Mealey's Copyright : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Copyright

October 17, 2023
Pro Se Contributory Copyright Claim Against Kiwi Farms Reinstated

DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 16 said an author and songwriter’s allegations that the Kiwi Farms website contributed to infringement of his copyrighted works are adequate enough to withstand a motion to dismiss.
October 17, 2023
Amici To 5th Circuit: ISP Not Contributorily Liable For Customers’ File Sharing

NEW ORLEANS — Two trade organizations for internet service providers (ISPs) filed an amicus curiae brief in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals supporting an ISP that was hit with a $46.8 million contributory infringement judgment, in which they argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U.S. 471 (2023), establishes that “a ‘communication provider’ [cannot] be held liable ‘merely for knowing that wrongdoers were using its services and failing to stop them.’”
October 16, 2023
Supreme Court Grants Certiorari In 2nd Challenge To Chevron Deference

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 13 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari in a second case challenging the doctrine of Chevron deference and ordered that it be briefed on a schedule allowing argument “in tandem” with a pending case pertaining to the same issue, both of which involve challenges to regulations that require fishing vessels to pay federal monitors.
October 13, 2023
Man Appeals Ruling That Copyright Can’t Protect AI Art

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man found to have “put the cart before the horse” has appealed a holding by a District of Columbia federal judge that copyright law at its core historically requires a human creator and cannot protect art created by artificial intelligence (AI).
October 13, 2023
ChatGPT Makers Claim Writers’ Copyright Claims Inapplicable To AI Tech

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI Inc. and affiliated companies that developed the ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) program filed a reply in California federal court in support of their motion to dismiss two putative class actions for copyright infringement and other claims brought by copyright holders, urging the court to reject the plaintiffs’ “erroneous” theory “that every single output of ChatGPT is a prima facie copyright infringement.”
October 12, 2023
California Federal Judge Grants QVC Motion To Dismiss Copyright Claims

LOS ANGELES — A textile designer’s copyright infringement allegations against the home shopping network QVC Inc. have been dismissed by a federal judge in California, who said a first amended complaint in the case fails to state a claim.
October 12, 2023
N.Y. Federal Magistrate Judge: Copyright Owner Conceded Futility Of Case

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A federal magistrate judge in New York said the voluntary dismissal with prejudice of allegations of copyright infringement by a copyright owner established knowledge that the claims were futile.
October 10, 2023
R&B Singer Wins Dismissal Of Copyright Claims In New York

NEW YORK — Allegations by a music label and manager of musical artists that an R&B singer breached his contract will proceed, but the musician is entitled to dismissal of claims of copyright infringement leveled in connection with artwork used at live performances, a federal judge in New York ruled.
October 09, 2023
5th Circuit Grants Panel Rehearing, Remands To Stay Indemnification Issue

NEW ORLEANS — Granting insureds and underlying claimants’ joint petition for panel rehearing, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 6 held that determination of a commercial property insurer’s duty to indemnify under one policy should be deferred pending final resolution of an underlying Texas action alleging that the strip club insureds used 16 professional models’ likeness for advertising campaigns without their consent.
October 06, 2023
IP Exclusion Bars Coverage For Misappropriation Of Likeness Claim, Panel Affirms

LOS ANGELES — A California appeals panel on Oct. 5 affirmed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a commercial general liability insurer in its declaratory judgment lawsuit disputing coverage for a lawsuit brought against its insured, finding that the policy’s intellectual property exclusion bars coverage for the underlying misappropriation of likeness claim.
October 04, 2023
Portions Of Expert Report In Ohio Copyright Case Will Be Stricken

CLEVELAND — Although rejecting a copyright owner’s assertion that a defense expert’s rebuttal was untimely, a federal magistrate judge in Ohio on Oct. 3 agreed that the rebuttal makes improper legal arguments about the two-step substantial similarity test employed in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
October 02, 2023
Supreme Court Rebuffs Question On Direct Copyright Liability For Online Streaming

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 2 denied certiorari to a group of music publishers that sought clarification over whether direct infringement liability for making copyrighted materials available for online download and streaming fell to the individual that ordered the infringing acts or to the parties who “pressed the button,” in response to the directive, to make the works available to the public.
September 29, 2023
Copyright Holders Opposing Dismissal Say AI Companies Want To ‘Rewrite’ Law

SAN FRANCISCO — A group of copyright holders including comedian Sarah Silverman filed a brief opposing OpenAI Inc. and affiliated companies’ motion to dismiss their putative class action for copyright infringement, urging the court to reject OpenAI’s “misleading and self-serving reframing of the U.S. Copyright Act” and contending that its use of their works to train its ChatGPT AI program infringed on their copyrights.
September 29, 2023
High Court To Take Up Question Of Time-Bar On Copyright Damages

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a case in which even the respondents acknowledge a circuit split, the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 announced that it will decide whether copyright holders may seek damages outside the three-year statute of limitations provided for in federal copyright law.
September 28, 2023
‘Messy’ Facts In AI Legal Research Copyright Case Send Matter To Trial

WILMINGTON, Del. — Because the facts remain “messy,” the bulk of a case alleging that Ross Intelligence Inc. improperly trained its artificial intelligence (AI) on copyrighted material owned by legal research platform Westlaw is heading to trial after a federal judge in Delaware denied a handful of summary judgment motions.
September 27, 2023
Profits Unavailable To Plaintiff In Copyright Row Over Elevator Template

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Sept. 26 granted a defense motion for summary judgment in a copyright infringement action, concluding that the “plaintiff cannot evince a plausible causal connection between defendant’s profits and the alleged infringement.”
September 25, 2023
Judge Relates Authors’ AI Suits Against Meta For Copyright Infringement

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Sept. 22 brought a putative class action against Meta Platforms Inc. for copyright infringement in its training of its artificial intelligence software filed by authors including Michael Chabon into the docket of a similar suit filed by a group of writers including comedian Sarah Silverman, who had moved to relate the cases.
September 22, 2023
Trademark Infringement Dispute Between Clothing Boutiques Is Reinstated

CINCINNATI — A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 21 said a federal judge in Kentucky wrongly dismissed allegations of trademark infringement leveled by a boutique children’s clothing designer but rightly ruled in favor of a defendant with regard to functionality of the plaintiff’s claimed trade dress.
September 21, 2023
Best-Selling Fiction Writers Sue OpenAI For ‘Systematic Theft On A Mass Scale’

NEW YORK — The Authors Guild and 17 of its members, who are best-selling fiction writers, filed a putative class complaint against OpenAI Inc. and related companies (OpenAI, collectively) in New York federal court, accusing the artificial intelligence research and deployment firm of “flagrant and harmful” infringement of their copyrighted works in the training of its large language models (LLMs) without obtaining licenses or permission.
September 21, 2023
False Copyright Notice Case Dismissed In Pennsylvania On Jurisdiction Grounds

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that allegations of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage against a record company that allegedly sent false copyright notices to Amazon.com and others will not proceed.
September 20, 2023
Trump, Eddy Grant Argue Infringement Of ‘Electric Avenue’ In Tweeted Video

NEW YORK — In competing summary judgment motions filed in New York federal court, former president Donald J. Trump and singer Eddy Grant dispute whether the inclusion of Grant’s song “Electric Avenue” in a campaign video posted to Trump’s Twitter account constituted fair use, with the parties also disagreeing as to whether the musician can maintain separate copyright infringement claims for the song’s composition and recording.
September 18, 2023
Government Urges High Court To Uphold ‘Bedrock Principle’ Of Chevron Deference

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. secretary of Commerce, two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (collectively, the government) urge the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 15 brief to not overrule the doctrine of Chevron deference in a challenge to fishery regulations that were upheld by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, writing that doing so could “cause disruption” to complex federal regulatory schemes.
September 14, 2023
After Zillow Prevails In Copyright Case, Fee Award Partly Granted

SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington on Sept. 13 agreed with Zillow Inc. that a photographer’s allegations of copyright infringement were so deficient that they justify an award of attorney fees under federal copyright law.
September 13, 2023
D.C. Circuit: Publication Of Industry Standards Protected By Fair Use

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia correctly concluded that the noncommercial publication of industry standards for incorporation by reference into law cannot form the basis of a copyright infringement action, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Sept. 12.
September 13, 2023
Award-Winning Writers Sue AI Developers For Unfairly Using Copyrighted Books

SAN FRANCISCO — Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, his wife and fellow author Ayelet Waldman and three other writers on Sept. 12 filed a putative class action in California federal court against Meta Platforms Inc. accusing it of copyright infringement and violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by integrating their copyrighted written works into a dataset it uses to train artificial intelligence software, days after they sued OpenAI for similar conduct.