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Paramount Triumphs In ‘La Dolce Vita’ Copyright Case

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Thursday June 13, 2013 @ 4:56pm PDTTags: Copyright Law, La Dolce Vita, Paramount

Paramount was handed a victory this week in its battle over who owns the domestic rights to the classic La Dolce Vita. “Partial summary judgment is granted in favor of Plaintiffs with respect to their First Claim for Relief because as a matter of undisputed fact and law, Defendant does not own, and at no time has owned, the United States copyright in the Film,” wrote federal Judge S. James Otero on Wednesday (read it here) in a rebuke to distributor International Media Films’ claim of chain of title. The case now heads to assessment of damages but the win for Paramount is clear though it took over a year and a half to get there. Paramount and affiliate Melange Pictures first filed suit against IMF in late November 2011, claiming that they had the copyright to the 1960 Federico Fellini film. In 2010, Paramount had received cease and desist letters from IMF when they re-released the film on its 50th anniversary theatrical and with new DVD and Blue-ray editions. IMF claimed they had the title of ownership to La Dolce Vita so this ended up in court. As these things do, it spent a few years being fought out. In April of this year, Paramount and Melange argued in front of the California-based district judge for their motion for summary judgement that IMF not only did not have any U.S. ownership to “one of the great achievements of world cinema,” as their initial complaint called the film, but that the distributor was directly infringing on the studio’s rights. While granting Paramount’s claims that they have always owned the rights to La Dolce Vita domestically and the claim that “a matter of undisputed fact and law, Defendant has contributorily infringed upon Plaintiffs’ United States copyright on the Film,” Otero rejected the claims of vicarious infringement on Wednesday. Still three out of four was enough for Paramount.

Jack Cairl of Isaacman Kaufman & Painter as well as David Manning Chodos of Chodos & Associates represent International Media Films in the case. David Halberstadter and Rebecca Faye Ganz of LA firm Katten Muchin Zavis & Rosenman LLP represent Paramount and Melange.

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Supreme Court Upholds Consumer Right To Re-Sell Media Bought Overseas

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday March 19, 2013 @ 9:55am PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Big Deals TV, Copyright, Copyright Law, Supreme Court

Supreme CourtUPDATE, 12:04 PM: The MPAA says that today’s Supreme Court decision “will hinder American businesses’ ability to compete overseas to the detriment of the long-term economic interests of the United States, and particularly its creative industries.” The trade group adds that it will “study the decision further before determining the most appropriate action for us to take.”

PREVIOUS, 9:55 AM: The 6-to-3 decision just handed a big defeat to the MPAA and other content providers by potentially undermining companies’ ability to charge different prices for books, CDs, DVDs, software, video games and other works in different countries. In the case, Kirtsaeng v John Wiley & Sons, entertainment companies sided with the book publisher against an entrepreneurial Thai college student studying in the U.S. Supap Kirtsaeng discovered that textbooks cost far less in Thailand than in the U.S. He turned that into a business, importing textbooks that he re-sold here for less than the publisher charged. Wiley said that violated its copyright; Kirtsaeng said it complied with the first-sale doctrine that enables people to freely re-sell content that they’ve bought. The MPAA and RIAA said in a brief supporting Wiley that extending the first-sale doctrine to works sold abroad “could impede authors’ ability to control entry into distinct markets, limit their flexibility to adapt to market conditions, or undermine territorial licensing agreements.” Read More »

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Canada Passes Major Overhaul of Copyright Protection Law

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday July 3, 2012 @ 10:44am PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Big Deals TV, Canada, Copyright Law

“This is the most comprehensive effort to modernize our copyright laws in over a decade,” James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, said about the country’s controversial new Copyright Modernization Act. The new law — also known as Bill C-11 — aligns Canada more closely with the World Intellectual Property Organization. The country’s long reluctance to update its anti-piracy laws made it a regular on the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual Priority Watch List. In February the International Intellectual Property Alliance said that Canada’s effort to combat piracy “falls far short of what should be expected of our neighbor and largest trading partner, with ineffective border controls, insufficient enforcement resources, inadequate enforcement policies, and a seeming inability to impose deterrent penalties on pirates.” Canada’s new law includes a provision that the U.S. strongly supported that makes it illegal for consumers to break so-called digital locks, including copy protection mechanisms on CDs and DVDs. It also increased the penalties for infringment: Read More »

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Supreme Court Upholds Right To Reinstate Copyrights For Works In The Public Domain

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday January 18, 2012 @ 1:08pm PSTTags: Copyright, Copyright Law, Supreme Court

The 6-2 U.S. Supreme Court decision favors content owners including Hollywood studios over an unusual coalition of public interest and Internet activists including Google. At issue was whether the federal government had the right in 1994 to pass a law … Read More »

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George Lucas Loses ‘Star Wars’ Copyright Case in UK That He Won In U.S.

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday July 27, 2011 @ 10:22am PDTTags: Copyright Law, George Lucas, Lucasfilm

The UK Supreme Court today upheld a 2009 appeals court ruling that Andrew Ainsworth, the engineer who designed the Imperial Stormtrooper helmets for George Lucas’ original Star Wars, didn’t violate British law by selling copies of the helmets. Lucasfilm had … Read More »

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Congress Members Speak Out On Harms Of IP Theft

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday April 4, 2011 @ 1:28pm PDTTags: Congress, Copyright Law, Patrick Leahy

Ahead of a House Judiciary Committee meeting Wednesday that will look at how to combat online IP theft, members of both the House and Senate talked today about the continuing harm the practice causes the U.S. economy. The reaffirmation was welcome news to Hollywood’s unions and guilds, who have long urged Washington to make tougher laws. Read More »

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