Posts Tagged: "entertainment industry"

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the song Blurred Lines infringed the copyright in Marvin Gaye’s song Got To Give It Up. See Williams v. Gaye, No. 15-56880. Affirming most of the decision of the district court, the Ninth Circuit also held that the award of actual damages and infringers’ profits, and a running royalty, were all proper. The panel did, however, reverse a piece of the district court ruling, finding that the district court erred in overturning the jury’s general verdict in favor of certain parties because the defendants waived any challenge to the consistency of the jury’s general verdicts.

As advocates for all music creators, including independent songwriters, we have endorsed the Music Modernization Act, along with other organizations spanning the music industry, as part of a package of important reforms that will better the lives of people who make music for a living and strengthen the music economy overall.

Less than 48 hours before the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in New York City, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruled to increase royalty payments to songwriters and music publishers from music streaming companies by nearly 44 percent, the biggest rate increase granted in CRB history. These rates will go into effect for interactive streaming and limited download services like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Spotify for the years 2018-2022, and will transform how songwriters are paid by these interactive streaming services.

So uncreative did Judge Michael Fitzgerald find Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit Shake It Off, he dismissed a copyright infringement case filed against her. In his opinion Judge Michael Fitzgerald explained the allegedly infringing lyrics used by Swift lacked even the modest level of creativity required for copyright protection… “The concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative; it is banal,” Fitzgerald worte. “In the early 2000s, popular culture was adequately suffused with the concepts of players and haters to render the phrases ‘playas … gonna play’ or ‘haters … gonna hate,’ standing on their own, no more creative than ‘runners gonna run,’ ‘drummers gonna drum,’ or ‘swimmers gonna swim.’”

Grammy Award winning funk, soul band The Commodores—whose hit singles include Easy and Brick House—recently won a trademark infringement lawsuit against its ex-bandmate and founding member Thomas McClary, who left the band in 1984. The right to use The Commodores’ name and trademarks belongs to a company run by founding members William King and Walter Orange, a Florida appellate court has ruled.

The world’s biggest music streaming service, Spotify, has recently been sued by Wixen Music Publishing for allegedly using thousands of songs without a license and compensation to the publisher. Filed in the United States Federal District Court for the Central District of California, this is a major lawsuit that is only the latest in a string of legal actions that Spotify has faced in the past year. Benjamin Semel, partner at Pryor Cashman LLP, sat down with IPWatchdog to discuss the lawsuit in detail. He told us that this lawsuit speaks to the risk for music services like Spotify of a strategy to seek forgiveness rather than permission. Currently, copyright law gives music services the ability to compel songwriters and publishers to license their songs, but a specific process must be followed.

Narcos, the popular Netflix drama about one of the world’s most notorious drug lords Pablo Escobar, is currently at the center of a trademark dispute that has been brought back into headlines after almost a year. Roberto De Jesus Escobar Gaviria, brother of legendary drug lord Pablo, has requested $1 billion from Netflix for what he believes are major IP violations. Escobar cites “mistakes, lies and inaccuracies from the real story” in the first season as the reason for his request in a letter obtained and published by TMZ.

In the suit, Nye alleges that Buena Vista Television entered into an agreement in March 1993 to promote, market and distribute the Bill Nye the Science Guy television series. That agreement entitled the owners of the show to 50 percent of the net profits divided four ways, leaving Nye entitled to 16.5 percent of the total net profits earned by the show… Nye first became suspicious as to whether Buena Vista was upholding its end of the agreement in July 2008 after Buena Vista informed Nye they had made a mistake in calculating a participation payment sent to Nye that April; instead of earning $585,000 in net profits, Nye then owed Buena Vista nearly $500,000. Since that July 2008 statement recalculation, Nye alleges that Buena Vista ceased making participation or royalty payments, claiming that Nye first had to repay the $500,000 before receiving future payments. Nye’s suit specifically notes that Disney failed to act in good faith to resolve the dispute when counsel contacted them about the issue.

In traditional music recording, artists have had to choose to license their music through major music industry organizations like ASCAP and BMI. In the age of streaming music through Spotify, Pandora and other services what is the purpose of these organizations? The licensing groups have served as clearinghouses for smaller players in the music industry who cannot feasibly deal with multitudes of licensees on their own. But with Taylor Swift and other “major” artists choosing to deal—or not deal—with the streaming services that opens the question about blanket music performance licenses.

When it comes to television shows, it not always clear what is “copyrightable.” Sometimes, filmmakers and screen writers can get into serious trouble if they don’t follow specific television copyright laws accordingly. Austin-based filmmaker Lex Lybrand watched the June 4th episode of the hit HBO series “Silicon Valley” to shockingly find strong similarities between the episode “The Patent Troll” and his own film “The Trolls.” Jed Wakefield of Fenwick & West recently sat down with IPWatchdog to discuss Lybrand’s case and the impact of copyright infringement when it comes to movie scripts.

I took Gene’s request to heart and really tried to capture my top 25 songs. To be honest, however, I had a very difficult time narrowing the list to “all time” top songs. There are no true 25 best songs as proven by the various music Halls of Fame. I even had a hard time listing my top bands/artists. I enjoy many different genres and the list changes as I discover, or re-discover, music. In a pinch, however, I tend to gravitate to classic rock stations playing songs from the 70’s and 80’s. These are the songs that I grew up with. With that as a preface, here is my list for this July 4th!

Earlier this month, Kiss frontman Gene Simmons filed to trademark the “Devil Horns” hand gesture, but this unusual application was soon after abandoned. The application listed the date of first use as November 14, 1974, and the specimen of use was a photograph of Simmons flashing the hand gesture alongside Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl. Just two weeks later, Simmons reconsidered if he had valid trademark rights to the hand gesture, as he abandoned the application.

A lot of law students and young attorneys aim to get into the field of “entertainment law.” Today, entertainment law is more of a combination of contract law, intellectual property law, accounting and just about every other area of law for which an individual or company requires legal services. So, if someone wants to work specifically in entertainment law, there are a few things he or she needs to do. 

A few weeks ago, a New York federal judge ruled that Hip-Hop Artist Drake was protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine when he sampled a spoken-word jazz track on his 2013 song “Pound Cake,” saying the artist had transformed the purpose of the clip. Drake used 35 seconds of Jimmy Smith’s 1982 “Jimmy Smith Rap” without clearing the clip, but Judge William H. Pauley said Drake’s purpose in doing so was sharply different from the original artist’s goals in creating it.