Vaulin is currently in a jail cell in Poland after the 31-year-old was charged last year by U.S. authorities with running one of the world's most popular places to illegally obtain movies, television shows, songs and video games.
Judge John Lee takes up the issue of whether secondary liability for copyright infringement can be extended from the civil realm to the criminal one. In his decision the judge says that Vaulin is basically missing the big picture.
"[A]s should be clear by now, the indictment does not charge Vaulin with common law secondary liability... Rather, the indictment relies on the text of the congressionally enacted conspiracy and aiding and abetting statutes... Thus, the indictment charges Vaulin not with crimes based upon common law theories, but for conduct made unlawful under unambiguous statutes."
Dawn of Planet of the Apes Halted as Peta call time on Monkey Selfie Case
Naruto, via his self-appointed lawyers from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is in the process of dropping his lawsuit over the now infamous monkey selfies. That's according to a Friday legal filing with the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is being asked to hold off on issuing a ruling that everybody believes is going to go against Naruto.
Nobody would say publicly what the deal is, or why this is happening. However, during oral arguments in the case last month, a three-judge panel of the court of appeals eviscerated Naruto's arguments.
The son of late frontman Marc Bolan has filed a lawsuit accusing the studio of copyright infringement over the use of the band's hit Debora. A full copy of the suit can be viewed here.
Feld Bolan won the rights to the works of his father's band three years ago and is seeking punitive damages.
"Inexplicably, defendants failed to obtain - or even seek - the permission of the composition's US copyright holder Rolan Feld," said the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.
Feld was made aware of the use of 'Debora' when a Sony Music representative contacted his lawyer to request a licence to use the track on the movie's soundtrack release. The complaint claims that Feld then let Sony know that use of the song in the movie was "unauthorised", but Sony is said to have responded with "conflicting explanations", and Feld says they have now ceased communications.
The company has used the trademark ‘Cards Against Humanity’ since 2009, along with the tagline “A party game for horrible people”, its trade dress, which consists of white lettering on a black background with vertically aligned text, and a three-card design.
Cards Against Humanity filed a copyright and trademark infringement claim(pdf) against Skyye in September 2016 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
District Judge Audrey Fleissig granted (pdf) a permanent injunction and default judgment on Wednesday, August 9.On copyright infringement, Fleissig said that an award of $12,000 per infringement, totalling $60,000—or three times the highest estimated sales of defendants’ infringing game—in combination with the other damages, is a “just and suitably deterrent outcome”.The court awarded $20,000 per trademark infringement, for a total award of $60,000, which Fleissig said “compensates plaintiff in a fashion consistent with the purposes of the Lanham Act and case law”.
Cards Against Humanity was also granted an injunction against Skkye, along with an order for destruction of infringing goods.It was also awarded attorneys’ fees, subject to a further submission to the court on their reasonableness.
This CopyKat from Matthew Lingard
