Entertainment Law Lessons to Behold!

As I was looking for some podcasts on entertainment law, I came across a couple really good ones at www.entertainmentlawupdate.com. The first one I listened to was Episode 17 and it talked about an interesting case, UMG vs. Augusto. This dispute revolved around Mr. Augusto who was taking cut out CDs, which are used for promotional use, and was selling them to third parties. UMG insisted that they were strictly for promotional use only and that they were never truly “given out” which would make them fall under the For Sale Doctrine. This case went all the way to the 9^th Circuit where they ruled that not only did UMG transfer the license but the title as well when they sent these CDs out.

Another interesting aspect to this case was that when the judge ruled, they cited Postal Statute Title 39, US Code 3009; if you get something in the mail that you didn’t order, you get to keep it. I thought this was a great twist ending on UMG’s argument. Whether or not this was the ultimate reason, UMG decided that they will no longer send out promotional CDs anymore and instead direct potential investors and marketers to their website.

Next, I listened to Episode 26 where they were talking about SOPA, the new anti-piracy act that Congress is trying to pass. This bill sounds like it would be a good thing but the fact is, it would allow a lot of online businesses to be unfairly targeted for potential copyright infringement. This bill allows the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop businesses from collecting revenue from oversea companies who they believe are infringing on copyrights. Whether or not they even are, it doesn’t matter.

A big problem with this is that it lacks due process. Someone can just claim that a site is embarking on copyright infringement and they can get that site shut down. This new bill even offers immunity to claimants from being sued by companies who are found of no fault. This is just ridiculous! A company that is only an online business that solely gets its revenue from Internet sales could be devastated from such a claim.

The last podcast I listened to was about IP law in Rio de Janeiro. They are so backed up with patent applications, a backlog of 8 – 10 years, that they are now doing preliminary examinations before the actual examinations. They are hoping that this will weed out anything that isn’t actually patentable.

The really interesting thing I got from this podcast is that since Rio is hosting the 2016 Olympics, they have enacted the Olympic Act. This law is to curb ambush marketing and they passed it the day that Rio was announced that they would be hosting. This law protects ANYTHING that is trademarked, patented and copyrighted while it is being involved with the Olympics. This includes but isn’t limited to; flags, mottos, logos, anthems, graphically distinctive signs, mascots and emblems. It also protects names; Olympic Games, Para-Olympic Games, Rio 2016 Olympic and Para-Olympic Games, 31^st Olympic Games 2016.

Interesting Intelectual Property Lawsuits

Searching around on the Internet about some recent legal activity that relates to intellectual property, I came across some interesting cases. The first case was an interesting article about a $21 million lawsuit that Nintendo lost. The case states that Nintendo’s designs for certain Wii, Wavebird and GameCube controllers were imposing on the copyrights that Anascape, Ltd. has on the controllers that they came up with. The argument from Anascape isn’t about the motion sensors in the Wii controllers but rather the design that the GameCube controllers have as well as the classic controller attachment for the Wii. What I like about this case is that it shows that the judicial system can work in favor of the little guy. There are plenty of examples of how the corporate giants get away with infringements like these but on this go around, they lost and had to give the small company their dues.

The second article was a case involving the artist Drake and his ex-girlfriend, Erika Lee. This case is still going on and presents an interesting topic. The case revolves around Drake’s hit song “Marvin’s Room”.  Ms. Lee claims that she and Drake co-wrote the song and that she is entitled to part ownership in the copyright of the song, copyright in the sound recording and payment of songwriter royalties. She is basing her claim from the fact that the first 30 seconds of the song is a recording of a phone call between her and Drake and that the two had initially intended on writing the song together and that her contributions were supposed to be included into the final version. What I find interesting here is Ms. Lee’s assertion that she owns part of the copyright due to her claim that the two had INTENDED to write the song. Where is her proof that the two collaborated? To me this becomes a he said/she said argument. Her voice recording at the beginning is the only real proof she has ownership to anything. I believe she should be compensated in that regard but other then that, she doesn’t have a legitimate claim.

Lastly, the third article is about a class action lawsuit against Google, Inc. over copyright infringement. The claim is that Google illegally scanned millions of books and other publications that contained copyrighted images and allowed them to be viewed by the public without regard to the rights of the works’ creators. The main complaint is over Google’s Library Project. When you look up a book or other publication, the book cover as well as pictures, if there are any, is displayed and this is where the argument is stemming from. When I looked up what the Google Library Project is, they claim that they are “carefully respecting authors’ and publishers’ copyrights”(http://www.google.com/googlebooks/library.html ¶3). If they truly have this in mind, then why aren’t they taking care of these artists? I believe Google not only has a legal obligation but a moral one as well. If they are trying to create such a large project they should have known that they needed to compensate the people who created the work. The only thing I can think of why they didn’t was that they weighed the cost of the possible lawsuit versus how much revenue they would generate. Having to buy so many licenses might have been more monetarily costly then just putting them on the site. However, this cost them face value in the eyes of authors, photographers and other artists they failed to give credit to.