suits are Marvel Characters Inc. v Lieber, 21-cv-7955; Marvel Characters Inc. v Ditko, 21-cv-7957; and Marvel Characters Inc. v Dettwiler, 21-cv-7959, all in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan); Marvel Characters Inc. v Solo, 21-cv-5316, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York; and Marvel Characters Inc. v Hart-Rico, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles.)Marvel Suing to Keep Rights to ‘Avengers’ Characters From Copyright Termination, Marvel Sues to Prevent Losing Copyrights to ‘Avengers’ Characters, Disney sues former Marvel artists over Iron Man and Spider-Man rights17 USC 20317 USC 304(c)In Re: Marvel Entertainment Group 254 B.R. 817 (D. Del 2000)Id. at 828Sigel v. National Periodical Publications 508 F.2d 909 (2d. Cir.1974) at 914Murray v. Gelderman, 566 F.2d 1307, 1310 (5th Cir.1978) at 1310Marvel Characters Inc.v. Kirby 726 F.3d 119 (2d. Cir. 2013) at 140Marvel Worldwide v.Kirby 777 F.Supp. 2d 720 (SDNY 2011) at 732Wikipedia – Iron Man17 USC 304 (c) (6) (A)Disney sues former Marvel artists over Iron Man and Spider-Man rightsMarvel Worldwide v.Kirby 777 F.Supp. 2d 720 (SDNY 2011) at 740Marvel Characters Inc.v. Kirby 726 F.3d 119 (2d. Cir. 2013) at 141Id. at 142Disney sues former Marvel artists over Iron Man and Spider-Man rightsId....

Appellate Court Rules That “Sophisticated Plaintiffs” Are Entitled to Equal Protection Under the Copyright Laws

Appellate Court Rules That “Sophisticated Plaintiffs” Are Entitled to Equal Protection Under the Copyright LawsIt’s one of those principles that should not need to be debated: people are entitled to equal protection under the law. Yet strangely, one Federal Court went out of its way to penalize a litigant, because they were a “sophisticated copyright litigator” causing the dismissal of the case. Now, the Second Circuit has reversed this erroneous decision, stating “[t]here is no ‘sophisticated plaintiff’ exception to the discovery rule or to a defendant’s burden to plead and prove a statute of limitations defense.”The Plaintiff here is Michael Grecco Productions, Inc., the business arm of photographer Michael Grecco. In an appendix filed with the case, it was claimed that MGP had filed more than 100 copyright lawsuits. Why this matters is beyond me. Anyone with a clear mind knows that the internet is a cesspool of copyright infringing material, with photographers taking the brunt of the injuries. According to the website Torrent Freak, Google processed over one BILLION takedown notices in the first four months of 2024 alone. 2 One hundred lawsuits is not even a drop in the ocean.This legal squabble arises because the defendant here claims that MGP’s lawsuit was filed too late and thus barred by the statute of limitations under Section 507(b). The question arose as to the proper time using the “discovery” rule. The Court below ruled that MGP’s “relative sophistication as an experienced litigator in identifying and bringing causes of action for unauthorized uses of Grecco’s copyrighted works leads to the conclusion that it should have discovered, with the exercise of due diligence, ‘Davis’s alleged infringement ‘within the three-year limitations period.’” 3Rather than trying to amend its complaint, MGP stood by its original filing and the Court dismissed the case. MGP filed an appeal. The second Circuit made quick work of the District Court’s reasoning.“Although the district court claimed to apply the discovery rule, its calculation actually employed the injury rule; it started the three-year clock when the infringement allegedly began, while also implying that some extension of time might be available if MGP was unable to discover the infringement within those three years. In essence, the calculation incorrectly reflected the discovery rule as an equitable extension and not the rule of accrual.” 4“MGP filed its complaint on October 12, 2021. Thus, to be timely, MGP must have been unable, with the exercise of due diligence, to discover the infringing activity prior to October 12, 2018, three years before the complaint was filed. [Citation omitted] By contrast, the district court held that MGP “must have been unable, with the exercise of due diligence, to discover the infringing activity prior to August 16, 2020, three years after the infringing activity allegedly began.” 5“Although the district court claimed to apply the discovery rule, its calculation actually employed the injury rule; it started the three-year clock when the infringement allegedly began, while also implying that some extension of time might be available if MGP was unable to discover the infringement within those three years. In essence, the calculation incorrectly reflected the discovery rule as an equitable extension and not the rule of accrual.” 6In simpler terms, for purposes of the Copyright statute under the “discovery rule,” the three-year term runs from when the suit is filed and looks backward. Did the Plaintiff know, or with the exercise of due diligence, reasonably know, or should have known about the infringement more than three years from the date of filing of the lawsuit?And (in the words of Frank Zappa) here’s the crux of the biscuit: does the sophistication of the Plaintiff matter at all in assessing the “should have known” portion of the test? The answer is no.“In the context of the Copyright Act’s three-year limitations provision, the discovery rule is the rule of accrual, not an equitable tolling or estoppel doctrine. The discovery rule is not an exception to the injury rule that only applies to some infringement claims; it is not a benefit for which only some plaintiffs qualify. Rather, ‘the discovery rule, not the injury rule’ determines, in the first place, when a copyright infringement claim accrues.” 7“This ‘sophisticated plaintiff’ rationale has no mooring to our cases. First, to the extent this rationale arose out of treating the discovery rule as an equitable doctrine for which only some plaintiffs in some circumstances will qualify, it is wrong. As already noted, because we have previously determined that the discovery rule is Congress’s intended rule of accrual for civil actions under the Copyright Act, it is the rule in every such action and not an equitable exception to the injury rule.” 8“Second, to the extent the district court’s rationale recognizes the discovery rule as one of accrual, but nevertheless suggests different rules of accrual for different plaintiffs—the discovery rule for copyright holders not sophisticated in detecting and litigating infringements, but the injury rule for copyright holders who are—it also is wrong. We have never understood the Copyright Act to employ different rules of accrual for different plaintiffs. The Supreme Court has made clear that the Act’s “clock is a singular one.” 9“Third, even if the district court’s ‘sophisticated plaintiff’ rationale is merely a presumption that sophisticated plaintiffs can discover infringements immediately or nearly so, such that the date of earliest diligent discovery would always be the date of injury (or approximately so), the rationale remains flawed. A plaintiff’s ‘sophisticated’ nature does not automatically relieve a defendant of her burden to plead and prove a Copyright Act limitations defense… A sophisticated plaintiff may well discover an infringement sooner than their less practiced neighbor. But the answer to the discovery question turns on due diligence—the fact-intensive inquiry of the copyright holder’s efforts to discover the infringement. An overly simplified ‘sophisticated plaintiff’ presumption is antithetical to the nature of the task.” 10And there you go. Equal protection under the law.Notes:Michael Grecco Productions Inc. v. RADesign, Inc. 2024 WL 3836578, 2d Cir. Court of Appeals 2024 ↩Google Search Processed a Billion DMCA Takedowns in Four Months ↩Michael Grecco Productions Inc. at 2 ↩Id. at 4 ↩Id. ↩Id. ↩Id. ↩Id. at 5 ↩Id. ↩Id. ↩...

The Beat Goes On - and So Do the Royalty Payments

The late Sonny Bono now adds his name to another chapter of copyright law. The first, of course, was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, The Shocking Truth Behind the Passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension! (Is That It's Not Really Shocking) which extended copyright protections for an additional 20 years. Now, his name gets attached to a very novel copyright fight: can the copyright termination provisions of Section 304 trump the terms and conditions of a State marital property settlement agreement? The facts of the case are simple and largely not in dispute. Sonny Bono was half of the very popular 1960's musical group "Sonny and Cher,"[ref]Wikipedia - Sonny Bono[/ref] who in the 1970's had their own TV Variety Show.[ref]Wikipedia - Sonny Bono[/ref] After their divorce, Cher became the far more popular and successful of the duo and is better known to modern audiences than Sonny. Indeed, Cher is so popular that she is now legally known only as "Cher" as the headings to this case indicate.[ref]Cher v. Mary Bono LA Cv21-08157 JAK (RAO) U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Slip Opinion)[/ref] Sonny went into politics before dying in a skiing accident in 1998.[ref]Wikipedia - Sonny Bono[/ref] The epitaph on his gravestone is "And the Beat Goes On," a nod to Sonny and Cher's 1967 hit single "The Beat Goes On."[ref]The Beat Goes On (Sonny & Sher song)[/ref] As a result of their 1978 divorce, Sonny agreed that Cher would continue to receive "an undivided 50% interest" in the continuing royalties derived from sales and performances of their songs, less an administrative fee.[ref]Cher v. Mary Bono LA Cv21-08157 JAK (RAO) U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Slip Opinion)[/ref] In 2016, Sonny's widow Mary Bono served termination notices under section 304(c) of the Copyright Act to reclaim ownership of Sonny copyrights on "various music publishers to which Sonny had granted a transfer or license of copyright in musical compositions that had authored or co-authored."[ref]Id. at 2[/ref] When the termination notices took effect, Mary stopped paying the royalties to Cher and in 2021 informed her that she no longer was entitled to any further royalties under the Marital Settlement agreement.[ref]Id. at 2-3[/ref] Cher sued in 2021 for declaratory judgement that "the notice of termination does not affect her royalty rights or approval rights under the [Marital Settlement Agreement]."[ref]Id. at 9[/ref] Both sides moved for summary judgement. On May 29, 2024, the District Judge sided with Cher, ruling that the MSA entitled Cher to a royalty stream, not necessarily an ownership interest in the copyrights themselves to which Section 304(c) termination would apply. "Consequently, Plaintiff's rights under the MSA are linked to the musical compositions and Sonny's corresponding property interests. Because in granting the royalty and approval rights at issue, the MSA did not refer to a "grant of a transfer or license" of the underlying copyrights, Plaintiff's rights under the MSA arise solely under state law. Further, because section 304(c) expressly provides that it "in no way affects rights arising under any other Federal, State, or foreign laws" (Citation Omitted) the Notice of Termination cannot affect Plaintiff's contractual right to receive financial compensation in exchange for the release and permanent discharge of any and all claims arising out of her marital relationship with Sonny. Notwithstanding the plain language of the MSA, Defendant argues that, under 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(5), "[t]ermination of the grant may be effected notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, including an agreement to make a will or to make any future grant," and the MSA constitutes such an "agreement to the contrary." (citation omitted) However, the only rights that are terminable under section 304(c) are copyright grants. (citation omitted). Therefore, an "agreement to the contrary" under section 304(c)(5) is only a "contractual device that purports to divest" authors and successors of the right to "terminate copyright assignments." (citation omitted) Because the MSA does not refer to the underlying copyrights, it did not affect the ability of Sonny's heirs to terminate the copyrights. Therefore, it is not an "agreement to the contrary."[ref]Id. at 10-11[/ref] In rendering this decision, the Judge has side-stepped one of the more thorny issues of copyright law: marital community property. Under the laws of States that recognize "community property," all assets acquired during the marriage belong equally to the parties to the marriage. This would include all copyrights to works created by one of the spouses during the marriage. So here, absent an agreement, Cher would be a 50% owner of all of Sonny's copyrights due to the laws of community property. What the MSA agreement did was merely formalize this into an agreement where Sonny would keep 100% of the ownership of the copyrights, subject to Cher's right to receive 50% of all future income. If the Judge were to side with Mary Bono, it would mean that parties to a divorce proceeding could agree to a similar arrangement, only to have one party renege on that agreement years later, using the Copyright Act termination provisions of section 304. "The MSA … assigned to Plaintiff a right to the "contingent receipts ... from musical compositions and interests therein" in exchange for the release of "any and all claims ... arising out of the marital status of the parties." (citation omitted) Consequently, the conclusion "that an author-spouse in whom a copyright vests maintains exclusive managerial control of the copyright but that the economic benefits of the copyrighted work belong to the community while it exists and to the former spouses in indivision thereafter ... is consistent with both federal copyright law and [California] community property law and is reconcilable under both."[ref]Id. at 11[/ref] So, the beat goes on – and so do the royalty payments....

Truth or Troll Redux: The Curious Case of Malibu Media v. Pelizzo

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