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Plaintiff Savant Home, Inc., a custom home designer and builder, held a registered copyright to a floor plan of a three-bedroom ranch house (“Anders Plan”). Savant built a model house embodying that plan in Windsor, Colorado (“Savant house”). In June 2009, Ron and Tammie Wagner toured the Savant house and hired builder Douglas Collins and his firm, Douglas Consulting, LLC (jointly, “Collins”) to build a house. Collins, in turn, contracted with Stewart King to design the house. After Collins and Mr. King completed the Wagners’ house, Ms. Wagner hired them to build a second house. Savant sued Collins for copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, civil conspiracy, trade dress infringement, and other claims, alleging defendants copied the Anders Plan by building the two houses. The district court granted Defendants summary judgment on two grounds: (1) Savant failed to offer evidence of inherent distinctiveness or secondary meaning and (2) no reasonable jury could find a likelihood of confusion. Savant appealed. After review, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court as to the first ground and therefore did not address the second. View “Savant Homes v. Collins” on Justia Law

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This appeal arose from a copyright dispute between Adobe and defendant and his software company, SSI. The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of both Adobe’s copyright and trademark claims. Although a copyright holder enjoys broad privileges protecting the exclusive right to distribute a work, the first sale doctrine serves as an important exception to that right. Under this doctrine, once a copy of a work is lawfully sold or transferred, the new owner has the right “to sell or otherwise dispose of” that copy without the copyright owner’s permission. In this case, the court concluded that the district court correctly held that Adobe established its registered copyrights in the disputed software and that defendant carried his burden of showing that he lawfully acquired genuine copies of Adobe’s software, but that Adobe failed to produce the purported license agreements or other evidence to document that it retained title to the software when the copies were first transferred. The district court did not abuse its discretion in granting defendant’s motion to strike and excluding evidence purporting to document the licenses. Finally, the court concluded that the district court properly analyzed the trademark claim under the nominative fair use defense to a trademark infringement claim instead of under the unfair competition rubric. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View “Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Christenson” on Justia Law

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This dispute involves two Tejano songs: “Triste Aventurera” and “Cartas de Amor.” Plaintiff filed suit against Hacienda alleging, inter alia, that Hacienda’s release of “Cartas” infringed upon his “Triste” copyright. The district court ruled in favor of Hacienda as to each of plaintiff’s claims. The court rejected plaintiff’s contention that the district court erred in finding no reasonable possibility of access. In this case, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to show that the district court’s access finding was clearly erroneous. The court also concluded that, absent evidence of uniqueness or complexity, and in light of the expert testimony at trial describing differences in the lyrics and music of the songs, the district court’s finding that “Cartas” and “Triste” are not strikingly similar was not clearly erroneous; the court rejected plaintiff’s invitation to apply a novel “sliding-scale” analysis that would have lowered his access burden; and plaintiff waived his Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. 1202(a), claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View “Guzman v. Hacienda Records and Recording” on Justia Law

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This appeal stemmed from a copyright dispute over the 2012 motion picture “Killer Joe.” Plaintiff filed suit against defendant for copyright infringement and defendant counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment. The district court dismissed the suit, dismissed the counterclaim as moot, and denied defendant’s requests for attorney’s fees and to make a record. Defendant appealed. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant attorney fees because plaintiff may properly sue “John Doe” to ascertain an ISP subscriber and because plaintiff promptly dismissed its lawsuit once it learned defendant was not the infringer and thus had proper motives to sue the subscriber. Further, defendant cites to no authority that a party’s financial status affects whether attorney’s fees under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 505, should be awarded. Therefore, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to fail explicitly to consider the factor of financial status. The court rejected defendant’s remaining claims and affirmed the judgment. View “Killer Joe Nevada v. Leaverton” on Justia Law

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Plaintiff, the author of “Point Break Live!”, filed suit against defendants, asserting claims for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and tortious interference with contract. At issue on appeal was whether an unauthorized work that makes “fair use” of its source material may itself be protected by copyright. The court held, for substantially the reasons stated by the district court that, if the creator of an unauthorized work stays within the bounds of fair use and adds sufficient originality, she may claim protection under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 103, for her original contributions. The court also rejected defendant’s challenges to the district court’s jury charge. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View “Keeling v. Hars” on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs, authors of published books under copyright, filed suit against Google for copyright infringement. Google, acting without permission of rights holders, has made digital copies of tens of millions of books, including plaintiffs’, through its Library Project and its Google books project. The district court concluded that Google’s actions constituted fair use under 17 U.S.C. 107. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Google. The court concluded that: (1) Google’s unauthorized digitizing of copyright-protected works, creation of a search functionality, and display of snippets from those works are non-infringing fair uses. The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited, and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals. Google’s commercial nature and profit motivation do not justify denial of fair use. (2) Google’s provision of digitized copies to the libraries that supplied the books, on the understanding that the libraries will use the copies in a manner consistent with the copyright law, also does not constitute infringement. Nor, on this record, is Google a contributory infringer. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View “Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.” on Justia Law

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This appeal involves a dispute over the copyright in the musical composition “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” Plaintiffs filed suit seeking a declaration that either a notice of termination served on EMI in 2007 or another such notice served in 2012 will, upon becoming effective, terminate EMI’s rights in the Song. The district court granted summary judgment to EMI, holding that its rights in the Song will subsist through the entire remaining copyright term – which, under current law, is scheduled to expire in 2029 – pursuant to a 1951 agreement that plaintiffs are powerless to terminate. The court concluded, however, that EMI owns its rights in the Song not under the 1951 Agreement but instead under a subsequent contract executed in 1981; and that the 2007 Termination Notice will terminate the 1981 Agreement in 2016.  Accordingly, the court concluded that plaintiffs are entitled to a declaratory judgment in their favor. The court reversed and remanded. View “Baldwin v. EMI Feist Catalog, Inc.” on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants, alleging, inter alia, that defendants infringed “Bikram’s Copyrighted Works through substantial use of Bikram’s Copyrighted Works in and as part of Defendants’ offering of yoga classes.” The district court granted defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment as to the claim of copyright infringement of the “Sequence.” The parties settled all remaining claims. At issue on appeal was whether a sequence of twenty-six yoga poses and two breathing exercises developed by Bikram Choudhury and described in his 1979 book, Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class, is entitled to copyright protection. The court concluded that the Sequence is an idea, process, or system designed to improve health. Copyright protects only the expression of this idea – the words and pictures used to describe the Sequence – and not the idea of the Sequence itself. Because the Sequence is an unprotectible idea, it is also ineligible for copyright protection as a “compilation” or “choreographic work.” Therefore, the court concluded that the district court properly granted partial summary judgment in favor of defendants because the Sequence is not a proper subject of copyright. The court affirmed the judgment. View “Bikram’s Yoga College v. Evolation Yoga” on Justia Law

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DC filed suit against defendant, producer of replicas of the Batmobile, alleging, among other things, causes of action for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition arising from defendant’s manufacture and sale of the Batmobile replicas. The court concluded that the Batmobile, as it appears in the comic books, television series, and motion picture, is entitled to copyright protection. The court also concluded that the Batmobile character is the property of DC and that defendant infringed upon DC’s property rights when he produced unauthorized derivative works of the Batmobile as it appeared in the 1966 television show and the 1989 motion picture. Finally, the district court did not err when it ruled as a matter of law that defendant could not assert a laches defense to DC’s trademark infringement claim because defendant willfully infringed on DC’s trademarks. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for DC on the copyright and trademark infringement claims. View “DC Comics v. Towle” on Justia Law

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Rahn, a white male who earned a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, was hired as a visiting professor at NIU. His wife, Regina, was hired as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering for that same school year. During that year, a tenure-track assistant professor position opened up in the Department. Rahn applied. Despite her husband’s status as an applicant, Regina was a voting member of the search committee. She claims that one committee member stated that he would not hire a white man into the department if qualified minority candidates were available. After another applicant was hired, the Rahns alleged reverse discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 701 42 U.S.C. 2000e, and copyright infringement, based on use of teaching notes and slides. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment on all claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. That testimony did not support indicate that an evaluation metric was a subterfuge for eliminating Rahn on racial grounds. A university employer may properly preference academic experience; Rahn did not present evidence that such a preference was inconsistent with the initial description of the position and the preferred qualifications. View “Rahn v. Bd. of Trs. of N. Ill. Univ.” on Justia Law