9th Circuit decides J.Lo sampling case

Posted on May 28, 2006 by Cathy Kirkman

William Patry has blogged the recent 9th Circuit case of Laws v. Sony Music Entertainment,Download file.

Recording artist Debra Laws claimed her publicity rights were violated by sampling of her Very Special CD in J.Lo's "All I Have". Laws couldn't make a copyright claim, because the recording was owned and licensed by Elektra Records. The Court held the claim was pre-empted by the Copyright Act:

"On the one hand, we recognize that the holder of a copyright does not have 'a license to trample on other people's rights' . . . . On the other hand, the right of publicity is not a license to limit the copyright holder's rights merely because one disagrees with decisions to license the copyright. We sense that, left to creative legal arguments, the developing right of publicity could easily supplant the copyright scheme."

Thus while this case was clear, there are other cases that are less clear -- such as use of photographs in advertising.

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