Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction for criminal copyright infringement based on his sale of Adobe software. The court applied the willfulness standard for criminal copyright cases as recently clarified in United States v. Liu and concluded that the jury instruction was flawed but did not rise to the level of plain error; the evidence of uncharged acts was properly admitted as intrinsic to the charged conduct and the court affirmed the conviction; and the district court erred in failing to award restitution reflecting the victim's actual loss and the court vacated the restitution order and remanded for reconsideration. View "United States v. Anderson, Jr." on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from Seven Arts's attempts to establish ownership of copyrights in several motion pictures: "Rules of Engagement," "An American Rhapsody," and "Who is Cletis Tout?" Seven Arts filed suit against Paramount and Content Media for copyright infringement, a declaration of ownership rights, and an accounting, seeking a declaration that neither Content Media, nor its predecessors-in-interest, CanWest, was the owner or grantee of rights to the films. The action was filed over three years after Paramount plainly and expressly repudiated Seven Arts's copyright ownership by choosing to continue paying royalties to CanWest and Content Media, rather than to Seven Arts's predecessors. The court joined its sister circuits in holding that an untimely ownership claim will bar a claim for copyright infringement where the gravaman of the dispute was ownership, at least where, as here, the parties were in a close relationship. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court, concluding that the district court properly dismissed the suit because it was apparent from the complaint that Paramount clearly and expressly repudiated Seven Arts's ownership of the copyrights more than three years before Seven Arts brought suit. View "Seven Arts v. Content Media" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Green Day and others, alleging violations of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., and the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051 et seq., because Green Day used plaintiff's illustration, "Scream Icon," in the video backdrop of its stage show. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Green Day on all claims and the grant of attorney's fees to Green Day under the Copyright Act. The court concluded that Green Day's use of the illustration was fair use under the Copyright Act where the purpose and character of the use was transformative and not overly commercial; the nature of the work included its status as a widely disseminated work of street art; Green Day's use of the work was not excessive in light of its transformative purpose; and Green Day's use did not affect the value of the piece or of plaintiff's artwork in general. In regards to plaintiff's claims under the Lanham Act, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to establish any trademark rights. The court concluded, however, that the district court clearly erred in finding that plaintiff's claims were objectively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment but vacated the award of attorneys fees. View "Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a dispute between the parties over license agreements which allowed Myriad access to Oracle's Java programming language. On appeal, Myriad challenged the district court's partial denial of its motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that the incorporation of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) arbitration rules into the parties' commercial contract constituted clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Oracle America, Inc. v. Myriad Group A.G." on Justia Law

Fox filed suit against Dish Network for copyright infringement and breach of contract, seeking a preliminary injunction. At issue were two Dish products: (1) "PrimeTime Anytime," which allowed a cable subscriber to set a single timer to record any and all primetime programming on four major networks; and (2) "AutoHop," which allowed users to automatically skip commercials. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that Fox did not establish a likelihood of success on its direct infringement claim. In this case, Dish's PrimeTime Anytime program created the copied program only in response to the user's command and the district court did not err in concluding that the user, not Dish, made the copy. Operating a system used to make copies at the user's command did not mean that the system operator, rather than the user, caused copies to be made. Although Fox established a prima facie case of direct infringement by Dish customers, Dish met its burden of demonstrating that it was likely to succeed on its affirmative defense that its customers' copying was a "fair use." Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Fox was unlikely to succeed on its claim of secondary infringement. Applying a very deferential standard of review, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction based on alleged contract breaches. Finally, even if Fox was likely to succeed on its claims that Dish directly infringed Fox's copyrights and breached the no-copying clause of the contract at issue by making "quality assurance" copies, the court agreed with the district court that Fox did not demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable harm resulting from these copies. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Fox Broadcasting Co. v. Dish Network" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed complaints against defendants alleging that defendants infringed its "diamond kilim" design by selling rugs and other home goods bearing the design. The district court subsequently entered judgment awarding damages against defendants, and sub silentio denying injunctive relief. Defendants timely filed a renewal motion for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Civil Rule 50(b), as well as a timely motion for a new trial under Rule 59. The district court denied both motions and plaintiff then filed, without support in the Federal Civil Rules, a "Motion for a Permanent Injunction." The district court construed the motion as one for reconsideration under Rule 60(b), and denied that motion. Construing the motion for permanent injunction as a motion for reconsideration under Rule 60(b), as the district court did, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to file the motion within ten days after entry of judgment. Therefore, the court lacked jurisdiction to decide the appeal. View "Classic Concepts, Inc. v. Linen Source, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed separate copyright infringement suits against defendants for posting articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal online without authorization. In consolidated appeals, the court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacked standing in both cases because agreements assigning plaintiff the bare right to sue for infringement did not transfer any associated exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. Because plaintiff lacked standing, the court also concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the fair use claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the motions to dismiss in both cases, but vacated the portion of the district court order in Hoehn granting summary judgment on fair use. View "Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn" on Justia Law

Luvdarts sued mobile wireless carriers, who own multimedia messaging networks (MMS networks), for copyright infringement. At issue was whether the carriers could be held liable for copyright infringement that allegedly occurred on their networks. Because Luvdarts failed to allege adequately that the carriers had the necessary right and ability to supervise the infringing conduct, the district court properly determined that they could not prevail on their claim of vicarious copyright infringement. Because Luvdarts failed to allege adequately that the carriers had the necessary specific knowledge of infringement, it could not prevail on its claim of contributory copyright infringement. Accordingly, Luvdarts failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted and the district court properly dismissed its complaint with prejudice. View "Luvdarts LLC, et al v. AT&T Mobility, LLC, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, various film studios, alleged that the services offered and websites maintained by defendant and his company, isoHunt, induced third parties to download infringing copies of the studios' copyrighted works. This case concerned a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol known as BitTorrent. The court affirmed the district court's holding that plaintiffs had carried their burden of proving, on the basis of undisputed facts, defendant's liability for inducing others to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights. The court also affirmed summary judgment to plaintiffs on defendant's claims that he was entitled to the safe harbors provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512(a), (c), and (d). The court concluded that portions of the permanent injunction were vague or unduly burdensome, and therefore, modified the injunction in part. View "Columbia Pictures Industries v. Fung" on Justia Law

In this copyright infringement suit, SOFA claimed that Dodger infringed its copyright in using a seven-second clip of Ed Sullivan's introduction of the Four Seasons on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and could not justify its unlicensed use of the clip as "fair use." The clip was used in Dodger's musical about the Four Seasons, "Jersey Boys," to mark a historical point in the band's career. The court held that, by using the clip for its biographical significance, Dodger has imbued it with new meaning and did so without usurping whatever demand there was for the original clip. Dodger was entitled to prevail on its fair use defense as a mater of law and to retain the attorney's fees award granted by the district court. View "SOFA Entertainment, Inc. v. Dodger Productions, Inc., et al" on Justia Law