Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23 (2003), was a copyright and trademark case of the Supreme Court of the United States involving the applicability of the Lanham Act to a work in the public domain.
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which public interest in learning about a historical figure’s impressions of a historic event was held not to be sufficient to show fair use of material otherwise protected by copyright. Defendant, The Nation, had summarized and quoted substantially from A Time to Heal, President Gerald Ford's forthcoming memoir of his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon. When Harper & Row, who held the rights to A Time to Heal, brought suit, The Nation asserted that its use of the book was protected under the doctrine of fair use, because of the great public interest in a historical figure’s account of a historic incident. The Court rejected this argument holding that the right of first publication was important enough to find in favor of Harper.
In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate, because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement and the fact that the services was capable of having non-infringing user was not enough reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if he had eliminated an encryption system feature and if it had monitored the use of its systems. This made it so that the defense did not fall within the safe harbor of 17 U.S.C. § 512(i). and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement. In addition, the court decided that the harm done to the plaintiff was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the defendant created by the injunction.
Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340 (1998), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if there is to be an award of statutory damages in a copyright infringement case, then the opposing party has the right to demand a jury trial.
BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888, was a civil case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a lower court's summary judgment that the defendant had committed copyright infringement. The decision is noteworthy for rejecting the defendant's fair use defense, which had rested upon the defendant's contention that she was merely "sampling" songs with the intention of possibly purchasing the downloaded songs in the future, which is known as "Try before you buy".
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) is United States federal law that creates a conditional 'safe harbor' for online service providers (OSP) by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as shielding them from potential secondary liability for the infringing acts of others. OCILLA was passed as a part of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and is sometimes referred to as the "Safe Harbor" provision or as "DMCA 512" because it added Section 512 to Title 17 of the United States Code. By exempting Internet intermediaries from copyright infringement liability provided they follow certain rules, OCILLA attempts to strike a balance between the competing interests of copyright owners and digital users.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), also known as the “Betamax case”, is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use. The Court also ruled that the manufacturers of home video recording devices, such as Betamax or other VCRs, cannot be liable for infringement. The case was a boon to the home video market, as it created a legal safe haven for the technology.
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, 1926, are generally considered public domain.
Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.
F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Contemporary Arts, Inc. nicknamed The Cocker Spaniel Case, 344 U.S. 228 (1952), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding copyright infringement. The Copyright Act of 1909 allows recovery of either the profits of the infringing company or of the damages suffered by the copyright holder as the legal remedies. When the actual damages cannot be determined, statutory damages can be levied instead. At issue, is whether the trial judge can impose statutory damages when the actual profits of the infringer are known.
A copyright troll is a party that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, generally without producing or licensing the works it owns for paid distribution. Critics object to the activity because they believe it does not encourage the production of creative works, but instead makes money through the inequities and unintended consequences of high statutory damages provisions in copyright laws intended to encourage creation of such works.
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).
Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum is the appeals lawsuit which followed the U.S. District Court case Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, No. 07cv11446-NG.
Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. was a legal case within the United States related to the nature of computer code and copyright law. The dispute centered on the use of parts of the Java programming language's application programming interfaces (APIs) and about 11,000 lines of source code, which are owned by Oracle, within early versions of the Android operating system by Google. Google has since transitioned Android to a copyright-unburdened engine without the source code, and has admitted to using the APIs but claimed this was within fair use.
Cinar Corp v Robinson is a leading case of the Supreme Court of Canada in the field of copyright law, which has impact in many key aspects of it, including:
Callaghan v. Myers, 128 U.S. 617 (1888), was a United States Supreme Court ruling dealing with copyright. The firm of Eugene B. Myers & Chandler, composed of Myers and Horace P. Chandler, purchased the copyright of the arrangement of a number of Illinois Supreme Court records compiled by Norman L. Freeman. They printed these works, the Illinois Reports volumes 32 through 38, from 1865 to 1867. Myers alone held the copyright to Freeman's arrangements of volumes 39 through 46 and printed those as well.
Stephens v. Cady, 55 U.S. 528 (1853), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held a copyright is a property in notion, and has no corporeal tangible substance, so it cannot be seized or sold in an execution sale.
Backus v. Gould, 48 U.S. 798 (1849), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the Copyright Act of 1831 requires courts to award damages from copyright infringement based on the number of copies found in the accused's possession, not the number of infringing copies that they ever printed. At the time, at least in the case of books, a "copy" was defined as a complete reprinting or transcription of the work.
Brady v. Daly, 175 U.S. 148 (1899), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the common law circuit court did have jurisdiction over the copyright infringement case because the statutory damages were not a penalty or forfeiture.
Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case related to trademark law under the Lanham Act. In the 9-0 decision on judgement, the Court ruled that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement lawsuit is not required to demonstrate that the defendant willfully infringed on their trademark to claim lost profit damages.
