Cameo Clips

A video wholesaler/retailer was liable for one infringement, rather than two, for the unauthorized sale of both DVD and VHS copies of a motion picture, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York decided. Arclightz and Films Pvt. Ltd. v. Video Palace Inc., 01-10135. Plaintiff Arclightz entered into an agreement for plaintiff Enzo Pictures to distribute the Indian film “Asoka” in all formats, throughout most of the world. The plaintiffs filed a copyright infringement complaint against the New York-based Video Palace after an investigator for the plaintiffs purchased unauthorized DVD and VHS copies of “Asoka” from the defendant Palace. After Video Palace admitted liability the plaintiffs sought the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of two willful infringements. But the district court noted, “This is not the law. An infringer is liable for the number of original works infringed, not for the number or type of copies made. … Only one work, Asoka, was infringed by Video Palace.” But the court declined to award the plaintiffs the $150,000 maximum for one willful infringement. Instead, the court assessed the minimum of $750 in damages against Video Palace, which the court emphasized had “offered plaintiffs a settlement probably in excess of the actual profits it received. Furthermore, Video Palace's business is small and its revenue limited, especially in comparison to the size of the business operated by plaintiffs.”

The Copyright Act preempted a claim for breach of a quasi-contract based on unjust enrichment, a Manhattan federal district court held. Panizza v. Mattel Inc., 02-7722. Plaintiff Janis Panizza had allegedly provided ideas for two computer programs in confidence to The Learning Company (TLC). She filed suit after Mattel acquired TLC and released the “Sesame Street Music Maker,” which Panizza claimed contained ideas and materials that she had submitted to TLC. Panizza argued that copyright law didn't preempt her claim because ideas aren't copyrightable. But the district court noted that “for purposes of preemption, the Copyright Act applies with equal force to ideas. … There is no element pled by plaintiff in her complaint to quantitatively differentiate it from those areas protected by federal copyright law. Thus, removal of the action to federal court was proper as plaintiff's state common law claim is preempted by the Copyright Act.”

The exemption from payment for use of sound recordings for nonsubscription broadcast transmissions under Sec. 114(d)(1)(A) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) applies to over-the-air radio broadcast transmissions, but not the Internet streaming of AM/FM broadcast signals, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided. Bonneville International Corp. v. Peters, 01-3720. The appeals court's decision upheld a rulemaking clarification by the Copyright Office that had been requested by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The district court granted summary judgment for the Copyright Office and the RIAA in a suit filed by the National Association of Broadcasters challenging the Copyright Office's rulemaking. (There was no dispute that AM/FM webcasting was a public digital audio transmission and a nonsubscription transmission.) Affirming, the appeals court stated, “The DMCA's silence on AM/FM webcasting gives us no affirmative grounds to believe that Congress intended to expand the protections contemplated by the [Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, which the DMCA amended]. The appellants must show something more than congressional silence to argue convincingly that Congress intended to lump AM/FM webcasting with over-the-air broadcasting in '114(d)(1)(A)'s exemption.”

Next issue will include an analysis of the 9th Circuit's ruling in the music sampling case involving the Beastie Boys (Newton v. Diamond, No. 02-55983)