On October 4, 2022, a Second Circuit panel affirmed the lower court’s decision that defendant Sirius XM Radio Inc.’s ads showcasing The Howard Stern Show do not violate plaintiff John Edward Melendez’s publicity rights. The ruling affirmed the Southern District of New York’s grant of defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims under California common and statutory law, agreeing that plaintiff Melendez’s claims were preempted by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 301.
Copyright Act
Supreme Court Excuses Inadvertent Legal Errors in Copyright Applications
By Alyson Tocicki on
The United States Supreme Court, in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., a recent 6-3 decision, found that innocent legal errors in copyright applications do not preclude copyright holders from taking advantage of the safe harbor provision of the Copyright Act, which protects registrants from having their copyrights invalidated due to inadvertent errors. The Court’s ruling therefore made clear that such errors in copyright applications—including both mistakes of law and mistakes of fact—will rarely be the basis for invalidation.
Federal Judge Finds Copyright Issues “Embedded” in Social Media Re-Posts
Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York recently denied a motion to dismiss in a copyright dispute involving the unlicensed “embedding” of a social media video. In doing so, the court explicitly and definitively rejected the Ninth Circuit’s “server rule,” under which the Ninth Circuit held that re-posting of online content does not constitute a separate act of infringement where the infringing copy is stored only on third party servers. Instead, Judge Rakoff held that by re-posting the copyrighted content online, defendants had implicated plaintiffs’ exclusive display right – regardless of whether they created and stored a copy on their own servers. The opinion states that to hold otherwise would be to “make[] the display right merely a subset of the reproduction right.” Nicklen v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., et al.
“License and [Copyright] Registration Please”: Key Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s Opinion Clarifying When a Copyright Claimant Can Sue for Infringement
By Monique Curry on
On Monday, March 4, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that a copyright claimant may only bring a suit for copyright infringement after the copyright has been registered by the Copyright Office, not while the registration is pending.
Hide and Seek: Plaintiff Permitted to Subpoena Internet Service Provider to Identify Alleged Infringers
By Brittany Benavidez on
Recently, E.D.N.Y. Magistrate Judge Steven M. Gold ordered that a third-party subpoena may be served upon an internet service provider (“ISP”) to identify information about network users who allegedly infringed copyrighted material.