Music publisher Warner/Chappell has filed papers indicating the settlement terms in the 'Happy Birthday' case - and has agreed to pay $14m to to a class of “thousands of people and entities” who had paid licensing fees to use the song since 1949 and to end the lawsuit that challenged its copyright to Happy Birthday To You – possibly the world’s most famous song. Readers will remember that back in September 2015, US district judge George H King ruled that Warner/Chappell did not own the lyrics to the song, just some of its musical arrangements. Next month, King must approve the settlement. The settlement would also grant $4.6 million in fees to the lawyers for the plaintiffs, a group of independent artists and filmmakers who filed separate suits in 2013 that were later combined. More on this case on CMU here.
Ricky Spicer, one third of The Ponderosa Twins Plus One (Spicer being the "One" after he joined up with the singing twins), has filed a law suit seeking class action status against and damages from a large cross-section of the digital music landscape that includes Spotify, Apple, Google, SoundCloud, iHeartMedia, Pandora and Sony Computer Entertainment - over royalties related to pre-1972 recordings. Spicer's action directly relates to several other ongoing cases, all related to the same complex issues of copyright ownership and music licensing - including the cases brougt by Flo and Eddie from the Turtles against Sirius XM. But interestingly the filing says the various defendants may have thought they had licensed his album - but they haven't: In the filing Spicer makes the allegation that a "phantom party... used back channels and private under-the-table dealings to transfer licenses that ultimately wound up in the hands of Defendants."
Two US publishers are having a spat over who has the right to publish the law - here the right to exclusively publish the Georgia Administrative Rules and Regulations. Legal publisher Fastcase wants a federal judge to fend off a cease-and-desist demand from rival Virginia-based Lawriter, which has been designated as the exclusive publisher of Georgia's compilation of the rules and regulations of its state agencies. Fastcase argue that the Georgia Regulations are public law published under statutory mandate and are in the public domain: "Defendant cannot claim any exclusive right in, to, or in connection with, the Georgia Regulations. Thus, Fastcase seeks declaratory judgment that Lawriter has no basis from which to prohibit Fastcase from publishing the Georgia Regulations in its subscription legal research service." The case is in the US District Court in the Atlanta Division of the Northern Division of Georgia.
The New York Times has launched a legal action against David Shields, the author of War Is Beautiful, a book that argues the Times systematically glamorises war by the way that it depicts armed conflicts and their aftermath. Shields licensed several dozen images for his book - but he also included thumbnail versions of some images without clearance, and the Times claims that these reproductions violate its copyrights. One would think that Shields has a good case that the uses constitute "fair use" - not least from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006) which confrimed that the use of thumbnail images of Grateful Dead posters in a coffee table book about the band was indeed faor use - but we shall see. In all events its rather good publicity for Mr Shield's book.
Whilst the copyright status of the The Diary of Anne Frank remains a topic of debate in Europe, with the Foundation that controls the copyright arguing that an edit by Anne Frank's father and later translations mean it is still protected by copyright law, the Diary has been withdrawn from Wikisource in the US because of the longer term of copyright protection in that jurisdiction. Anne Frank died in 1945 which means that the book moved into the public domain in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe on January 1, 2016, 70 years after her death - although the Anne Frank Fonds say that this term should run from the death of Otto Frank in 1980. But in the US, Wikisource, a digital library of free texts maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, have withdrawn the text. Their legal counsel Jacob Rogers, said the removal was the result of an overreach of U.S. copyright law but believes that they have no other option than to comply saying “Today, in an unfortunate example of the overreach of the United States’ current copyright law, the Wikimedia Foundation removed the Dutch-language text of The Diary of a Young Girl” adding “We took this action to comply with the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as we believe the Diary is still under US copyright protection under the law as it is currently written”. Wikimedia's servers fall under the U.S. jurisdiction - and wikimedia had apparently been informed that the publication of the text would violate US copyright laws. More on TorrentFreak here.
The IPO's China IP Newsletter tells us that the State Administration of Press & Publications, Radio, Film & Television (SAPPRFT) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) have jointly announced new regulatory measures governing online content distribution. The Regulations cover the administration of Internet platforms and require platforms to register in order to publish content online. The platforms should keep records of all uploaded works for 60 days and will be subject to annual inspections. The Regulations also include a pre-approval mechanism for publication of online games. Meanwhile, the State Council Legislative Affairs Office (SCLAO) has launched a separate consultation on Regulations on the Administration of Publication of Digital Material. The deadline for comments on the Regulations is March 10. More here and here (in Chinese).
And finally - an article on ArtsTechnica that's well worth a read: "Embattled copyright lawyer uses DMCA to remove article about himself". Its all about attorney Marc Randazza's battles to delete an online article about a dispute between his former employer and himself and who told Wordpress that the unflattering story "is not fair use."
Two daughters, Ellen Newlin Chase and Margaret Chase Perry, have filed a copyright infringement case against CBS, who they say featured their mother's lyrics in the show. In several episodes of the nerd glamorizing Big Bang Theory the characters sing a lullaby to sooth Sheldon (the mercurial Dr Sheldon Cooper), which includes the vocal line "soft kitty, warm kitty", a line allegedly taken from Ellen Newlin's work.
Google Books: we thought it was all over - but maybe there is still a twist in the tale! The 10-year long litigation between Google and the Authors Guild looked like it was finished once and for all when a unanimous appeals court ruled in October 2015 that the tech giant’s scanning of 20 million books was fair use. But there may be one more chapter. The Authors Guild has now asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the appeals court ruling, which affirmed the book scanning was “transformative” and was fair use. The Guild say the case "represents an unprecedented judicial expansion of the fair-use doctrine that threatens copyright protection in the digital age. The decision below authorizing mass copying, distribution, and display of unaltered content conflicts with this Court’s decisions and the Copyright Act itself."
Paramount and CBS are suing the producer of a crowdfunded "Star Trek" fan film for copyright infringement. Paramount and CBS, who own the rights to "Star Trek" are going after Alec Peters and Axanar Productions, who are raising money through Indiegogo to produce a movie called "Axanar." Axanar has professionals working in front and behind the camera, with a fully-professional crew — many of whom have worked on Star Trek itself — to ensure Axanar woud be of the same quality as an official Star Trek movie according to Peters. But the film companies accuse Peters of "unauthorized exploitation" of the "Star Trek" franchise: "The Axanar Works are intended to be professional quality productions that, by defendants' own admission, unabashedly take Paramount's and CBS's intellectual property and aim to 'look and feel like a true Star Trek movie,'" reads the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in California on December 29th. Nerd Reactor has its own take here.
The US Copyright Office has announced a review of ‘section 512’, which contains the safe harbour provisions in American copyright law. The Office said that its review would cover “the general operation of section 512’s safe harbour provisions, the processes for issuing takedown notices and counter notifications, and the legal standards that apply under the statute”. The Copyright Office is inviting submissions from interested parties with a deadline of 21st March 2016. This will be followed by public meetings.
In a class action lawsuit, David Lowery, of the bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, has alleged that music streaming platform Spotify is ripping off recording artistes: "Spotify has - and continues to - unlawfully reproduce and/or distribute copyrighted musical compositions . . . to more than 75 million users via its interactive commercial music streaming service," according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California. " . . . Indeed, Spotify has publicly admitted its failures to obtain licenses for the musical works it distributes or reproduces or to pay royalties to copyright owners for its use of their Works."
Google received requests from copyright owners to remove 558 million links to material, which allegedly infringed on copyrights from its search engine in 2015. The latest figure shows a surge of 60% on comparative figures from 2014.
And finally, Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, the Raymond P. Niro Professor at DePaul University College of Law, and the author of The Soul of Creativity: Forging a Moral Rights Law for the United States, has penned an interesting piece on Forward on the position the Anne Frank Foundation have taking by asserting that her father was a major editorial contributor to the Anne Frank Diaries - principally to secure ongoing copyright protection for the work. But as Roberta asks, "If Otto is now seen as a co-author, how does this impact the authenticity of Anne’s original voice and the legitimacy of the diary?" Despite the Fond's (Foundation) claims, Isabelle Attard, a French Parliament member whose grandparents died in the Holocaust, published the entire Dutch text of the diary on Friday 1st January. Separately, Olivier Ertzscheid, a lecturer at the University of Nantes, published the text on his website the same day according to Haaretz. Franks was murdered by the Nazis in 1945 and copyright in her own work would expire 70 years later in Europe. And for a trade mark perspective,following on from the recent decision of Fourth Board of Appeal of OHIM allowing registration of the word mark ‘Le Journal d’Anne Frank’, have a look at this interesting report from Eleonora on the IPKat here
A US charity called the Association for Childhood Education International has filed a motion to intervene in the 'Happy Birthday' case as music publisher Warner/Chappell ponder their next move(s) after federal judge George H King ruled that Warner/Chappell’s copyright claim was invalid as they seemingly did not control the rights to the lyrics to the song. ACEI’s lawyers claim that the organisation had been receiving one-third of all revenues generated from Happy Birthday for over 20 years – and is largely reliant on this money to continue operating. ACEI argue that the song’s original author, Patty Hill, and her sister, Jessica Hill, had directly assigned rights to Summy Co – which would make Warner/Chappell the song’s rightful controller. Patty Hill, says the motion, was both a founding member and ‘active participant’ in ACEI “As the beneficiaries of Jessica Hill’s estate [which benefited from Patti's estate] both ACEI and the Hill Foundation have a very real and present interest in this litigation" - because if Warner/Chappell don't hold the rights to the lyrics - they do as heirs! More on MBW here and on TechDirt here.
That leaked document that revealed the EU Commission's plans for copyright in 2016 has sparked a lot of comment in cyber space - most name checking the IPKat! In addition to tackling the issue of content portability in the spring, the draft suggests the Commission will explore a "follow-the-money" approach to enforcement, clarify rules for identifying infringers, and examine the crosss-border application of injunctions. The EU Commission is currently working on proposals for the modernization of copyright with the aim of providing a framework more suited to the digital age. The EU’s plan was set to go public exactly a month from today but last week the purrrrrfectly wonderful IPKat said it had obtained a leaked copy of the draft communication from a ‘Brussels insider’. The main worry seems to be about linking - and the SEM Post opines that the plan "shows a very scary route the EU wants to take with links on the web, one that would hold a site owner liable if they link to any content that infringes on someone’s copyright. Yes, a site owner could be liable if someone else they happen to link to has stolen content on that page, even if they had no idea if was stolen.This means that publishers – or anyone who publishes anything online, whether it be for business or a personal blog – could also need to consult a lawyer for every link they make, to know it is “safe” to link to". Julia Reda, the Pirate Party member of the European Parliament representing Germany, wrote on her site about the leaked draft on copyright reform and it could have a profound affect on the entire internet.
U.S. House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is right in the middle “listening tour” as part of an ongoing review of U.S. copyright law, and now he’s holding a hearing at UCLA that is aimed in part at Hollywood. Goodlatte has held 20 hearings on copyright law since announcing his review in 2013, with the focus on “determining whether our copyright laws are still working in the digital age.” More recently, he’s been travelling on a “listening tour” that takes him closer to key industries. Having started in Nashville, Variety says he was recently at Santa Clara University in Northern California to get a Silicon Valley perspective. The EFF says the main points raised by the technology companies were: (1) Statutory damages are far too high, and bringing them into rational territory could help solve other problems. (2)The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's DRM provisions urgently need reform. (3) Fair use has to do a lot of work, so it's a good thing judges have enabled it to do so and (4) It's not just copyright—End User License Agreements have diminished our ownership rights. The line-up of experts and panellists in Santa Clara was diverse and impressive, and included people like Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, Ted Ullyot, who works for the technology investment firm of Andreessen Horowitz, musician Zoe Keating, iFixit CEO and DMCA activist Kyle Wiens, and of course EFF's own staff attorney Kit Walsh.
U.S. District Court Judge Gail Standish has dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Taylor Swift by using some lyrical terminology. Musician and songwriter Jessie Braham has accused Swift of stealing “Shake It Off” lyrics from his song “Haters Gonna Hate,” and attested that he had the song copyrighted back in February. Braham was suing Swift for $42 million in damages and a writing credit on her hit song. Standish wrote, “At present, the Court is not saying that Braham can never, ever, ever get his case back in court. But, for now, we have got problems, and the Court is not sure Braham can solve them.”
City Of London Police's IP Crime Unit (PIPCU) has arrested two people in Manchester on suspicion of being involved in the unlicensed distribution of music software online. PIPCU began investigating the arrested couple after being made aware of their online operation by record industry trade group the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The accused allegedly ran a piracy operation that sold musical software - including digital products like backing tracks and pre-recorded instrumentals - at substantially reduced prices, without the permission of the owners of the works they are distributing.
And finally: readers are no doubt aware that on January 1st 2016, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, will enter the public domain in Europe, where the term of protection ends 70 years after the death of a work’s author, despite concerns. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' diaries will similarly enter the public domain. But what about the writings of one of the Nazis’ most famous victims, Anne Frank, who died the same year as Hitler – 1945? It may surprise readers that the Swiss-based foundation that is the heir to the Frank family says the copyrights for the various versions of her work won’t expire for decades. The Anne Frank Fonds, a non-profit organization located in the Swiss city of Basel, was set up in 1963 by Anne’s father, Otto. The Fonds administers the rights to all writings by Anne Frank and says that copyright is crucial to protect her work from unchecked commercial exploitation. It seems that the 'Diary' we all know (see illustration) was an edited compilation of two earlier works by Anne Frank, and that edited version was put together by her father, Otto, and first published in 1947. And the Foundation say Otto is a 'co-author' because of his role of editing, merging and trimming entries from her diary and notebooks and reshaping them into “kind of a collage” meriting its own copyright. As Otto didn't die until 1980, the Foundation say this work is still protected by copyright and will be until 2050. The two original versions by Frank, and various later translations, were not published until 1986, so again the Trust says these remain in copyright, as do the versions edited by the German writer Mirjam Pressler, who is still alive (and is credited as a co-author with Otto of the 'definitive edition'). The diary was first translated in English in 1952 by Barbara Mooyaart, who is now 96. In the United States, the diary’s copyright will still end in 2047, 95 years after the first publication of the book in 1952. More here and here.
