In Brief:  Fleeting use of a creative work for the purposes of commentary is fair use.

In Brief:  The case of the Andy Warhol Foundation and Lynn Goldsmith regarding photos of Prince has been kicking around the courts and this blog for 4 years. The Supreme Court has spoken holding that there was no fair use.

In Brief:   A picture is worth a thousand words but using it may not pass the fair use test.

In Brief:  Fleeting use of a copyrighted work in a documentary is fair use.

Oracle America, Inc. owns the copyright to the Java computer language. In 2005, Google LLC acquired Android and wanted to build a new software platform for mobile devices. To allow the programmers familiar with Java to help build the platform, Google copied about 11,500 lines of code from the Java program. These lines of code are part of a programming tool called that’s called an “Application Programming Interface (API)”. 

Oracle sued for copyright infringement.

In a recent blog post, I looked at the meaning of transformative use as it relates to fair use in a suit involving well-known photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Lynn had taken some photos of the music artist, Prince. Vanity Fair magazine had licensed one of Lynn’s photos and commissioned Andy Warhol to create paintings from it for an article. Warhol then went a step further and used Lynn’s other photographs as the foundation for series of Prince paintings. Years later, Vanity Fair published an article using Warhol’s paintings. This was when Lynn learned about Warhol’s additional paintings. Lynn threatened to sue for copyright infringement. The Warhol Foundation brought a suit for declaratory judgment that the additional paintings were fair use. The district court held that Warhol’s treatment of Lynn’s photographs was transformative and therefore fair use.

Andy Warhol’s art was innovative. But it may not have been transformative when it comes to fair use.

For almost four years, comics’ legend, Ty Templeton, and Star Trek’s “Trouble with Tribbles Episode” writer, David Gerrold and their company, ComicMix, have been in litigation with the Dr. Seuss Estate. ComicMix is trying to publish a graphic comic called “Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go.” The comic mashed Dr. Seuss’ “Oh The Places You’ll Go” with Star Trek characters. ComicMix said it was fair use. The Dr. Seuss Estate said no.

Alex Cruz was on his way to visit his girlfriend in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. He heard a commotion, took out his iPhone and took a snap shot. He thought he was just taking a photo of the police subduing a crazy person. What he really caught was a picture of law enforcement taking down a suspected terrorist. Alex shared the photo with a friend who then posted the photo on Instagram.

In 1981 the well-known photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, took a series of photographs of the pop star, Prince. In 1987, Vanity Fair magazine commissioned Andy Warhol to create illustrations from the Goldsmith photos for their article titled “Purple Fame”. Goldsmith sued the Warhol Foundation, the owner of the works, for copyright infringement.

The last word sometimes isn’t really the last word. Here’s what happened after some previous posts: %CUT%

Dr. Seuss’ Estate doesn’t have the Christmas spirit. %CUT% Matthew Lombardo wrote a play called “Who’s Holiday”. It’s a sort of sequel to Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” in which Cindy-Lou Who is all grown up and has issues. Dr. Seuss’ estate is aggressive about protecting the original works (See more below). So, of course, the Estate sued for copyright infringement to block Who’s Holiday. The Estate lost. The court held that “Who’s Holiday” falls squarely within the defense of fair use. Using the four prong fair use test, the court found that the nature of the use was obviously parody and weighs in favor of fair use. “The play subverts the expectations of the Seussian genre, and lampoons the Grinch by making Cindy-Lou's naiveté, Who-Ville's endlessly-smiling, problem-free citizens and Dr. Seuss' rhyming innocence all appear ridiculous. . .” The court found the second prong, the nature of the original work, didn’t play a big role in the analysis. For the third prong, the court held that parody gives a long leash to quote and refer to the original. Even though Who’s Holiday used a substantial amount of the original work, it was not excessive in relation to the purpose of parody. The fourth prong determines whether the alleged infringing work supplants the market for the original. The court found that there was virtually no possibility that someone looking to buy a children’s book would buy tickets to an adult themed play about one of the characters instead.

News and commentary about a dad’s big oops is fair use. %CUT% Proud dad, Kali Kanongataa, accidently live streamed a video of his partner giving birth to their son. The video went viral. As often happens in the world of viral videos, Kanongataa’s video gave rise to a commentary by the media. Much of the commentary involved showing short clips from the 45 minute video. Kanongataa sued ABC, NBC, Yahoo and COED Media for copyright infringement. The judge dismissed the case on the basis of fair use. But, it didn’t stop there. The judge ordered Kanongataa to pay the defendants’ attorney’s fees. The judge said, "no reasonable lawyer with any familiarity with the law of copyright" would have filed the cases.

A Star Trek and Dr. Seuss mashup will Live Long and Prosper. %CUT% Comics legend, Ty Templeton, and Star Trek’s “Trouble with Tribbles Episode” writer, David Gerrold, collaborated on a comic called “Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go.” The comic mashed Dr. Seuss-like drawings and dialogue with Star Trek characters. The Dr. Seuss Estate sent Templeton and Gerrold a cease and desist letter citing trademark and copyright infringement. This resulted in Kickstarter shutting down the campaign to fund the development of the comic. Litigation ensued. Victory goes to Templeton and Gerrold. A California court ruled against Dr. Seuss on the trademark claim. The court held that Templeton and Gerrold’s use of the Dr. Seuss trademarks was ‘nominative fair use’. Although the court didn’t rule yet on the copyright claims, the court indicated that the use of Dr. Seuss’ copyrighted works was sufficiently transformative to be fair use.

False advertising in a judge’s election has consequences. %CUT% West Virginia judge, Stephen Callaghan, thought it would be a great idea to literally paint a picture of his opponent partying while their county lost jobs. Callaghan Photoshopped a picture of his rival next to President Obama, gave the President a glass of beer and strewed party confetti in the background. Callaghan knew that nothing of the sort had ever happened. Turns out; using a false ad to keep your seat as a judge isn’t such a good idea. After winning the election by 220 votes, Callaghan had to face the wrath of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Upon hearing about Callaghan’s campaign ad, the Court suspended Callaghan without pay for 2 years and fined him $15,000. In a written opinion, the Court stated that the ad was “in every sense, materially false.” Callaghan argued that the ad was “substantially true”, hyperbole or parody. The Court didn’t accept any of his arguments. Callaghan has now filed suit contending that the disciplinary action violated his First Amendment rights.

Extra. Extra. Popular art posting website steals an artist’s works and sells it to Hot Topic. Actually that didn’t happen. %CUT% DeviantArt (“DA”) operates a website that features the works of visual artists. The artist submits a picture or photograph and DA posts it for the entire world to see. Under DA’s terms and conditions, the artist agrees to give DA a world-wide, non-exclusive license to publish, resize, make collages and use the work for DA marketing and promotion. The terms and conditions specifically state that the artist retains the copyright in the work and no one can use it without the artist’s permission. What could go wrong? A DA user discovered that his Adventure Time fan art (see the picture) appeared on a t-shirt sold by Hot Topic. A flurry of anguished and angry social media postings accused DA of selling the art to Hot Topic. DA denied selling the art to Hot Topic. DA pointed to its terms and conditions where it said that no one can download and use the art for commercial purposes without permission from the copyright owner. So the artist will have to follow up directly with Hot Topic.

A legal brief can be protected by copyright. %CUT% Ezra Sutton represented Sakar International in a patent infringement case in Texas. Sakar and its co-defendant, Newegg, Inc. won at the trial level. They brought a motion for attorney’s fees which was denied. They separately appealed the denial to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. As time approached for filing their opening appellate briefs, Newegg agreed to provide Sutton a draft of its brief only if Sutton agreed in writing that he would only use it for reference purposes and not copy any excerpts. On the day before Newegg filed its brief, Sutton filed a brief on behalf of Sakar that was virtually identical to Newegg’s draft brief. Newegg sued Sutton for copyright infringement. Newegg brought a motion for partial summary judgment that Sutton couldn’t use fair use as a defense. The court granting summary judgment by analyzing the four fair use factors. (1) The purpose and character of the use weighed in favor of Newegg because Sutton’s brief was identical to Newegg’s brief. (2) The nature of the copyrighted work weighed in favor of Sutton because the briefs were functional presentations of law and fact. (3) The amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work used weighed in favor of Newegg because Sutton used the entire work and not just what was needed for a specific purpose. (4) The degree of harm to the potential market, weighed in favor of Sutton because Newegg couldn’t identify a market for its brief. The court tipped the balance with its own factor. Sutton could have used federal appellate rules that allow a party to either join in or adopt by reference a part of a co-party’s brief.