Record Label Sends Bogus Takedown Notice, Defeats 512(f) Claim Anyway–White v. UMG
Surprise, another 512(f) claim fails. But the sender’s dereliction in this case really got to me, so it’s worth the blog post. The case revolves around a “beat” produced by Jordan Jenks (a/k/a Pi’erre Bourne). Jenks licensed the beat non-exclusively…
Trump’s Tweet Infringed the Song “Electric Avenue”–Grant v. Trump
This case involves Eddy Grant’s classic 1980s song “Electric Avenue.” The court describes Trump’s reuse of the song: On August 12, 2020, Daniel Scavino, Director of Social Media and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications of the Executive Office of…
Copyright Lawsuit Over Cameo Videos Fails Due to Fair Use (on a Motion to Dismiss)–Santos v. Kimmel
George Santos is the disgraced former Congressmember and a serial fabulist. After he was expelled from Congress, he set up a Cameo page (please don’t give him any money, even as a joke). To mock him, Jimmy Kimmel ordered some…
Eleventh Circuit Gives the Slip to the Duct-Taped Banana Copyright Appeel–Morford v. Cattelan
You probably recall this case. A California artist, Morford, created a work called “Banana and Orange” where he duct-taped the fruits to the wall. An Italian artist, Cattelan, created a work, “Comedian,” involving just a banana duct-taped to the wall….
A Report from the White House’s Inaugural “Creator Economy Conference” (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Franklin Graves This week, I joined 100 other creators and creator economy professionals in attending the first ever White House Creator Economy Conference. The event, which I recapped in more detail for another publication, presented an interesting…
SAD Scheme Leads to Another Massively Disproportionate Asset Freeze–Powell v. Schedule A
[Reminder: I don’t blog all of the SAD Scheme cases I see, and the ones I blog are more exemplars of the general principles than standout or unique cases.] Kate Louise Powell is a Scotland-based artist. (I wonder how she…
DMCA 512(c) Helps Redbubble Defeats Copyright Lawsuit–Wallshoppe v. Redbubble
Wallshoppe makes wallpaper with copyrighted designs, such as the “Pacifico Palm Design” depicted to the right. It has a copyright registration in the design. Wallshoppe found Redbubble merchants selling the design. However, for unspecified reasons, Wallshoppe didn’t submit proper DMCA…
Reusing Social Media Photos for Ads? Be Careful!–Khachatryan v. 1 Hotel
This case involves the following photo posted to the “@brave_johnson” Instagram account, which self-describes as the account of a 7-year old and lists 2 URLs for talent agencies: [Note: normally I would think carefully about posting photos of children, but…
Meme Law Alert! Meme Use In Political Ad Isn’t Fair Use–Griner v. King
The plaintiff in this case owns the copyright to the well-known “Success Kid” meme, a photo of a cute 11-month old boy named Sam. The defendants are former Rep. Steve King and his reelection campaign committee. Wikipedia calls King “far-right,”…
X Corp. v. Bright Data is the Decision We’ve Been Waiting For (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Guy Rub, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law A Web Scraper Beats a Platform: The Same Story, but Different It seems like we’ve been here before, and not that long ago. A platform sues a web…