"Blurred Lines” – Is it Copyright Infringement or Fair Use? You Decide.

Does Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ “Blurred Lines” song remind you of Marvin Gay’s hit “Got to Give it Up”? How about 2 Live Crew’s version of “Pretty Woman” compared with Roy Orbison’s song? What about visual artists like Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Richard Prince, who appropriate and incorporate others’ material into their own works of art? Did Google inappropriately copy Oracle’s smartphone code? Did Apple misappropriate Microsoft’s graphic interface design?

These are just a few examples of questions that arise when judges and juries decide whether use of another’s intellectual property is infringing, or whether it constitutes fair use. Our panel will explain how the line between copyright infringement and fair use is constantly being challenged and expanded, whether in the context of songs, pop art, proprietary computer code, or other forms of expression. Intellectual property accounts for a huge piece of the U.S. economy, and copyright – and its accompanying legal issues – is all around us.

Each corporate client has intellectual property it needs to protect, and each needs to understand any potential risks of infringement. Come join this interactive panel which will walk-through real-world examples of alleged infringement, asking the audience to vote whether the secondary use should constitute a “fair use.” The panel will then reveal the actual outcome of the case, and the audience will see how their instincts align with court decisions.

The panel will explore what factors courts analyze when examining fair use cases, and will discuss examples including:

• Oral arguments presented to the Supreme Court in the case involving Andy Warhol’s use of a copyrighted photograph to create a series of portraits of Prince
  
• Lawsuits against celebrities posting paparazzi photographs of themselves on social media, such as actress Emily Ratajkowski, LeBron James, and NFL player Deshaun Watson;
  
• The Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling in Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” IP dispute;
  
• Alice Randall’s critique of Gone With the Wind in her book The Wind Done Gone;
  
• The Court ruling in Dr. Seuss Enters., L.P. v. ComicMix regarding fair use of Dr. Seuss’s material;
  
• Street artists and their challenges and successes in protecting copyright in graffiti;
  
• The case of Disney v. Vid Angel, where the court ruled that the fair use defense did not apply where an unlicensed video-on-demand streaming service allowed customers to filter out adult content from movies and television shows;
  
• Instances of musicians suing over politicians’ use of their music at campaign events; and
  
• Infringement cases based on celebrity tattoos being replicated on video game characters.
  
  Come hear why this area of the law is so hard to predict and why these cases are always fact intensive and highly debated. You’ll walk away armed with advice to give your own clients as they protect their own intellectual property interests.

  Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the concept of fair use of copyright
  • Learn the legal framework for assessing fair use
  • Apply the legal framework to assess whether a completely different usage is a fair use