Mass Law Blog

In only three years the “Jumpman” case has become an established teaching tool in CopyrightX. I’ve taught it in the first class for three years running, and I know many other teaching fellows have as well. It’s a great way to get people who are new to copyright law thinking about copyright issues, in this case whether a photograph by Nike infringes a photo of Michael Jordan taken by Jacobus Rentmeester in 1984. The two photos are show below: Rentmeester’s original on the left, Nike’s allegedly infringing photo on the right. Rentmeester also alleged that Nike’s Jumpman logo (above) infringed the copyright in his photo.

Until now, we’ve only had the 2015 District of Oregon decision available to teach this case. In that decision Oregon District Court Judge Michael Mosman granted Nike’s motion to dismiss, holding as a matter of law that the two images were not substantially similar.… Read the full article

It’s long been widely assumed that in-line linking is not a basis for copyright infringement. Following a recent decision by a Southern District of New York federal judge, that is no longer true.

Justin Goldman took a photograph of Tom Brady. Under the copyright laws, one of his  exclusive rights is the right of public display.

Goldman posted the photo to Snapchat. It went viral and was embedded in a tweet. A number of mainstream media publications posted the tweet by embedding the tweet into articles on their sites. Because the tweet was linked “in-line” (displaying content from one site within another via a link), none of the publications downloaded the image, copied it, or stored it on their own servers.

Is this copyright infringement? Specifically, did the embedded tweet violate Goldman’s right of public display?

SDNY judge Katherine Forrest held that it could, and granted summary judgment to Goldman on this issue, leaving for trial or later motions whether Goldman released his image into the public domain by posting it on Snapchat and whether the defendants have a fair use defense.… Read the full article

Copyright law is confusing, but music copyrights take it up a notch. Often, judges and jurors with no background in a music genre are asked to determine whether two works are “substantially similar” after being subjected to esoteric analysis by musicologists who present arguments that even a trained musician might find hard to follow.

However, whether Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s 2012 recording of “Blurred Lines” infringes Marvin Gaye’s 1976 composition of “Got To Give It Up” presents issues of copyright law that are challenging even by the arcane standards of music copyright law.

A quick recap: in 2015 a California jury found that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s (“Williams”) recording of Blurred Lines infringed the copyright in the composition of Got To Give It Up, and awarded Marvin’s Gaye’s heirs over $7 million in damages. The judge reduced this damages award to $5.3 million, but awarded a “running royalty” of 50% of future songwriter and publication royalties, which over time could be millions more.… Read the full article