Owners, Borrowers & Thieves 2.0 : Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP : First Amendment, Commercial Speech

Coming soon to a blogoshpere near you . . .

As regular readers of this blog know, we have often used this space as a means to follow and comment on the continuing tension that results from trying to fit new technologies, new types of content and new content delivery systems into old paradigms of intellectual property law.  Sometimes it's copyright -- for example, YouTube's assault on (or defense behind) the DMCA;  sometimes its trademark -- for example, whether Google Keyword ads constitute trademark use for purposes of an infringement claim; sometimes it's even Comics!

Recently we've realized that our mutual interest in emerging technologies and how the law practice can adapt to a changing IP environment has been prompting us to adapt our blogging to fit our own new paradigm.  We're very excited about some changes that will be coming shortly, including adding a fresh new voice or two.

We hope we've been "fairly useful" (to borrow Professor Sag's great blog title) so far, and hope you'll check in regularly as we go forward.

Stay tuned . . .  

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The new year opened with an intriguing study by two American University professors that concludes that many online videos which use copyrighted materials do so in ways that are eligible for fair use consideration under copyright law.  These are, of course, the very same uses of copyrighted material under siege by a variety of "anti-piracy" measures online.

The study--Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video--identifies nine kinds of uses of copyrighted material that are eligible for fair use consideration. They range from the incidental (such as a video maker’s family singing “Happy Birthday”) to parody (a Christian takeoff on the song “Baby Got Back”) to pastiche and collage (finger-dancing to “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”).

Better yet, the study contains links to dozens and dozens of videos--many of which are brilliant and hilarious--that demonstrate these various kinds of uses. WARNING: For those of you who've lost an hour or so of office time to the lure of the Sirens of the Island of the YouTube Concert Videos, prepare to land on Calypso's Island of Transformative Use, where you will be tempted by the vicious satire of George Bush Don't Like Black People and the astounding tour de force of History of Dance and the marvelously clever Ten Things I Hate About Commandments. And many, many more.

Kudos to the study's authors, Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, for shedding some coherent light on this vital new realm of fair use.  Pat Aufderheide is a professor in American University’s School of Communication and the director of the school's Center for Social Media.  Peter Jaszi is a professor in American University’s Washington College of Law and co-director of the law school’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property.

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Louis Vuitton, say hello to Chewy Vuiton. That doggy chew toy is here to say, thanks to the Fourth Circuit's recent opinion in favor of Haute Diggity Dog in its trademark battle with Louis Vuitton Malletier, SA.  The defendant is a little company that manufactures a line of pet chew toys and beds with names that spoof famous high-end brands, including Dog Perignon, Sniffany & Co., and Chewnel No. 5.  The plaintiff is a big company that boasts one of the most famous brands in the world--LOUIS VUITTON--but, alas, no sense of humor.

Louis Vuitton Malletier sued Haute Diggity Dog (the "Dog") for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, copyright infringement and unfair competition over a $20 chew toy that was modeled on a Louis Vuitton handbag that retails for more than a thousand dollars.  On cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court ruled in favor of the Dog on all counts on fair use grounds, finding that Chewy Vuiton was a successful parody of the plaintiff's marks.  By the time the case reached the appellate court, Louis Vuitton had been joined by the International Trademark Association as an amicus.  It submitted a brief and participated in the oral argument.

Talk about your big dogs. Ah, but the Dog did just fine.

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William Patry, the Mack Daddy of Copyright, has a fascinating post entitled, "The Effect of Judicial Ideology in IP Cases," on his eponymous blog.  (Ah, I finally found a way to use "eponymous.")

Patry discusses an empirical study by Professors Matthew Sag, Tonja Jacobi and Maxim Stych, posted here on the Social Science Research Network, in which the authors present the results of their examination of the past 22 years of Supreme Court decisions in the fields of patents, copyrights and trademarks.  According to the abstract of their article, their analysis shows "that ideology is a significant determinant of cases involving intellectual property rights."  Even more interesting, ideology seemed to dictate different results depending upon the type of intellectual property involved, e.g., the Justices were more likely to vote against a trademark owner but for a copyright owner.

On a less scholarly basis I have noticed similar -- and similarly unexpected -- ideological divides in lower courts in the field of right of publicity.  Given that the right of publicity is a property right, judges from which end of the political spectrum are more likely to protect it?  Wrong.

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The Eighth Circuit handed down its much awaited fantasy baseball decision in CBC Distribution & Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P., the appeal of the district court's summary judgment in favor of CBC.  CBC had brought a declaratory judgment case in St. Louis to establish its right to use -- without license or compensation -- the names and statistical information of real major league baseball players in its fantasy baseball products.  The players had counterclaimed, maintaining that CBC's fantasy baseball products violated their rights of publicity.

Although the Eighth Circuit concluded that use by CBC of the names and statistics of the players in its commercial fantasy baseball operations satisfied all three elements of the Missouri tort -- namely, (1) use of the player's name as a symbol of his identify, (2) without his consent, and (3) with the intent to obtain a commercial advantage -- it held that this use was nevertheless a "fair use" under the First Amendment.

But of more interest to me -- and to those concerned that right-of-publicity has become the tort of choice for celebrities seeking to avoid the First Amendment barriers to libel and privacy claims -- is the Eighth Circuit's treatment of the controversial  First Amendment test created by the Missouri Supreme Court in the Tony Twist case, which is also the same case that articulated the three elements of the tort claim set forth in the preceding paragraph.

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It used to be pretty simple.  You went to a record store (or mailed in your record-club form), bought an album or CD, and you owned it.  As the owner, you had certain rights--under the First Sale and Fair Use doctrines, you could make a copy for your own personal use, give it away,  share it, even sell it.  Easy, right?

Well, the times they are a'changin'.  Like many people, I haven't bought a new CD in a long time -- I have all my music on my iPod and download it from iTunes (legally, of course).  Now I'm excited about Amazon.com's new MP3 Store, which promises cheaper music downloads, better sound, and--most importantly--the music is DRM-free, meaning I can play it on any device.  Great! 

But not so fast . . .

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Sunday night, my multiverse collapsed upon itself. The Season Six premiere of Family Guy: Blue Harvest has been stalking me all summer.

At Comic-Con International in San Diego, Friday was Star Wars Day and Seth MacFarlane discussed the premiere episode during the Family Guy panel. You may have noticed sketches of Yoda and an Imperial Stormtrooper (along with tagline “May the Force be With You”) on the menu I used to discuss enforcement practices. Two weeks later, I was at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco attending the Intellectual Property Law Section’s activities. While there, I had the opportunity to hear David Anderman Senior Director of Business Affairs (and lead attorney) for Lucasfilm Ltd. speak on a panel entitled “‘The Whole World is Watching!’ Privacy, Copyright and Parental Control in the Age of YouTube, MySpace and Beyond,” sponsored by the Forum on Entertainment and Sports Industries. During Anderman’s portion of the panel he discussed the Lucasfilm approach to enforcement and the Family Guy premier. Anderman explained how Lucasfilm’s relationship with Family Guy exemplifies a realistic approach to enforcement that understands branding and that has evolved with technological changes in content creation and distribution.

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While death has ended James Brown's reign as Hardest Working Man in Show Business, his post-mortem litigation may yet snatch from Elvis the title Hardest Work Corpse in Lawsuits.  His latest appearance was in the Illinois Appellate Court, where he was the headliner in the appeal of a right-of-publicity claim against a company that licenses copyrights for stock photographs.  The case presents an intriguing and somewhat confusing fair-use struggle along the border between right of publicity and copyright law.

The basic facts are straightforward: The main defendant, Corbis Corp., licenses the use of stock photographs and images. Its customers range from newspapers and magazines to advertising agencies.  It had, for example, given Rolling Stone Magazine a license to use certain photographs of James Brown in a profile the magazine published under the title Being James Brown.

So far, so good.  Entirely proper, no cause of action.

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"The law is a seamless web."  Whether Oliver Wendel Holmes or Frederick Maitland first made that enigmatic claim, one way to put it to the test is to set aside the familiar cubbyholes we use to sort out legal issues -- antitrust, copyright, UCC, trusts & estates -- and instead pick a theme.  My fellow blogger Geoff Gerber has picked comic books as his theme.  Study the law of comic books, O Spidey, and you may indeed find yourself in a seamless web.  My current seamless -- or perhaps seamy -- web is the realm of dirty words and dirty pictures, a/k/a, "Censorship & the First Amendment," a course I teach at Washington University School of Law.

But if you'd prefer to earn a Juris Doctor Dre or would rather be sippin' on Gin & Jurisprudence, try the Law of Hip Hop, which traces its origins to the Mack Daddy of "fair use" cases, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose. How can you not love a U.S. Supreme Court decision that quotes these timeless lyrics from Luther "Luke" Campbell's version of the Roy Orbison classic, "Pretty Woman":

Big hairy woman, you need to shave that stuff
Big hairy woman, you know I bet it's tough
Big hairy woman, all that hair it ain't legit
Cause you look like "Cousin It"
Big hairy woman

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While all versions of "fair use" share some of the same 1st Amendment genetic code, the doctrine has one meaning in copyright law, other meanings under trademark law (such as 15 U.S.C. Sections 1115(b)(4) & 1125(c)(4)), and yet other meanings in the field of right of publicity. 

But for those of us who toil in the journalism vineyards -- where the purest and oldest of those DNA strands are found -- the fair use defense actually travels, at least in invasion of privacy lawsuits, under the alias of "newsworthiness."  The scope of that doctrine took center stage in Alvarado v. KOB-TV, a recent 10th Circuit decision affirming a district court's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by two undercover cops against an Albuquerque TV station that broadcast their identities. The  plaintiffs were Albuquerque cops who were named on the news show as suspects in a sexual assault case; in addition, the station aired video footage of each man opening the door to his home after the reporter rang the doorbell.  The cops were eventually cleared of the sexual assault charge, although they continued to receive threats as a result of the broadcast. There was no defamation claim because the station's broadcast was entirely true: they had indeed been charged with a crime.  So instead, they (and their wives) sued the station for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

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