No one disputes that the property tax system in New York City is byzantine. In Tax Equity Now LLC v. City of New York, the First Department confronted what it viewed as a very different question: is it illegal. The court concluded that it is not, rejecting a variety of claims and leaving any reform to the legislature.
Equitable Mortgage Enjoys Priority over Mortgage Recorded After Filing of Notice of Pendency Purchaser from Church Not Entitled to Specific Performance Questions of Fact Preclude Summary Judgment on Prescriptive Easement Claims Hearing Necessary to Determine Whether Mortgagee De-Accelerated Mortgage
Loft Board Lacks Authority to Supervise Legalization Once Tenants Withdraw Application Tenant Entitled to Relief from Failure to Timely Exercise Renewal Option
Neighbor Has Standing to Seek Damages for Violation of Zoning Ordinance
With fewer restraints after Octane, district courts now have broader discretion to grant motions for attorney's fees. But understanding the circumstances under which exceptionality has been found is critical. Recent decisions by the Federal Circuit post-Octane provide some important guidance on when attorney's fees may be available under Section 285.
Part Two of a Two Part Article This article discusses, among other things, the Swedish music industry perspective on the European Union's Copyright Directive, the growth of multi-country music licensing hubs and the impact of Brexit.
Defendants Led Zeppelin and its music labels were the winners in the copyright decision by the Ninth Circuit over the song "Stairway to Heaven." But the estate of songwriter Randy Wolfe (p/k/a California) wasn't the only one who got the short end. Among the collateral damage from the ruling was a 2002 precedent written by former Chief Judge Alex Kozinski that endorsed the so-called "inverse-ratio" rule.
For the past five years, the copyright bar and the music industry have carefully followed the many twists and turns of the potentially monumental infringement case that asserted that the opening of the iconic Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" was copied from the introduction of a little-known 1967 instrumental "Taurus," written by the late Randy California. In March 2020, a unanimous en banc panel of the entire Ninth Circuit affirmed portions of a prior three-judge appellate ruling that "Stairway" did not infringe the Spirit song — and in the process resolved some thorny issues involving substantial similarity and copyright scope that will be important for future litigants
