Beastie Boys & UMG Awarded Attorney's Fees In TufAmerica Copyright Action

TufAmerica, Inc. v. Diamond et al., No. 12-cv-3529 (S.D.N.Y. filed Mar. 9, 2016).

The Court awarded the Beastie Boys and their label, UMG, attorney's fees under section 505 of the Copyright Act, after they successfully defeated plaintiff's infringement claims at summary judgment.  The question at summary judgment was whether Plaintiff had standing (they did not), and the Court found that awarding fees furthered the objectives of the Copyright Act by deterring the filing and pursuit of lawsuits in which chain of title has not been properly investigated by the plaintiff.   The court reduced the Beastie Boys' lawyer's fees by 10% for some vague billing entries and duplicative work; 15% was reduced from the label's lawyer's fees based on vague and sparse entries.  Beastie Boys and UMG were also awarded costs.  The totals were:

• Beastie Boys: approx. $591k fees, approx. $11k costs
• UMG: appox. $234k fees, approx $8k costs

New Service Grandfathered For Pre-1998 Royalty Rates

SoundExchange v. Muzak, No. 15-cv-476 (D.D.C. filed Mar. 8, 2016).

The Court held that Muzak, a grandfathered "preexisting subscription service" under 17 USC 114, enjoyed a favorable royalty rate -- not subject to the  "willing buyer/willing seller" standard -- for its SonicTap service even though that service was not offered at the relevant statutory date.  Interpreting the statute, the Court found that Congress intended to permit preeexisting subscription services to expand their offerings.  This ruling was also consistend with the legislative history and findings by the Register of Copyrights.

Elvis Denied US Discovery of Sony Music For Litigation in Germany Adverse To Arista Music

In re  Elvis Presley Enters. LLC, No. 15-mc-386 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 1, 2016).

Elvis Presley Enterprises LLC is party to a litigation in Germany against Arista Music, and sought to serve a subpoena in the USA on Arista's affialiate, Sony Music, to obtain documents that it claims are relevant to the proceedings in Germany.  The Court exercised its discretion and denied the application pursuant to 28 USC 1782.  Weighing in favor of Sony's opposition to the discovery were: Arista is a wholly-owend subsidiary and thus has access to the documents and information held by Sony, the procedural posture of the case in Germany (it was on appeal), the timing of the section 1782 application, and the discovery requests were burdensome.