LJN Newsletters

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decided that, under 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c), statutory copyright damages for a single defendant should be based on the amount of works infringed, rather than the amount of infringements of those works. Venegas-Hernandez v. Sonolux Records.

Finding talent and being rewarded for it are common music industry pursuits. After Carl Jackson discovered singer/songwriter Bobbie Cryner while she was waitressing at a Tennessee restaurant, he negotiated an October 1991 songwriting deal for Cryner with the California-based Famous Music Corp., to whom Jackson was also signed. Though Jackson wasn't a contractual party to the Cryner/ Famous Music agreement, with Cryner's knowledge he entered into a separate contract the same day with Famous Music for him to co-produce Cryner and to re-assign him a 50% of the copyrights that Cryner transferred to Famous Music. In 1993, Bobbie Cryner executed a copyright assignment for Famous Music to file with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Recent cases in entertainment law.

Recent developments in entertainment law.

Vicarious liability is applicable in most areas of tort law. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in an opinion early last year, "traditional vicarious liability rules ordinarily make principals or employers vicariously liable for acts of their agents or employees in the scope of their authority or employment." Meyer v. Holley, 537 U.S. 280, 283 (2003).
In the area of copyright law, however, courts have developed an expanded form of vicarious liability that has been applied without regard for traditional limits on vicarious liability.
The question remains, however, whether this expanded application of vicarious liability comports with Supreme Court precedent.

In 2003, the video-game industry generated $7 billion in sales. The continued success of this industry has created opportunities for law firms to expand their services into the video-game field. For example, being on top of developments in the video-game industry is a priority for San Francisco's Morrison & Foerster. The firm recently formalized a 25-lawyer video-game practice in response to its ever-increasing business with the industry.

Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, was designed to balance the demands of the workplace with the personal and economic needs of families and to promote the national interest by preserving the stability of families.
However, in the 11 years since the FMLA was enacted, evolving results from U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, court decisions, fluid medical guidelines and a changing workplace have created impediments to an employer's ability to operate its business reasonably-in ways that Congress did not intend.