On June 19, 2015, Daily News postedan article about Justin Bieber and his mentor Usher facing 10 million dollars
utilized lawsuit over “Somebody to Love”. Usher who was Bieber’s producer at
the time gave him the song in 2010 and appeared on a remix of the record.
Copeland and Overton claimed they wrote the song, which appeared on Copeland’s
2008 album, My story II. In the original lawsuit, the case was initially
dismissed in 2014, with a ruling that the two sounded different but the court
recently found the opposite true after listening to both songs as wholes. In my
opinion, if the original case was dismissed, just leave it as it is. Why go
back one year later and re-open the case again. It shows that in this industry,
nothing is final. You have to be really careful when making music because it
can come bite you years later especially when it involves two superstars and
was a huge hit.
On February 20, 2015, there was an
article posted by PRWeb about Stephen Silverman, in which it was revealed that
he filed a lawsuit against Bold Films accusing them of copyright infringement
for one of their Oscar-nominated movies. The lawsuit filed by Mister Silverman was
made in support of Richard Dutcher, which was a Utah Filmmaker. Attorney
Stephen Silverman filed a lawsuit on behalf of Utah filmmaker Richard Dutcher.
The lawsuit was seeking an injunction since Mister Dutcher firmly believed that
the film (Nightcrawler) was in violation of his copyright. Therefore, the
injunction would prohibit all display, distribution or copying of that film. In
my opinion, the entertainment business has so many rules that must be followed.
There will always be an attorney waiting for a lawsuit. Studios, producers,
directors, writers all must really know the rules and follow them closely. The court
was right for granted Mister Dutcher of his rights.
On February
20, 2014, ABC News posted an article about Wolf of Wall Street hit with $25M
Lawsuit. The character of Nicky “Rugrat” Koskoff in The Wolf of Wall Street was
based on Andrew Greene, has entered a $25 million disparagement lawsuit against
Paramount Pictures, Red Granite Pictures, producers and directors of the
Oscar-nominated film. Greene was head of corporate finance and a board member
for the firm depicted in the film and was referenced in Belfort’s memoir, which
served as the basis for the movie by his real name. But, he never gave the
studio consent to depict him in the film. A representative for Paramount
Pictures declined comment and a representative for Red Granite Picture did not
respond to ABC News’s request. The Wolf of Wall Street has received five Oscar
nominations. In my opinion, you can’t just use someone’s name like that without
his consent. Again, there are rules and although it was such a successful
movie, they got hit with a big lawsuit for no reason. If only they had asked
him or agree upon giving him an amount before the fact, all this could have
been avoided. One thing I learned so far in this class, you must follow the
rules. You can’t do whatever you want in this industry. Research or consult an
entertainment attorney.
