Copyrights

Part One of a Two Part Article While the livestreaming of music performances is not an entirely new phenomenon, the COVID crisis has transformed the live performance landscape, compelling artists from around the world to reach their fanbase by producing "quarantine streams," in which they livestream their sets on social media platforms. Unsurprisingly many questions have arisen.

The extremely flexible character of social media has required equal flexibility in courts' intellectual property analysis. Happily, under U.S. copyright law, that kind of flexibility is possible.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled in favor of Netflix in finding that one of its shows didn't infringe the copyright of a Colombian journalist who wrote a memoir about her affair with drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the rise of the Colombian drug trade.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of internationally successful hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in a music sampling suit brought against them by New Orleans jazz musician Paul Batiste.

In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit held that materials taken from an autobiography of Tommy DeVito — an original member of The Four Seasons music group — and used in the Broadway musical Jersey Boys depicting the band's history and hits, comprised facts and other noncopyrightable expression.

Would Shakespeare Post Hamlet on Instagram in 2020? Recent legal and procedural developments associated with the ubiquitous Instagram social media site have created significant practical and legal risks for both copyright owners and account holders.

Until recently, the Second and Ninth Circuits have both been receptive to dismissals under Rule 12(b)(6) if the court determines the plaintiff cannot plausibly state a claim of copyright infringement because the two works are not substantial similar. However, a pair of recent "unpublished" Ninth Circuit reversals involving prominent motion pictures stand in contrast to a recent Second Circuit decision affirming such a dismissal.

In the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress inserted a termination right for authors or their successors for pre-January 1, 1978, assignments of copyrighted works. However, the legislators didn't directly address a key issue: how to determine termination rights for what are known as "gap grant" works — that is, those created post-1977 under copyright assignments made before then.