VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Ciccone

VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Ciccone

Opinion

 [*874]  GRABER, Circuit Judge:

 [**3] In the early 1990s, pop star Madonna Louise Ciccone, commonly known by her first name only, released the song Vogue to great commercial success. In this copyright infringement action, Plaintiff VMG Salsoul, LLC, alleges that the producer of Vogue, Shep Pettibone, copied a 0.23-second segment of horns from an earlier song, known as Love Break, and used a modified version of that snippet when recording Vogue. Plaintiff asserts that Defendants Madonna, Pettibone, and others thereby violated Plaintiff's copyrights to Love Break. The district court applied the longstanding legal rule that "de minimis" copying does not constitute infringement and held that, even if Plaintiff proved its allegations of actual copying, the claim failed because the copying (if it occurred) was trivial. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants and awarded them attorney's fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505. Plaintiff timely appeals.

Reviewing the summary judgment de novo, Alcantar v. Hobart Serv., 800 F.3d 1047, 1051 (9th Cir. 2015), we agree with the district court that, as a matter of law, a general audience would not recognize the brief snippet in Vogue as originating from Love Break. We also reject Plaintiff's argument that Congress eliminated the "de minimis" exception to claims alleging infringement of a sound recording. We recognize that the Sixth Circuit held to the contrary in Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005), but—like the leading copyright treatise and several district courts—we find Bridgeport's reasoning unpersuasive. We hold that ] the "de minimis" exception applies to infringement actions concerning copyrighted sound recordings, just as it applies to all other copyright infringement actions. Accordingly, we affirm the summary judgment in favor of Defendants.

But we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in granting attorney's fees to Defendants under 17 U.S.C. § 505. See Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc., 725 F.3d 1170, 1180 (9th Cir. 2013) (holding that ] we review for abuse of discretion the district court's award of attorney's fees under § 505). A claim premised on a legal theory  [*875]  adopted by the [**4]  only circuit court to have addressed the issue is, as a matter of law, objectively reasonable. The district court's conclusion to the contrary constitutes legal error. We therefore vacate the award of fees and remand for reconsideration.

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