By Ryan Smith and Thomas F. Zuber of Zuber & Taillieu
The Ninth Circuit recently upheld the validity of conditional software licenses which avoid the pitfalls of the first sale doctrine. In Apple, Inc., v. Psystar, Corp., No. 10-15113, 2011 U.S. App. WL 4470623, (9th Cir. Sept. 28, 2011), the Ninth Circuit upheld a permanent injunction against Psystar due to its… More...
Holding: In this copyright infringement dispute that pitted video-maker IO Group, Inc. ("IO") and video-sharing website Veoh Networks, Inc. ("Veoh"), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Veoh should not be held liable for infringing video materials that are uploaded by its users. The District Court… More...
Holding: Reversing a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a 1938 agreement in which famed author John Steinbeck gave the sole and exclusive rights to publish "Of Mice and Men" and several other… More...
Holding: In a cutting edge case involving open source programming code licensing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that distributors of free open source programs can rely on copyright law and sue for monetary damages if the terms of their use licenses are violated. In this case,… More...
Holding: In this appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a decision of the Southern District of New York and held that Cablevision Systems Corp. ("Cablevision") did not commit direct copyright infringement through the playback of copyrighted movies via its "Remote Storage Digital Video Recorder" ("RS-DVR") –… More...
Holding: In this copyright and trademark infringement suit relating to plaintiff's Cigar Aficionado magazine and trademarks, the U.S. District Court denied defendant website operators' motion to dismiss. Defendants, charged for displaying on their website both the protected marks and a recent issue of the magazine, sought to dismiss the suit for… More...
Holding: In this appeal, the U.S. District Court for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of Federal Claims' ("CFC") dismissal of the claims of Blueport Co., LLC ("Blueport") against the United States Air Force as a government defendant. Blueport brought claims of copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright… More...
Holding: In a copyright dispute regarding the fictional novel and story "Lassie Come Home" ("Lassie Works"), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the daughter of its author, defendant Winifred Knight Mewborn ("Mewborn"), in her controversy with Lassie Television, Inc. ("LTI"), the predecessor-in-interest of plaintiff… More...
Holding: In this infringement dispute over plaintiff-appellee Eagle Services Corp.'s ("Eagle") copyrighted safety manual, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the decision of the District Court for the Northern District of Indiana's decision, and remanded the case to compute and award reasonable attorneys' fees to defendant-appellant H20… More...
Holding: In a ruling on a motion to compel production of evidence as part of Plaintiff Viacom, Inc. and Future Association Premier League Limited 's ("Viacom") $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Defendants YouTube, Inc., YouTube, LLC, and Google, Inc., which owns and operates the video-sharing website known as “YouTube.com” ("Google"),… More...
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the right of defendant-appellant National Geographic Society (the “Society”) to reproduce photographic works featured in National Geographic Magazine (“Magazine”) in CD-ROM digital compilation without additional permission. Plaintiff-respondent, photographer Jerry Greenberg (“Greenberg”), sued for copyright infringement after the Society reproduced and… More...
