Intellectual Property: Music Cases...

According to current copyright law, and the written articulation presented at USC’s music copyright cases page, the University of Southern California mentions that in order “to establish copyright infringement, two elements must be proven: 1) ownership of a valid copyright; and 2) copying of protected elements of the plaintiff's work.”

One of the cases presented in their educational webpage is the copyright infringement case of the song Bright Red Chords vs. the song Domino, and respectively, Will Loomis vs. Jessica Cornish as the plaintiff and defending composers.  The plaintiff in this case argues that “several chains of events to show that Defendant Cornish had access to BRC prior to creating Domino.” In essence, the outcome of the case was that the court found that the plaintiff failed to provide any substantial evidence “to support any of its purported chain of events theories of access to the song in question.  This is a very interesting case in which the court looked at a series of events that lead to ruling in favor of the defendant.  A summary of the case could be found here.

Another interesting case having to do with some trademark issues had to do with Apple Corps (the Beatles’ publisher) and Apple Computers.  In this case, the issue was more about a trademarking issue since both companies had the same essential name and a good portion of the same logotypes.  But it went to a higher order of the trademark law, affecting both companies’ business models.  According to an article produced by the webpage Low End Mac:  According to Apple Corps, the iTunes Music Store, part of Apple computers, was in clear violation of a prior trademark settlement that obliged Apple computers to stay away from the music industry.  However, after deliberations were made, “the judge found in Apple Computer's favor, since the company was not marketing music, merely delivering it to customers through its own network.  Apple Corps was required to pay Apple Computer for its legal fees (estimated at £2m) - and Apple Corps promised to appeal the decision.  But on the trademark issues, according to the article and its references, “Apple Computer ultimately paid Apple Corps $26.8 million for the right to use the Apple name in computers and music distribution.”  This complete article could be found here.

A third copyright case involving Vincent Peters as a plaintiff and Kanye West as the defendant had to do with the song “Stronger.”  In a nutshell, the plaintiff was complaining of similarity between the songs.  However, after the court sided with the defendant, it stated that:  “Ultimately, because the Vince P failed to establish substantial similarity and only contained minor cosmetic similarities the court affirmed the district court’s decision that there was no similarity as a matter of law.”  This was a very interesting case since the song in question references the same lyrical themes and even the same third party in the lyrics (Kate Moss).  However, the court’s decision was clear.  A link to this specific article/case could be found on UCS’s legal section found here.