Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Sovereign Immunity! - Supreme Court follows Florida Prepaid v. College Sav. Bank precedent for patents, rules the copyright infringement abrogation provision for claims against states of the The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 as invalid.
Allen v. Cooper, No. 18-877, 2020 WL 1325815 (U.S. Mar. 23, 2020)
Topic: Copyright Infringement - Pictures & Video
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Kaubalaeva__E._Russ__vrakk-5c44f69246e0fb000152f464.jpg "Queen Anne's Revenge")
Videographer and his video production company brought action against North Carolina and state officials seeking declaration that North Carolina statute that converted copyrighted images of shipwreck to public record was preempted by federal copyright law and was otherwise unconstitutional, and asserting claims for copyright infringement, for unconstitutional taking pursuant to § 1983, and state law claims for unfair and deceptive trade practices and civil conspiracy. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Terrence W. Boyle, J., 244 F.Supp.3d 525, granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motions to dismiss, allowing the declaratory judgment and infringement claims to proceed. Defendants appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Niemeyer, Circuit Judge, 895 F.3d 337, reversed and remanded. Certiorari was granted.
In two basically identical statutes passed in the early 1990s, Congress sought to strip the States of their sovereign immunity from patent and copyright infringement suits. Not long after, this Court held in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627, 119 S.Ct. 2199, 144 L.Ed.2d 575 (1999), that the patent statute lacked a valid constitutional basis. Today, we take up the copyright statute. We find that our decision in Florida Prepaid compels the same conclusion.
In 1717, the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, captured a French slave ship in the West Indies and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. The vessel became his flagship. Carrying some 40 cannons and 300 men, the Revenge took many prizes as she sailed around the Caribbean and up the North American coast. But her reign over those seas was short-lived. In 1718, the ship ran aground on a sandbar a mile off Beaufort, North Carolina. Blackbeard and most of his crew escaped without harm. Not so the Revenge. She sank beneath the waters, where she lay undisturbed for nearly 300 years.
In 1996, a marine salvage company named Intersal, Inc., discovered the shipwreck. Under federal and state law, the wreck belongs to North Carolina. See 102 Stat. 433, 43 U.S.C. § 2105(c); N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 121–22 (2019). But the State contracted with Intersal to take charge of the recovery activities. Intersal in turn retained petitioner Frederick Allen, a local videographer, to document the operation. For over a decade, Allen created videos and photos of divers' efforts to salvage the Revenge's guns, anchors, and other remains. He registered copyrights in all those works.
This suit arises from North Carolina's publication of some of Allen's videos and photos. Allen first protested in 2013 that the State was infringing his copyrights by uploading his work to its website without permission. To address that allegation, North Carolina agreed to a settlement paying Allen $15,000 and laying out the parties' respective rights to the materials. But Allen and the State soon found themselves embroiled in another dispute. Allen complained that North Carolina had impermissibly posted five of his videos online and used one of his photos in a newsletter. When the State declined to admit wrongdoing, Allen filed this action in Federal District Court. It charges the State with copyright infringement (call it a modern form of piracy) and seeks money damages.
The United States Supreme Court, Justice Kagan, held that:
1. Congress' power to provide copyright protection did not authorize Congress to abrogate States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from copyright infringement suits, and
2. Congress's authority to enforce Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause did not authorize it to abrogate States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from copyright infringement suits.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
Topic: Copyright Infringement - Pictures & Video
"The Queen Anne's Revenge" Juha Flinkman, SubZone OY / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
Videographer and his video production company brought action against North Carolina and state officials seeking declaration that North Carolina statute that converted copyrighted images of shipwreck to public record was preempted by federal copyright law and was otherwise unconstitutional, and asserting claims for copyright infringement, for unconstitutional taking pursuant to § 1983, and state law claims for unfair and deceptive trade practices and civil conspiracy. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Terrence W. Boyle, J., 244 F.Supp.3d 525, granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motions to dismiss, allowing the declaratory judgment and infringement claims to proceed. Defendants appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Niemeyer, Circuit Judge, 895 F.3d 337, reversed and remanded. Certiorari was granted.
In two basically identical statutes passed in the early 1990s, Congress sought to strip the States of their sovereign immunity from patent and copyright infringement suits. Not long after, this Court held in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627, 119 S.Ct. 2199, 144 L.Ed.2d 575 (1999), that the patent statute lacked a valid constitutional basis. Today, we take up the copyright statute. We find that our decision in Florida Prepaid compels the same conclusion.
In 1717, the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, captured a French slave ship in the West Indies and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. The vessel became his flagship. Carrying some 40 cannons and 300 men, the Revenge took many prizes as she sailed around the Caribbean and up the North American coast. But her reign over those seas was short-lived. In 1718, the ship ran aground on a sandbar a mile off Beaufort, North Carolina. Blackbeard and most of his crew escaped without harm. Not so the Revenge. She sank beneath the waters, where she lay undisturbed for nearly 300 years.
In 1996, a marine salvage company named Intersal, Inc., discovered the shipwreck. Under federal and state law, the wreck belongs to North Carolina. See 102 Stat. 433, 43 U.S.C. § 2105(c); N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 121–22 (2019). But the State contracted with Intersal to take charge of the recovery activities. Intersal in turn retained petitioner Frederick Allen, a local videographer, to document the operation. For over a decade, Allen created videos and photos of divers' efforts to salvage the Revenge's guns, anchors, and other remains. He registered copyrights in all those works.
This suit arises from North Carolina's publication of some of Allen's videos and photos. Allen first protested in 2013 that the State was infringing his copyrights by uploading his work to its website without permission. To address that allegation, North Carolina agreed to a settlement paying Allen $15,000 and laying out the parties' respective rights to the materials. But Allen and the State soon found themselves embroiled in another dispute. Allen complained that North Carolina had impermissibly posted five of his videos online and used one of his photos in a newsletter. When the State declined to admit wrongdoing, Allen filed this action in Federal District Court. It charges the State with copyright infringement (call it a modern form of piracy) and seeks money damages.
The United States Supreme Court, Justice Kagan, held that:
1. Congress' power to provide copyright protection did not authorize Congress to abrogate States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from copyright infringement suits, and
2. Congress's authority to enforce Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause did not authorize it to abrogate States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from copyright infringement suits.
Read full opinion at:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
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