MULTIPLE CLAIMS AGAINST UNIVERSAL DISMISSED IN THE SPINAL TAP CASE

On August 28, 2018, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee dismissed fraud and breach of contract claims that “This Is Spinal Tap” creators had asserted against Universal Music Group, Inc. (“Universal”) and others. The initial lawsuit brought by Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner (the four co-creators of the Spinal Tap “mockumentary”…

On August 23, 2018, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Battaglia granted a permanent injunction preventing a Utah comic convention from using the name “Salt Lake Comic Con.” Judge Battaglia found for the well-known San Diego Comic Convention (“SDCC”), and awarded the SDCC nearly $4 million in attorneys’ fees. Judge Battaglia explained, “SDCC has demonstrated that…

On September 28, 2018, the Ninth Circuit ordered a new trial in a copyright lawsuit that accused Led Zeppelin of stealing the intro to their hit song “Stairway to Heaven,” from a 1967 instrumental ballad called “Taurus” by the band Spirit. A three-judge panel overturned a 2016 verdict in favor of Led Zeppelin deciding the…

As previously reported in “In The Know” on March 15, 2018, the plaintiff Denise Daniels (“Daniels”) lost the case involving the Disney movie “Inside Out” on a motion to dismiss. On August 24, 2018, Daniels filed her opening brief asking the Ninth Circuit to revive her copyright infringement lawsuit, warning that the case will set…

On September 18, 2018, the Orrin G. Hatch “Music Modernization Act” (“MMA”) was passed unanimously by the Senate, after already being approved by the House earlier this year. This bill is considered a “music peace treaty” between artists, performance rights organizations, music publishers and tech companies including Spotify, Amazon, and SiriusXM. Spotify is a digital…

On August 24, 2018, the family of late pop star Prince sued Walgreens, a doctor (Michael Schulenberg) and other health care professionals claiming in a Minnesota state wrongful death suit that the aforementioned parties failed to treat the late star for opiate addiction. The Complaint states Prince received professional health care services from all the…

On August 20, 2018, the Ninth Circuit revived a lawsuit against CBS concerning radio broadcasts of pre-1972 recordings by overturning a ruling by a California District Court Judge in CBS’s favor. That ruling held that “remastered” versions of old songs are entirely new sound recordings. If they are new sound recordings, then the California Civil Code§980…

On August 28, 2018, a California appellate court ruled that a posthumously released Michael Jackson album that featured a “soundalike” vocalist on three tracks did not give rise to claims against Sony Music and the Jackson estate even though they had impliedly and expressly represented that Jackson sang all 10 songs, on both the album…

Virgina Vallejo, a former Columbian journalist living in asylum in the United States, filed a lawsuit on August 24, 2018, claiming that the producers of the series “Narcos” infringed copyrights covering her best-selling memoir in which she narrated her romantic relationship with former drug lord Pablo Escobar. Vallejo’s complaint claims the series depicted her through…

On August 24, 2018, the Chapter 11 trustee for the companies responsible for the “Girls Gone Wild” brand of videos asked a California bankruptcy court to close all but one case against the company. The trustee explained to the court that the only outstanding issue in the bankruptcy estate is a $2 million judgment entered…