Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of America, Inc., 4 N.Y.3d 540 (2005), is one of "the most notable case[s]"[1] concerning the copyright status of US-published sound recordings issued before February 15, 1972 (frequently called "pre-1972 sound recordings"). In this case, the New York Court of Appeals held that pre-1972 sound recordings, which are not given copyright under U.S. federal law, may be covered under state common law copyright.[2]
Naxos Records restored and issued on CD a number of mid-20th century sound recordings, including several classical music performances by Pablo Casals, Edwin Fischer, and Yehudi Menuhin. Capitol Records, which held the U.S. licenses for those works, also remastered and reissued on CD the same recordings.[3]
Capitol sued Naxos in the Southern District of New York, which held that because the items were in the public domain in their country of origin (the United Kingdom), they were also in the public domain in the US.[4][3] On appeal, the Second Circuit held that while federal copyright protection was not available, the state of New York may or may not have common law copyright.[5] The Second Circuit certified the question to the state of New York, which considered several questions, including the question of whether a state's common law copyright protection might survive the expiration of a work's copyright in its country of origin.[3]
The New York Court of Appeals held that, because Congress had not preempted common law copyright for pre-1972 sound recordings, that common law copyright was available.[3] Because common law copyright was not bound by federal and international rules regarding expiration into the public domain, Capitol's claim survived.[3]
The case was hailed in some quarters, and critiqued in others, but most commentators acknowledged that it was a "landmark",[6] and "groundbreaking"[7] decision, carrying significance for both music preservation and commercialization of recordings before 1972.
On December 20, 2016, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that this common-law right includes only the exclusive right to duplication and publication, and not to public performance. That case, Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio, ruled that no such common law right to public performance existed in New York.[8][9]
Ronan Deazley, "Capitol Records v. Naxos of America (2005): Just Another Footnote in the History of Copyright?", 53 J. Copyright Soc'y U.S.A. 23 (2005-2006).
Michael Smith, "Gotta Fight for Your Right to Perform: Scope of New York Common Law Copyright for Pre-1972 Sound Recordings Post-Naxos", 30 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 589 (2009-2010)
Common law copyright is the legal doctrine that grants copyright protection based on common law of various jurisdictions, rather than through protection of statutory law.
International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), also known as INS v. AP or simply the INS case, is a 1918 decision of the United States Supreme Court that enunciated the misappropriation doctrine of federal intellectual property common law: a "quasi-property right" may be created against others by one's investment of effort and money in an intangible thing, such as information or a design. The doctrine is highly controversial and criticized by many legal scholars, but it has its supporters.
Jon Ormond Newman is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792, is a 2005 court case that was important in defining American copyright law for recorded music. The case centered on the 1990 N.W.A. track "100 Miles and Runnin'", which contains a manipulated two-second sample of the 1975 Funkadelic track "Get Off Your Ass and Jam". The sample was implemented without Funkadelic's permission and with no compensation paid to Bridgeport Music, which claimed to own the rights to Funkadelic's music.
The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to no more than the copyright term granted in the country of origin of the work.
John Doe v. Alberto R. Gonzales was a case in which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Library Connection, and several then-pseudonymous librarians, challenged Section 2709 of the Patriot Act; it was consolidated on appeal with a separate case, Doe v. Ashcroft.
Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright. In the case appealed, Feist had copied information from Rural's telephone listings to include in its own, after Rural had refused to license the information. Rural sued for copyright infringement. The Court ruled that information contained in Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable and that therefore no infringement existed.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time limit and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1928, are in the public domain.
Kevin Thomas Duffy was an American lawyer and United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired.
Arista Records, LLC v. LAUNCH Media, Inc., 578 F.3d 148, is a legal case brought by Arista Records, LLC, Bad Boy Records, BMG Music, and Zomba Recording LLC alleging that the webcasting service provided by LAUNCH Media, Inc. ("Launch") willfully infringed BMG's sound recording copyrights. The lawsuit concerns the scope of the statutory term "interactive service" codified in 17 U.S.C. § 114, as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 ("DMCA"). If the webcasting service is an interactive service, Launch would be required to pay individual licensing fees to BMG's sound recording copyright holders; otherwise, Launch only need to pay "a statutory licensing fee set by the Copyright Royalty Board."
Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC, 715 F. Supp. 2d 481, is a United States district court case in which the Southern District of New York held that Lime Group LLC, the defendant, induced copyright infringement with its peer-to-peer file sharing software, LimeWire. The court issued a permanent injunction to shut it down. The lawsuit is a part of a larger campaign against piracy by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., 934 F. Supp. 2d 640 , is a case from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York concerning copyright infringement of digital music. In ReDigi, record label Capitol Records claimed copyright infringement against ReDigi, a service that allows resale of digital music tracks originally purchased from the iTunes Store. Capitol Records' motion for a preliminary injunction against ReDigi was denied, and oral arguments were given on October 5, 2012.
Capitol Records, LLC v. Vimeo, LLC, 972 F. Supp. 2d 500, 972 F. Supp. 2d 537, was a 2013 copyright infringement case out of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The decision resolved cross-motions for summary judgment filed by a video-sharing service (Vimeo) and a pair of record labels. Vimeo sought a ruling that, as a matter of law, it was entitled to safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as to a series of copyrighted videos that were uploaded to its platform; the record labels sought the opposite ruling.
Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Int'l, Inc., 293 F.3d 791, was a 2002 en banc 9-6 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, about the scope of copyright protection for building codes and by implication other privately drafted laws adopted by states and municipal governments. A three-fifths majority of the court's fifteen judges held that copyright protection no longer applied to model codes once they were enacted into law.
The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) is a United States copyright law that attempted to abrogate sovereign immunity of states for copyright infringement. The CRCA amended 17 USC 511(a):
In general. Any State, any instrumentality of a State, and any officer or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity, shall not be immune, under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States or under any other doctrine of sovereign immunity, from suit in Federal Court by any person, including any governmental or nongovernmental entity, for a violation of any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner provided by sections 106 through 122, for importing copies of phonorecords in violation of section 602, or for any other violation under this title.
Barclays Capital Inc. v. Theflyonthewall.com, Inc., 650 F.3d 876, was a case decided in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where the Second Circuit, reversing the decision of the US District Court below it, found that the claims of three major financial investment firms against an internet subscription stock news service (theflyonthewall.com) for "Hot-news" Misappropriation under state common law doctrine could not stand, as they were pre-empted by several sections of the Federal Copyright Act.
The misappropriation doctrine is a U.S. legal theory conferring a "quasi-property right" on a person who invests "labor, skill, and money" to create an intangible asset. The right operates against another person "endeavoring to reap where it has not sown" by "misappropriating" the value of the asset. The quoted language and the legal principle come from the decision of the United States Supreme Court in International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), also known as INS v. AP or simply the INS case.
Copyright protection is available to the creators of a range of works including literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works. Recognition of fictional characters as works eligible for copyright protection has come about with the understanding that characters can be separated from the original works they were embodied in and acquire a new life by featuring in subsequent works.
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. was a 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in response to an appeal filed by the defendants against the 2013 ruling of the U.S. District Court for Northern district of Illinois. These decisions, by the District Court and the Court of the Seventh Circuit, clarified the validity of the use of characters of Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. John Watson, and the story elements, in unlicensed works. Further, the scope of using characters, in the public domain was also clarified.
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