This week’s post looks at three well-known copyright infringement cases involving tech giants battling each other over ownership rights.

Apple vs. Microsoft

The battle between these two tech giants began with a simple question: “Who invented the graphical user interface (GUI)?” That’s because the company that controlled the interface of the next major operating system would be the one to set the standards for application software. Unsurprisingly, Apple tried to stop Windows from becoming a major operating system.

Although Microsoft helped develop Macintosh, Jean-Louis Gassée, who had taken over from Steve Jobs at the time, refused to allow Microsoft to use Apple’s software. Bill Gates pressed on nonetheless, deciding to add in features of his own.

When Gassée saw the software, he was enraged but didn’t want a lawsuit, so he ended up agreeing to license the interface. However, Windows 2.0 turned out to be almost identical, and Gassée believed this to be a breach of contract. You see, Apple had only allowed its software to be used on Windows 1.0 – and not future versions.

So, without warning, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in 1988. This lawsuit contained 189 visual displays that infringed copyrights. This led to a six-year legal battle, culminating in 1989, with the court ruling that 179 of the 189 disputed displays were covered by the existing license, and the remaining 10 did not violate Apple’s copyright. 

This was due to what is called the doctrine of merger – where the idea and the expression of the idea are separate. The same idea can be expressed in countless ways. 

The court ultimately ruled in Microsoft’s favour on August 24, 1993.

Case: Apple vs. Google

Apple is no stranger to court proceedings, especially against Google. Steve Jobs repeatedly called  Android a “stolen product” that he was “willing to go thermonuclear war” over.

Things got so heated between Apple and Google that former Google CEO (and current chairman) Eric Schmidt stepped down from his position on Apple’s Board of Directors.

When Apple sued Samsung in 2010, Google had to step in and help Samsung partly due to a ‘Mobile Application Distribution Agreement’ that gave “partial or full indemnity with regard to four patents.”

At the same time, Motorola sued Apple, accusing the tech giant of infringing several patents, including how cellphones operated on a 3G network. On the other hand, Apple claimed that Motorola violated its patent to certain smartphone features.

The copyright case was dismissed in 2012, on the grounds of insufficient evidence, when Google acquired Motorola. 

So far, frustrated judges have thrown out the Apple vs Motorola case three times, telling them to solve their problems between themselves.

Apple didn’t’ attack Google directly, but instead went after companies selling Android devices. Yet, the search giant has always been very intent on defending Android.

In 2014, Apple and Google released a joint statement saying that it had agreed to settle all patent litigation with Apple and would even “work together in some areas of patent reform.”

Case Apple vs. Samsung:

The Supreme Court presided over a few major technology cases in 2019, but in one of the most important ones, it reversed a ruling that found Samsung liable to pay its profit from the entire line of Galaxy phones in 2011. 

The devices were found to infringe on Apple’s design patents that cover the front of the phones, and the arrangement of icons on the home screen. 

In this case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that owners of design patents won’t always be entitled to the total profits from the infringing product. For example, the device has different components, so the award may be limited to specific infringing features. 

Chief Justice Roberts argued that “the design is applied to the exterior case of the phone” – and not “all the chips and wires.” Therefore profits shouldn’t be awarded based the phone’s full price.

Apple in turn argued that design is central to many products and therefore a patent violator should hand over the full profits from infringing designs. Samsung, on the other hand, argued that penalties should be proportionate to the importance of the infringing features to the actual product. 

The Supreme Court decided that things are not so clear-cut, as a liability in design patent cases doesn’t necessarily have to be “all-or-nothing.” Therefore, Apple and Samsung will have to go back to court to figure out what the appropriate amount of damages should be.

In this week’s post, we look at well-known copyright infringement cases in the film industry.

Star Wars vs Battlestar Galactica

One of the most famous cases of copyright infringement in the film industry was between the notorious Star Wars movies and tv series Battlestar Galactica.  The claim was that Battlestar Galactica ‘used’ an excessive amount of ideas from the Star Wars. BattleStar Galactica was written and produced in 1977, the year when Star Wars’ first movie,  later subtitled Episode IV – A New Hope, aired in the cinemas. . 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios (Battlestar Galactica) for stealing 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars. An example was Skyler, a character in Battlestar Galactica. Sounds familiar? Skywalker was one of the most (if not the most) important characters in Star Wars. They even considered airing the series with the title ”Star Worlds” but they went for Battlestar Galactica instead. Glen Larson, creator of Battlestar Galactica, explained that he agreed not to use special effects like laser beams, so they don’t resemble the ones from Star Wars and he understood that 20th Century Fox will not take any action, as per agreement between the two parties.

In addition, Universal Studios countersued Star Wars. Their claim was that Star Wars was using the robot drones from the 1972 film Silent Running. The case was remanded and then reportedly settled. However, the original Battlestar Galactica was cancelled after only 24 episodes, and instead The Empire Strikes Back aired at the cinemas. According to the Utah Law Student Land: “Instances of the characters, plot elements, political situations, etc. in popular pre-1977 science fiction suggest that these things were not invented by Star Wars.  Based on this evidence, a continued trial would probably have resulted in judgment favorable to Universal Studios, and the original Battlestar Galactica series might have lived to see its second season”.   

Avatar

James Cameron’s big movie hit is still considered among the most successful films ever made. As a result many wanted to get some of that success in claiming rights for some aspects of the film. In 2013, an artist called William Roger Dean, who designs album covers sued Cameron and Twenty Century Fox for ‘stealing’ his art from the Na’vi home of Pandora. He claimed that the landscapes depicted in the movie were similar to his own as seen on the album cover. Dean was claiming $50 million in damages, however the court declined his request as the art did not resemble the style from Cameron’s movie.

The Hangover Part II

In the movie The Hangover Part II, Ed Helms’s character wakes up after a crazy night with a face tattoo similar to Mike Tyson. As a consequence, the tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill filed a copyright infringement lawsuit claiming it was the same tattoo he had created for Mike Tyson some years earlier. His case stood in court and in the end it was settled at undisclosed terms. 

To conclude, if there is one lesson that we learn from the copyright infringement cases described above is that ideas can not be copyrighted but creations can. 

Using the idea of other worlds and extraterrestrial life does not justify infringement unless you use the exact scripts and storylines but using the exact same creation like a tattoo without license does. 

In this week’s post, we look at two well-known copyright infringement cases involving big bands battling each other over ownership rights.

Vanilla Ice vs David Bowie & Queen

It was the early 90s when “Ice Ice Baby” was a top hit in the charts. We all knew Vanilla Ice back then. What many people don’t know, however, is that the song sampled the baseline of David Bowie and Queen’s hit “Under Pressure.” Vanilla Ice hadn’t credited the sample, and so he faced a copyright lawsuit by both Bowie and Queen. 

On top of not admitting his wrongdoing, he even made a public statement calling the lawsuit “a joke.” 

The case never made it to court, but Vanilla Ice paid Bowie and Queen an undisclosed amount, and finally credited them for the sample.

The Verve vs The Rolling Stones

Another famous example is the dispute between The Verve and the Rolling Stones, which began when The Verve sampled an orchestral version of the Stones’ song “The Last Time” written by arranger David Whitaker. The sample was used on The Verve’s most famous song – Bitter Sweet Symphony. 

While The Verve’s record company, Decca Records, cleared the rights to the orchestral  sample, they hadn’t cleared the rights to the song it was based on. 

So what happened next? Stones manager Allen Klein sued, but later agreed for the sample to be used but only if his record label took 100% of all the publishing rights to the song. 

As a result Bitter Sweet Symphony was released with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards credited as songwriters. 

At the time, The Verve’s frontman Richard Ashcroft told the BBC: 

“I think when you tip your hat to someone, you don’t sample them. You acknowledge them… that has always been part of music. The Stones couldn’t exist if they hadn’t been allowed to tip their hat to Chuck Berry and various others,” he added.

After more than 20 years, the case was actually totally resolved last November, with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards signing over all their rights for ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ to Ashcroft, who said “it was a truly kind and magnanimous thing for them to do.” 

At the end of the day, though, it was David Whitaker who wrote the original orchestral piece for “The Last Time,” and actually received no credit for it. If anyone, he should have been the one to receive credit for “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”