HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

Joint ownership of copyrights is a tricky issue in any transaction.  It is one confronted regularly in digital media deals where rights in the underlying content are often owned by more than one person and licenses are granted retroactively.  Recent decisions in the Second and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have caused tremendous concern about the eroding rights of copyright co-owners.  In Davis v. Blige, the Second Circuit held that copyright co-owners cannot unilaterally issue retroactive licenses.  And in Sybersound v. UAV Corp., , the Ninth Circuit held that a copyright co-owner cannot grant an exclusive license without the consent of all the other co-owners.  The combined effect of these decisions has been described as the “death of divisibility” in copyright law.  These decisions threaten to pose considerable difficulties for anyone looking to acquire rights in a copyright that is owned by more than one individual.     Continue Reading »

Click hereto subscribe to digitalhhr.

• Late last week,  Judge Louis Stanton of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that plaintiffs in the high-profile copyright class action case against YouTube could not seek statutory damages for videos that are not registered under US copyright law.   Judge Stanton also dismissed plaintiffs’ punitive damages claim, but did permit claims based on live broadcast footage, which were brought by the English Premier Football League, the lead plaintiff in the case, to proceed.  Continue Reading »

Dan and Wayne will be making a presentation on July 21 at the Sports Video Group’s Third Annual Sports Asset Management Forum.  The forum will be focusing on issues facing sports leagues, teams and networks as they continue to manage digital assets.  The presentation will be part of a workshop attended by a select, invitation-only group of individuals from the major sports leagues and will feature a discussion on legal issues related to the identification and protection of digital content.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (”TCPA”) is one of the primary protections consumers have against telemarketers.  And now, as a result of a recent ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, consumers will also receive protection under the TCPA for unsolicited text messages.  This decision will likely have wide-ranging impacts as text messages have been increasingly used by marketers to reach consumers. Continue Reading »