{"id":54116,"date":"2023-10-03T15:04:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T19:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2023\/10\/03\/flo-rida-old-lawsuits-raging-bull-supreme-courts-big-music-copyright-case-explained\/"},"modified":"2023-10-03T15:04:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T19:04:26","slug":"flo-rida-old-lawsuits-raging-bull-supreme-courts-big-music-copyright-case-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2023\/10\/03\/flo-rida-old-lawsuits-raging-bull-supreme-courts-big-music-copyright-case-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Flo Rida, Old Lawsuits & \u2018Raging Bull\u2019: Supreme Court\u2019s Big Music Copyright Case\u00a0Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tBack in 2018, when music producer Sherman Nealy<\/strong> filed a lawsuit against Warner Music Group, it was just a run-of-the-mill copyright case. Nealy claimed that Flo Rida<\/a>\u2019s 2008 tune \u201cIn the Ayer\u201d featured an unlicensed sample of \u201cJam the Box,\u201d a 1984 track released by Pretty Tony that he owns. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the same kind of claim that\u2019s made in federal courts every day.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut five years later, Nealy\u2019s lawsuit is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will use it as a vehicle to answer big unresolved questions about how much money can be awarded in copyright cases. Are those damages limited to just the last three years before a case was filed? Or can they range back decades, adding potentially many more millions to the total?<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tEd Sheeran ‘Let’s Get It On’ Copyright Case Isn\u2019t Over Quite\u00a0Yet\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThe high court\u2019s eventual ruling, which the justices will issue next spring, will apply to all forms of copyrighted works, but the music industry is paying particularly close attention. In a filing earlier this year, record labels and music publishers called the case \u201cexceptionally important\u201d to their business.<\/p>\n

Pay After Delay?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\n\tThe controversy at the center of the case against Warner dates back to 2014, when the Supreme Court ruled that the movie studio MGM could be sued for copyright infringement over Raging Bull<\/em>, even though the case was filed decades after the Martin Scorsese-directed film had first been released in 1980. The studio argued that long delay was unfair, but the justices pointed out that the Copyright Act has a three-year statute of limitations that resets with every new infringement.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder the court\u2019s interpretation of the law, as long as copies of an allegedly infringing book, song or movie had been sold during the three years prior to the lawsuit, it was fair game for a copyright case. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that ruling led to a surge in long-delayed infringement cases, including a high-profile lawsuit against Led Zeppelin over the 1971 song \u201cStairway To Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut like many Supreme Court decisions, the Raging Bull<\/em> ruling ultimately raised as many questions as it answered. Chief among them: if you can sue many years later, how far back can you seek damages? If you successfully sue someone in 2023 over a song that came out in 1995, can you demand payment based on 27 years of illegal sales?<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tStreaming Services Must Pay Songwriters Late Fees on Delayed\u00a0Payments\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tIn the Raging Bull<\/em> ruling, the Supreme Court seemed to say no. In her opinion, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was fairly clear: \u201cA successful plaintiff can gain retrospective relief only three years back from the time of suit. No recovery may be had for infringement in earlier years. Profits made in those years remain the defendant\u2019s to keep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the years since, the New York-centric U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has taken that language literally, ruling a copyright accuser cannot win damages for any for any conduct older than three years \u2013 full stop. If you wait to sue over a hit song from the 1990s, you cannot tap into those huge profits when you win the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (covering California) disagrees. If you can prove that you only recently \u201cdiscovered\u201d the fact that your copyright was infringed, the Ninth Circuit says you can seek damages going back all the way to all the way back to the very first infringement \u2013 potentially decades worth of penalties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat means the two courts that contain the vast majority of the country\u2019s creative industries are directly divided over how copyright law works \u2013 a so-called \u201ccircuit split\u201d that the Supreme Court is tasked with correcting.<\/p>\n

Heading To Court<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\n\tNealy sued Atlantic Records, Warner Chappell and Artist Publishing Group in Florida federal court in 2018, arguing he had never actually granted them a valid license for his \u201cJam the Box\u201d to be sampled in Flo Rida\u2019s \u201cIn the Ayer,\u201d which reached No. 9 on the Hot 100 after being released in July 2008.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2021, the judge overseeing the case cited Raging Bull<\/em> and ruled that Nealy couldn\u2019t win any money from earlier than 2015. Though Nealy said he had only learned of the illegal sample in 2016 and wanted damages going all the way back to 2008, the judge cited the Supreme Court\u2019s \u201cbinding precedent\u201d that had \u201cexplicitly delimited damages to the three years prior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned that ruling. Siding with the Ninth Circuit\u2019s approach, the appeals court ruled that Nealy\u2019s late discovery of the infringement was a different situation than the one dealt with in Raging Bull<\/em> \u2013 and that any similar \u201cdiscovery rule\u201d cases would be allowed to seek damages as far back as they went.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSongs Accused of Plagiarism That Hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot\u00a0100\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tWarner quickly appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. Repped by elite SCOTUS attorney Kannon Shanmugam<\/strong> of the law firm Paul Weiss, the company argued in a May petition that the \u201cdiscovery\u201d approach would unfairly expand the \u201cfinancial exposure\u201d of a copyright defendant and potentially lead to frivolous lawsuits that aimed to \u201cextract settlements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDeprived of a predictable limitations period and faced with expensive, time-consuming, and difficult litigation in order to defend years-old uses of copyrighted works, defendants will often be left with no choice but to settle claims early even in the absence of wrongdoing\u2014or potentially never enter valuable agreements in the first place,\u201d Shanmugam wrote for his client.<\/p>\n

\u201cVitally Important\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\n\tThe phrases \u201cretroactive relief\u201d and \u201cthree-year lookback period\u201d might make your eyes glaze over, but the Nealy v. Warner <\/em>case has big implications for copyright-heavy industries like music.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Raging Bull<\/em> ruling dropped in 2014, artists and labels saw a rash of long-delayed cases. The lawsuit against Led Zeppelin \u2013 which resulted in more than six years of costly litigation before the band was ultimately cleared of all wrongdoing \u2013 was the most prominent, but it was just one of many. Meatloaf was sued over his 1993 song \u201cI\u2019d Do Anything For Love\u201d; U2 was accused of ripping off its 1991 hit \u201cThe Fly\u201d; and another case claimed that Notorious B.I.G.\u2019s 1993 hit \u201cParty and Bullshit\u201d featured an unlicensed sample.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the Supreme Court eventually rules in favor of Nealy, it would almost certainly encourage more age-old cases, creating a far larger potential prize for a successful accuser. As Nealy\u2019s attorneys argued at an earlier stage of his case, when it comes to years-old copyright claims, \u201cthe vast bulk of damages\u201d will typically fall outside the three-year limit.<\/p>\n

\n\tLabels and publishers are watching the case closely. In a June brief at the Supreme Court, the Recording Industry Association of America and National Music Publishers\u2019 Association didn\u2019t advocate for either camp, but simply urged the justices to take up a case that is \u201cvitally important to the music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause copyrights are the music industry\u2019s most consequential asset, music labels and music publishers regularly find themselves both enforcing and defending copy right lawsuits,\u201d lawyers for RIAA and NMPA wrote. \u201cWithout a clear national rule setting the temporal limits of recoverable damages, amici and their members face serious uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2018, when music producer Sherman Nealy filed a lawsuit against Warner Music Group, it was just a run-of-the-mill copyright case. Nealy claimed that Flo Rida\u2019s 2008 tune \u201cIn the Ayer\u201d featured an unlicensed sample of \u201cJam the Box,\u201d a 1984 track released by Pretty Tony that he owns. It\u2019s the same kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}