Sony/ATV respectfully submits that the Consent Decrees should clarify, whether by amendment or otherwise, that each copyright owner (i.e., a music publisher) may, in its discretion, designate particular types of users or uses that the owner will authorize ASCAP or BMI (as the case may be) to include in their respective collective licenses, with the copyright owners exclusively reserving the right for themselves to license such rights to all other users or uses. ASCAP and BMI also should be required, on a nondiscriminatory basis, to accept these limited grants of public performance rights from copyright owners.
Comments closedDay: 29 June 2018
Viacom International, Inc. (Viacom) sued IJR Capital Investments, L.L.C. (IJR) for infringing on its common law trademark of The Krusty Krab – a fictional restaurant in the popular “SpongeBob SquarePants” animated television series – after IJR took steps to open seafood restaurants using the same name. The district court granted summary judgment to Viacom on its trademark infringement and unfair competition claims. IJR appealed, asserting that Viacom does not have a valid trademark for The Krusty Krab and that its seafood restaurants would not create a likelihood of confusion between the two marks.
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