3 Count: Hopped Over

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1: Fox Loses Latest Bid to Halt Dish’s Place-Shifting Technology

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Fox has lost yet another bid for an injunction against Dish Network and it’s “Dish Anywhere” DVR, commonly known as Dish’s Hopper with Sling.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Dish Network, thus denying Fox’s request for an injunction and upholding the lower court ruling. The ruling echoes another verdict by the same court with the same parties over Dish’s Hopper DVR, which enables users to automatically skip commercials. When Dish introduced the “Dish Anywhere” DVR, which added the ability to view recorded programs on any Internet-connected device, Fox sued again with similar results.

The Appeals Court didn’t rule on whether the DVR was infringing but said that there was no threat of irreparable harm, as proved by the fact that Fox had not taken action against Sling technology for several years despite being available elsewhere. This ruling kicks the case back down to the lower court to rule on the issue of whether the DVR is infringing, which is where the first case is now.

2: Marvel Wants SCOTUS To Reject Jack Kirby Heirs’ “Bizarre” Rights Petition

Next up today, Dominic Patten at Deadline Hollywood reports that Marvel and Disney have filed their petition with the Supreme Court and have asked it not to hear the Jack Kirby estate’s copyright termination case, saying that it doesn’t warrant review by the court.

Copyright termination allows creators of works to terminate any license agreements they made after a certain number of years. Jack Kirby, who created many of Marvel’s most popular characters, has had his estate attempt to terminate Kirby’s deals with Marvel and reclaim rights to his work. However, Marvel has argued, so far successfully, that Kirby’s efforts were works for hire and don’t qualify for copyright termination.

Kirby has seen a great deal of support in his campaign with many major Hollywood guild filing petitions asking the court to take the case. However, Marvel argues that there is no issue here that warrants the attention of the Supreme Court as there is no circuit split, constitutional issue or other challenge that would normally prompt a Supreme Court challenge.

3: Universal Calls MGM’s James Bond Lawsuit ‘Extraordinary and Needless’

Finally today, Ted Johnson at Variety reports that the back and forth between Universal and MGM over the potential upcoming film “Section 6” is continuing as Univeral has once again said that MGM’s lawsuit over the film is premature.

MGM and Danjaq, the production company that is responsible for the James Bond films, sued Universal alleging that its upcoming film “Section 6” was an infringement of the iconic spy character. However, Universal has denied that it has approved the film and says that, if it does make the movie, the final product will likely be very different than the script the lawsuit is based upon.

In its latest response Universal continues with that argument but also adds that the similarities between Section 6 and James Bond, as described by MGM, would either be fair use or de minimis.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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