Justia Entertainment & Sports Law Opinion Summaries

The “Hot News Babes” feature of Hustler magazine invites readers to nominate young, attractive female news reporters for a monthly prize. In 2003, Bosley, a 37-year-old news anchor, entered a “wet t-shirt” contest at a Florida bar and ultimately danced nude. Durocher, took pictures without Bosley’s knowledge and published them on lenshead.com. Durocher included a visual copyright notice and a general warning. A few months later, Bosley lost her job when the story was reported. To end the photographs’ dissemination, Bosley bought and registered the copyright. In 2004, Bosley was employed as a television reporter in another city. In 2005, a reader advised Hustler of the availability of the pictures online and of Bosley being the “HOTTEST.” Hustler published the Durocher nude photograph in 2006 with text describing Bosley. Bosley’s suit alleged direct copyright infringement, 17 U.S.C. 101; contributory infringement, 17 U.S.C. 101; vicarious infringement, 17 U.S.C. 106(1), (3), (5); violation of Ohio common law right of privacy; violation of the Ohio statutory right of publicity; and violation of the Ohio Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Only the direct infringement claim survived. The jury rejected a fair use defense, but found the violation not willful, and awarded $135,000 plus fees. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Balsley v. LFP, Inc." on Justia Law

Famed singer-songwriter Roger Miller assigned original and renewal copyrights to his songs to defendant in the 1960s. Defendant filed applications to register renewal copyrights for 1964 songs with the Copyright Office in 1992 and subsequently registered these copyrights. In 2004, plaintiff, a company formed by Miller's heirs, sued for copyright infringement. The district court held that defendant owned the renewal copyrights and held an implied, non-exclusive license to exploit the 1964 songs based on plaintiff's actions and inactions in accepting royalty payments. Defendant moved to amend the judgment, arguing that it owned the renewal copyrights because it had applied to register them prior to Miller's death. The district court refused to hear arguments on the issue. On remand, the district court concluded that defendant did not own the renewal copyrights because Miller had died prior to vesting of the renewal rights and assignees were not included in the list of statutory successors. The court awarded $903,349.17 in damages. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 304(a)(2)(B)(i), the renewal copyright vested with Roger Miller, and thus with defendant as his assignee.View "Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony/ATV Publ'g, LLC" on Justia Law

Music Companies sued East Coat and Hudson for eight counts of copyright infringement, corresponding to the eight songs ASCAP's independent investigator heard publicly performed at the Long Beach Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. East Coast and Hudson appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Music Companies for the eight counts of copyright infringement, as well as the district court's award of attorney's fees and costs to the Music Companies. The court held that the district court was correct to conclude that the investigator's uncontested declaration was sufficient to establish that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether copyright infringement occurred at the Long Beach Roscoe's. Because no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether East Coast and Hudson controlled and derived financial benefit from the infringing performances, the district court properly held that Hudson and East Coast were liable for copyright infringement. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.View "Range Road Music, Inc., et al. v. East Coast Foods, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

In 2009 the university announced that in the 2009–10 academic year, it would eliminate its varsity sports teams for women’s volleyball, men’s golf, and men’s outdoor track and field, while creating a new varsity sports team for women’s competitive cheerleading. Plaintiffs, five women’s volleyball players and their coach, charged violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681(a). The district court enjoined the school from withdrawing support from its volleyball team, finding that it systematically and artificially increased women’s teams’ rosters and decreased men’s teams’ rosters to achieve the appearance of Title IX compliance. The court then certified a class of present and future female students and ultimately granted permanent injunctive relief. The Second Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the court’s counting of participation opportunities in varsity sports afforded female students. The district court correctly concluded that the disparity revealed by that calculation demonstrated a failure to provide substantially proportionate athletic participation opportunities as required by Title IX. View "Biediger v. Quinnipiac Univ." on Justia Law

Grober invented a platform that stabilizes a camera for filming motion pictures from moving vehicles. Known in the entertainment industry as the Perfect Horizon, the technology won Grober an Academy Award in technical achievement. He received a patent, entitled “Autonomous Self Leveling, Self Correcting Stabilized Platform.” for the invention, designed to compensate for motion caused by waves, currents, wind, and other motion during land, air, and sea operations of a camera. Grober claimed infringement. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of defendants. The Federal Circuit vacated the claim construction and the grant of summary judgment and remanded. A patent is infringed if even a single claim is infringed and the district court misconstrued term “payload platform.” View "Grober v. Mako Prods., Inc." on Justia Law

This case required the Supreme Court to decide whether filmmakers receiving tax credits from the State of Iowa under the State's tax credit program could enjoin the State from releasing summaries of their films' final budgets to the public. The district court determined they could. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the budget summaries do not qualify as trade secrets under Iowa Code 22.7(3); (2) the budget summaries cannot be considered "reports to governmental agencies which, if released, would give advantage to competitors and serve no public purpose" under Iowa Code 22.7(6); and (3) the filmmakers failed to meet Iowa Code 22.8's requirements for injunctive relief by demonstrating disclosure would not be in the public interest and would substantially and irreparably injure any person or persons. Remanded. View "Iowa Film Prod. Servs. v. Iowa Dep't of Econ. Dev." on Justia Law

In 1986, the Association signed an agreement with Beulah Park governing racing operations; later, they amended to establish a regular process in which the Association periodically would grant or withhold consent to simulcast races to betting facilities outside of Ohio. In 1996, the Association executed a similar agreement with River Downs. Under the agreements, when Beulah Park and River Downs want to simulcast races to out-of-state betting facilities, they send a letter to the Association outlining the terms of the proposed simulcast and requesting authorization. After the Association withheld consent to 2006 requests, Beulah Park and River Downs filed a complaint with the Ohio Racing Commission. The Racing Commission ruled in favor of the race parks. The Association sued, arguing that the federal Interstate Horseracing Act, 15 U.S.C. 3004(a) preempted the Ohio law. The district court agreed. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that "To respect the state law is to slight the federal one." View "Horseman's Benevolent & Protective Ass'n v. DeWine" on Justia Law

In 2007, Plaintiff Helen Barton was injured while watching a high school football game in Barrow when a player ran out of bounds during a play and collided with her, breaking her leg. Plaintiff sued the North Slope Borough School District, alleging in part that the football field had not been designed or built with a proper "run-off" area along the sidelines and that spectators had improperly been allowed to stand in the run-off area during the game. Plaintiff retained expert landscape architect Juliet Vong who proposed to testify that she used a particular manual in designing sports fields "to help ensure the appropriate dimensions and design criteria are met for a given sport and level of play." The School District filed a motion in limine to exclude Vong's testimony because it did not provide an admissible expert opinion. The superior court agreed with the District and excluded Vong's report and testimony. At a jury trial in August 2010, the District was found not negligent. Plaintiff appealed, arguing that the superior court should not have excluded Vong's testimony and that doing so was prejudicial to Plaintiff's case. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that although it was error to exclude Vong’s testimony, the error was harmless.View "Barton v. North Slope Borough School District" on Justia Law

In 2005, Forest Park formulated a concept for a television show called "Housecall," in which a doctor, after being expelled from the medical community for treating patients who could not pay, moved to Malibu, California, and became a concierge doctor to the rich and famous. Forest Park created character biographies, themes, and storylines, which it mailed to Sepiol, who worked for USA Network. Initial discussions failed. A little less than four years later, USA Network produced and aired a television show called "Royal Pains," in which a doctor, after being expelled from the medical community for treating patients who could not pay, became a concierge doctor to the rich and famous in the Hamptons. Forest Park sued USA Network for breach of contract. The district court held that the claim was preempted by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.101, and dismissed. The Second Circuit reversed. Forest Park adequately alleged the breach of a contract that included an implied promise to pay; the claim is based on rights that are not the equivalent of those protected by the Copyright Act and is not preempted. View "Forest Park Pictures v. USA Network, Inc." on Justia Law

UMG filed suit against Veoh for direct and secondary copyright infringement where users of Veoh's service have in the past been able, without UMG's authorization, to download videos containing songs for which UMG owned a copyright. The district court granted summary judgment to Veoh after determining that it was protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. 512(c), "safe harbor" limiting service providers' liability for "infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider." The court affirmed the district court's determination on summary judgment that Veoh was entitled to section 512(c) safe harbor protection where Veoh met all the section 512(c) requirements. The district court also affirmed the district court's dismissal of the claims of secondary liability against the Investor Defendants. The court further affirmed the district court's determination that, in this case, attorney's fees could not be awarded under Rule 68. The court remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance whether Veoh was entitled to Rule 68 costs excluding attorney's fees.View "UMG Recordings, Inc., et al. v. Shelter Capital Partners LLC, et al." on Justia Law