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In 1982 Hobbs was working as a photographer on a Russian cruise ship where he had a brief affair with a Russian waitress. Based on the experience, he wrote a song, “Natasha” about an ill-fated romance between a man from the U.K. and a Ukrainian woman. In 1983, he registered his copyright to “Natasha” in the United Kingdom and sent the song to several music publishers, including a company that published songs composed by Elton John and Bernard Taupin. Hobbs’s efforts to find a publisher for “Natasha” were unsuccessful. In 1985, Elton John released his very successful song, “Nikita,” in which a singer from “the west” describes his love for Nikita, whom the singer saw “by the wall” and who is on the other side of a “line” held in by “guns and gates.” Hobbs filed a copyright infringement claim 27 years later. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the songs were not substantially similar. The Copyright Act does not protect general ideas, such as a romance between a western man and a woman from behind the iron curtain, but only the particular expression of an idea. View “Hobbs v. John” on Justia Law

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In 1982 Hobbs was working as a photographer on a Russian cruise ship where he had a brief affair with a Russian waitress. Based on the experience, he wrote a song, “Natasha” about an ill-fated romance between a man from the U.K. and a Ukrainian woman. In 1983, he registered his copyright to “Natasha” in the United Kingdom and sent the song to several music publishers, including a company that published songs composed by Elton John and Bernard Taupin. Hobbs’s efforts to find a publisher for “Natasha” were unsuccessful. In 1985, Elton John released his very successful song, “Nikita,” in which a singer from “the west” describes his love for Nikita, whom the singer saw “by the wall” and who is on the other side of a “line” held in by “guns and gates.” Hobbs filed a copyright infringement claim 27 years later. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the songs were not substantially similar. The Copyright Act does not protect general ideas, such as a romance between a western man and a woman from behind the iron curtain, but only the particular expression of an idea. View “Hobbs v. John” on Justia Law

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In 2006 Vince P, wrote, recorded, and distributed a song entitled Stronger. The title comes from a line in its refrain that draws from an aphorism coined by Friedrich Nietzsche: “what does not kill me makes me stronger.” Vince P began looking for an executive producer in the hip-hop recording industry and sent a recording to Monopoly, a business manager and friend of Kanye West, a hip-hop superstar. Monopoly agreed to be Vince P’s producer, so long as Vince P was funded by a record label. That funding never materialized and the proposed collaboration foundered. Shortly thereafter, Kanye West released a song entitled Stronger. West’s song also features a hook that repeats the Nietzschean maxim and, according to Vince P, other suspicious similarities to his song. Vince P tried to contact West, but he was turned away by West’s representatives. In response, Vince P registered a copyright for his version of Stronger and sued West. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The two songs are not similar enough to support a finding that copyright infringement has occurred under 17 U.S.C. 106(1); the songs share only “cosmetic similarities.” View “Peters v. West” on Justia Law

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Flava, which specializes in production and distribution of videos of black men engaged in homosexual acts, obtained a preliminary injunction against myVidster, an online social bookmarking service by which people refer sites to those with similar tastes, based on a finding that myVidster is a contributory infringer. The Seventh Circuit vacated the injunction. A Flava customer is authorized only to download the video for his personal use. If instead he uploaded it to the Internet and so by doing so created a copy (because the downloaded video remains in his computer), he was infringing. The court remanded for determination of whether myVidster was a contributory infringer if a visitor to its website bookmarks the video and later someone clicks on the bookmark and views the video. View “Flava Works, Inc v. Marques Rondale Gunter, et al” on Justia Law

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An episode of the animated television show, South Park, entitled “Canada On Strike,” satirized the 2007-2008 Writers’ Guild of America strike, popular viral videos, and the difficulty of monetizing Internet fame. In the episode, characters create a video that is a parody of the real world viral video, “What What (In The Butt),” Brownmark, the copyright holder for the original WWITB video, sued for copyright infringement under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C.101. SPDS claimed that the South Park version was fair use and attached the two works. Brownmark argued that the court could not consider fair use on a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the “well-reasoned and delightful opinion.” The court properly decided fair use on a motion; the only evidence needed to decide the issue were the original version of WWITB and the episode at issue. Under the incorporation-by-reference doctrine, reliance on the attached works did not violate Rule 12(d); if a plaintiff mentions a document in his complaint, the defendant may then submit the document to the court without converting defendant’s 12(b)(6) motion to a motion for summary judgment. View “Brownmark Films, LLC v. Comedy Partners” on Justia Law

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In 2004 HD contracted with plaintiff, to develop an inventory classification system, called a taxonomy,for HD’s database. Plaintiff would own the intellectual-property rights and would license HD to use it at no-cost as long as plaintiff remained HD’s data-pool vendor and HD continued paying for services. In 2008 HD began to develop an in-house database, incorporating the taxonomy that plaintiff had created. Plaintiff learned of the plan and registered a copyright. HD sent notice terminating the relationship, with a check for $100,000 to purchase a perpetual license, pursuant to the contract. HD notified suppliers to transmit their product data to its in-house system rather than to plaintiff, which returned the check and filed suit. The district judge dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that HD did not violate copyright law and that the case did not belong in federal court. HD acted in accordance with its contract rights. View “Edgenet, Inc. v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., ” on Justia Law

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In negotiations for architectural services for construction of a hotel, the parties agreed that defendant would pay an additional $15,000, apart from design fees, if defendant elected not to use plaintiff’s construction affiliate. The agreement stipulated that architectural designs would remain plaintiff’s intellectual property. Defendant did not use plaintiff’s construction affiliate and the relationship deteriorated. Plaintiff claimed that it had no further design obligations; defendant refused to pay what $28,000 demanded by plaintiff. Plaintiff accepted an $18,000 payment in satisfaction, but registered a copyright for designs that it had produced and filed copyright infringement claims against defendant. The district court ruled in favor of defendant, holding that plaintiff had not complied with registration requirements (17 U.S.C. 408(b)) when it submitted re-created designs because its office had been robbed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Plaintiff did not identify anything in the designs that was original and protectable; the designs were, for the most part, based on the Holiday Inn Express prototype. View “Nova Design Build, Inc. v. Modi” on Justia Law

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One defendant was a research assistant for one of the plaintiffs, an engineering professor, when the professor developed a mathematical model of how electrons behave under certain circumstances. The assistant switched to a different research group without returning a notebook. The plaintiff-professor retained a new assistant, who continued the work and shared some of her material with the defendant. The defendants submitted a symposium paper and an article, describing the model and its applications. The district court rejected copyright claims and state law claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the materials were not protected by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 102(b) because the model is an idea. The Act protects the expression of ideas, but exempts the ideas themselves from protection; the equation, figures and text are the only ways to express this idea, and, under the merger doctrine, these expressions are not copyrightable. Because state law conversion and fraud claims were the equivalent to assertions under the Act, those claims are preempted. A claim of trade secret misappropriation could not survive on the merits. View “Ho v. Taflove” on Justia Law

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In 1993 a hip-hop group released a track that contains a segment of plaintiff’s 1969 song. The district court dismissed plaintiff’s 2003 copyright suit. Under the Copyright Act, sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 are not subject to copyright protection, but may be protected by state law (17 U.S.C. 301(c)). The court denied a motion to amend and awarded $321,995.25 in attorney’s fees and $10,620.53 in costs. A new claim, filed in state court, was removed to federal court and dismissed as res judicata. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The trial court correctly denied the motion to amend, based on the undue delay between the plaintiff’s notice of the defects in his claim and the motion. The fact that the material was not under copyright did not deprive the court of jurisdiction and the second complaint was properly dismissed. View “Johnson v. Cypress Hill” on Justia Law