Copyright Claim Dismissed for Lack of Specificity by Eryn Y. Deblois, Esq.

  

A recent decision from the Southern District of New York demonstrates the importance of pleading sufficient factual allegations in a copyright infringement case. In Kane LLC v. Scholastic Corp., Case No. 12-cv-3890, 2013 WL 709276 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 27, 2013), the Court dismissed plaintiff's copyright claim because it did not specify which works were at issue, which acts constituted infringement, and the time period that the infringement occurred.

Plaintiff was a stock photograph agency that licensed certain copyrighted photographs to defendant. The parties entered into a licensing agreement which granted defendant the right to use the photographs under certain limited terms. In the complaint, plaintiff alleged that defendant used the photographs without permission or beyond the scope of the licensing agreement. Plaintiff listed the works in the complaint, but indicated that the list was not exhaustive. Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint.

The Court granted the motion to dismiss on the grounds that the complaint did not specify which works were at issue and did not allege the acts that constituted infringement. Specifically, the Court noted that it was unclear whether the copyright registration numbers contained in the complaint corresponded to the list.
 

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In some ways, estate planning for a single person can be more challenging for an estate planning attorney than planning for a couple. When a couple puts together an estate plan, the easiest and most natural thing to do is to entrust one another with all of the fiduciary responsibilities in the event of one spouse's disability or death. Among these responsibilities are the execution of each other's health care proxy, power of attorney, access to medical records in end-of-life scenarios and the administration of the estate.

The ease in dealing with these issues for couples is that the surviving spouse is most often the closest emotionally and geographically to the deceased and their assets. Spouses are uniquely qualified to speak for each other, because over the years they hopefully have had discussions concerning end-of-life scenarios with each other. Moreover, the surviving spouse is more likely to have been included in the financial decision making throughout the marriage, making the surviving spouse the best person to continue making the financial decisions beyond the marriage.

Those who never married and those who have been widowed do not have the luxury of entrusting emergency or end-of-life responsibilities to their spouse. These responsibilities typically fall to other members of the immediate family, such as children or siblings. In my experience, if there are children, the burden of these responsibilities tends to fall on the daughter. If not her, then the child in closest physical proximity to the surviving parent. Hopefully that child has had discussions with both parents and knows their wishes, no matter which one ends up the surviving parent.

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by Joseph N. Campolo, Esq.