Search Results for: supreme court

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts may block Internet users from posting codes that could be used to illegally copy DVD movies, in a case that pitted trade secret rights against free speech. The justices did not resolve whether the code was in fact a trade secret, leaving that for a lower court to determine. They did rule, however, that they would not tolerate the posting of legitimate trade secrets online and reversed a lower court that said disseminating trade secrets was protected free speech. The case centered on San Francisco computer programmer Andrew Bunner, who in 1999… Read more »

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal by Mattel Inc. over its lawsuit against MCA Records Inc. claiming the 1997 pop hit “Barbie Girl” had infringed on the toy maker’s doll trademark. Without comment, the justices let stand a federal appeals court ruling dismissing the lawsuit on the ground the song by the Danish band “Aqua” was parody and social commentary covered by the U.S. Constitution’s free-speech protections. Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker which has made the doll since 1959, sued MCA Records, its parent and other units of Universal Music, a subsidiary of French media giant… Read more »

A federal judge threw out a $70 million lawsuit filed by an anti-gangsta rap crusader who claimed lawyers for two record labels tried to drive her to emotional and financial ruin. C. DeLores Tucker and her husband sued in 1999, claiming she was the victim of malicious prosecution because of her campaign against gangsta rap. According to her lawsuit, she met with executives from Time Warner and Death Row Records in 1995 to try to persuade them to clean up the language in gangsta rap. The Tuckers claimed that Death Row Records, rap label Interscope, five attorneys and two hired… Read more »

Grunge singer-turned-actress Courtney Love and Vivendi Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record conglomerate, announced settlement Monday of their lawsuits against each other with a deal that allows the music firm to release songs by her late husband’s band Nirvana. Universal sued Love in 2000 over five allegedly undelivered albums. She filed a countersuit last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court that sought to break her contract with Vivendi Universal and expose what she called unfair treatment of artists. Love – the widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994 – claimed Universal made about $40… Read more »

When Courtney Love has her day in court to argue her case against Geffen Records, Inc., she and her attorney won’t be able to use a pivotal claim Love has touted since the dispute started over a year ago. One of Love’s key arguments has been that recording artists are unfairly excluded from a labor law provision that allows other entertainment workers, such as actors, to be freed from their contracts after seven years. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Fumiko Wasserman dismissed that argument from the suit on Wednesday, according to a court spokesperson. Wasserman green-lighted Love’s other claims… Read more »

In a setback for efforts to halt copyright abuse, a Dutch appeals court on Thursday told a technology firm it could distribute a software program that is designed to let users share music and films on the Internet. The ruling in the case between Internet software company KaZaA and Dutch music rights organization Buma Stemra overturned a decision in November in favor of the music industry. The music industry says rampant online piracy has severely damaged recording sales and the movie industry fears the same could happen to it as computers become more powerful. The Amsterdam Court of Justice ruled… Read more »

The state’s highest court decided it will consider the case of record producer Phil Spector and ’60s rock group the Ronettes over millions of dollars in movie soundtrack royalties. The state Court of Appeals is expected to hear the case late this year. Last November, the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division upheld a lower court finding that Spector had violated his 1963 contract with the three women – one of whom was his wife – and ordered him to pay $2.97 million plus interest. The contract dealt only with royalties on sales of records, but Spector was accused of illegally… Read more »

In a major victory for Hollywood movie studios, a federal appeals court on Wednesday barred a Web site from revealing how to make unauthorized copies of digital video discs (DVDs). The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not infringe on the free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution. There were actions in two other DMCA-related cases on Wednesday. A federal judge in Trenton, New Jersey, dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the DMCA filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In that case, a group of… Read more »

Embattled online music giant Napster has been handed another legal defeat, as a federal appeals court on Monday rejected the song-swap company’s request for a rehearing in the music industry’s landmark copyright lawsuit that resulted in a crippling injunction against the service. “This decision puts to rest any questions that Napster has raised regarding the earlier decision and affirms the rights of copyrighted holders on the Internet,” said Cary Sherman, senior vice president and general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Napster had first requested the rehearing after the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in February that… Read more »

A former high school student says he had a free-speech right to wear Marilyn Manson T-shirts to class. But school officials banned them as offensive, and on Monday, the student lost a Supreme Court appeal. The court, without comment, turned down the Ohio student’s argument that school officials could not keep him from wearing T-shirts depicting Manson, a “shock rock” star who took his stage name from Marilyn Monroe and mass killer Charles Manson. Nicholas J. Boroff was a senior when he arrived at Van Wert High School in Van Wert, Ohio, in August 1997 wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.… Read more »