Sports & Entertainment Beat

This post was originally published on GSB's website as a GSB client update on April 2, 2019.

On March 4^th, the Supreme Court ruled that copyright owners must wait to file an infringement suit until the Copyright Office has registered the work. The unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.Com, LLC, affirmed the Eleventh Circuit and resolved a split among the circuit courts of appeal. The decision has significant implications for copyright holders and contract or legislation drafters, and comes at a time of change.

On October 1, 2014, a new law came into effect that excepts parody, caricature and pastiche from the scope of copyright protection in the United Kingdom.  Under the previous law, parodists bore the risk of being sued for breach of copyright if they used clips from television shows, films or songs without the copyright holder’s permission.  The new law allows the use of such content as long as the use is “fair” (meaning it does not commercially compete with the original work) and is not discriminatory in nature.