A Lafayette, Louisiana, restaurant and its three owners are liable for four claims of willful copyright infringement, based on their unauthorized public performance of musical compositions from the BMI repertoire, alleged BMI and four music publishers in their complaint Tuesday (docket 6:24-cv-00849) in U.S. District Court for Middle Louisiana in Lafayette. All the claims for copyright infringement joined in the lawsuit “are governed by the same legal rules and involve similar facts,” said the complaint against the El Paso Mexican Grill Ambassador and its owners, Gloria Mejia, Jorge Oseguera and Ruben Chavez. BMI has reached out to the defendants more than 50 times since September in an effort to educate them about their obligations under the Copyright Act and “the necessity of purchasing a license for the public performance of musical compositions” in the BMI repertoire, said the complaint. Included in the correspondence were cease and desist letters, providing the El Paso Mexican Grill Ambassador and its owners with formal notice that they must “immediately cease” all use of BMI-licensed music in the establishment, it said. The specific acts of copyright infringement alleged in the complaint, plus the defendants’ entire course of conduct, have caused and are causing the plaintiffs “great and incalculable damage,” it said. By continuing to provide unauthorized public performances of works in the BMI repertoire at the establishment, the defendants “threaten to continue committing copyright infringement,” it said. Unless the court restrains the defendants from committing further acts of copyright infringement, the plaintiffs “will suffer irreparable injury for which they have no adequate remedy at law,” it said.

FanDuel, without permission or authorization, “actively copied and displayed” on its website a photograph of New York Giants football star Saquon Barkley that the late Anthony Causi created, alleged the photographer's widow, Romina Causi, in her complaint Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-04686) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. Causi died of COVID-19 in April 2020, and his wife acquired the rights to his photograph from her husband’s estate in August 2022 “by way of written assignment,” it said. FanDuel hasn’t implemented “adequate internal policies to verify copyright ownership before content use,” said the complaint. That indicates “a gross negligence in legal compliance,” which is essential for a company with FanDuel's "reach, capabilities, and level of sophistication,” it said. Cousi’s wife first observed the defendant’s infringement in July 2022, it said. The infringement includes a URL “for a fixed tangible medium of expression that was sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be communicated for a period of more than a transitory duration and therefore constitutes a specific infringement,” it said.

Five people behind the Jetflicks streaming pirate site face prison after their conviction last week following a trial before a federal court in Nevada, DOJ said. A jury found defendants Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi and Peter Huber guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, Justice said. Moreover, the jury found Dallmann also guilty of two counts of money laundering by concealment and three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann faces up to 48 years in prison, while the other four could receive as much as five years each. It said a sentencing date has not yet been set. The indictment said Dallmann was the primary operator of the site, which trawled other pirate sites for illegal copies of TV episodes that Jetflicks then downloaded and hosted on its servers. The others helped Dallmann with management, customer service and billing operations and technical aspects, including coding, it said.

When Martinus van Geel resigned from Bosch Security Systems as “a trusted and high-level manager” in its critical communications sector to go to work for Riedel Communications, its “primary competitor,” he took many of Bosch’s trade secrets with him, alleged Bosch’s Defense of Trade Secrets Act complaint Tuesday (docket 0:24-cv-02315) in U.S. District Court for Minnesota. Van Geel’s primary job duty at Bosch “was to plan, develop and execute Bosch’s strategies to compete with, and succeed against, Riedel” on a worldwide basis, said the complaint. In preparation for taking employment with Riedel, van Geel copied “massive amounts of trade secret and highly proprietary Bosch information” to removable storage devices, “in clear violation of the duties he owes Bosch,” it said. Van Geel kept the most proprietary files and information that he worked on only on his company-issued laptop and without putting those materials onto the plaintiff’s servers, it said. Yet when he turned in his company laptop the day after he announced he was leaving Bosch to join Riedel and to compete against the plaintiff, van Geel had apparently deleted all of Bosch’s proprietary files from his laptop, along with most of the contents of his Bosch email account and all information from his company-issued cellphone, it said. When Bosch recently demanded that the defendant return all information and the removable drives he used to copy Bosch’s propriety information, he provided only some of the drives, and from those, he apparently had deleted the sensitive files he had stolen, said the complaint. The plaintiff seeks to enjoin van Geel “from using or benefitting from the information he stole from Bosch,” it said. It also seeks to disgorge him of any compensation he received while in breach of his duties, it said. Bosch also seeks to recover damages caused by van Geel’s improper actions, including the costs of the company’s investigation into his wrongdoing, plus the costs to recover the stolen or deleted information, it said.

A Baltimore brew pub and three owners are liable for at least four claims of willful copyright infringement, based on their unauthorized public performance of musical compositions from the BMI repertoire, alleged BMI and six music publishers in their complaint Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-01767) in U.S. District Court for Maryland. All the claims for copyright infringement joined in the lawsuit “are governed by the same legal rules and involve similar facts,” said the complaint against the Peabody Heights Brewery and its owners, Richard O’Keefe, Eddie O’Keefe and James Rouse. BMI has reached out to the defendants more than 80 times since August 2022 in an effort to educate them about their obligations under the Copyright Act and “the necessity of purchasing a license for the public performance of musical compositions” in the BMI repertoire, said the complaint. Included in the correspondence were cease and desist letters, providing the Peabody Heights Brewery and its owners with formal notice that they must “immediately cease” all use of BMI-licensed music in the establishment, it said. The specific acts of copyright infringement alleged in the complaint, plus the defendants’ entire course of conduct, have caused and are causing the plaintiffs “great and incalculable damage,” it said. By continuing to provide unauthorized public performances of works in the BMI repertoire at the establishment, the defendants “threaten to continue committing copyright infringement,” it said. Unless the court restrains the defendants from committing further acts of copyright infringement, the plaintiffs “will suffer irreparable injury for which they have no adequate remedy at law,” it said.

Eight content studios properly served defendant William Freemon with their March 27 infringement complaint by sending him a copy at his Dallas home via regular first-class mail, according to a supplemental certificate of service signed Monday (docket 3:24-cv-00733) by attorney Rose Leda Ehler of Munger Tolles in Los Angeles. The studios allege that Freemon is a “mass” content pirate operating “an extensive and commercially scaled network” of illegal streaming services that offer unauthorized access to live channels and VOD streams of copyrighted movies and TV shows (see 2403280006). The studios previously accused Freemon of “evading service,” and they sought leave May 29 to serve him via alternative means (see 2405300035). The studio plaintiffs are Amazon, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Microsoft supports OpenAI’s motion to consolidate the copyright infringement case brought by The New York Times with the related case brought by eight local newspapers (see 2406140041), said Microsoft’s joinder Friday (dockets 1:23-cv-11195 and 1:24-cv-03285) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. “In the interests of fundamental fairness and judicial economy,” Microsoft joins OpenAI’s consolidation request “but only so long as these matters proceed on a separate, and later schedule than that which the parties’ stipulated” in the consolidated authors’ cases, it said. The two cases should be consolidated because both “involve nearly identical allegations relating to the same new technology,” but that technology’s not at issue in the consolidated authors’ class actions, it said. Any consolidation between the two newspaper cases must also involve setting a new schedule that follows behind that of the consolidated authors’ class actions, it said. This is so because the different technology at issue in the newspaper cases “implicates additional, broader fact and expert discovery work that simply cannot be completed on the timeline presently set” in the consolidated authors’ class actions, it said.

A Charlotte music lounge and event space and its owner are liable for three claims of willful copyright infringement, based on their unauthorized public performance of musical compositions from the BMI repertoire, alleged BMI and three music publishers in a complaint Tuesday (docket 3:24-cv-00564) in U.S. District Court for Western North Carolina. All the claims for copyright infringement joined in the complaint “are governed by the same legal rules and involve similar facts,” said the complaint against the QC Social Lounge and its owner, Intha NoiVong Chanthavong. BMI has reached out to the defendants more than 14 times since July in an effort to educate them about their obligations under the Copyright Act and “the necessity of purchasing a license for the public performance of musical compositions” in the BMI repertoire, said the complaint. Included in the correspondence were cease and desist letters, providing QC Social Lounge and Chanthavong with formal notice that they must “immediately cease” all use of BMI-licensed music in the establishment, it said. The specific acts of copyright infringement alleged in the complaint, plus the defendants’ entire course of conduct, have caused and are causing the plaintiffs “great and incalculable damage,” it said. By continuing to provide unauthorized public performances of works in the BMI repertoire at the establishment, the defendants “threaten to continue committing copyright infringement,” it said. Unless the court restrains the defendants from committing further acts of copyright infringement, the plaintiffs “will suffer irreparable injury for which they have no adequate remedy at law,” it said.

PinkFloydMerch.com is “a commercial, interactive internet store” selling products with counterfeit versions of Pink Floyd trademarks, alleged Pink Floyd (1987) Limited (PFL), the music group’s rights holder, in an infringement and cybersquatting complaint Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-04711). The unidentified owner of the domain is committing “tortious acts in Illinois,” and is engaging unlawfully in interstate commerce, said the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The conduct has wrongfully caused PFL“substantial injury,” it said. “In the past, PFL was able to police its marks against identifiable infringers and counterfeiters,” said the complaint. But the rise of online retailing, coupled with the ability of e-commerce sites to hide their identities, “has made it nearly impossible for policing actions to be undertaken,” it said. PFL has availed itself of takedown procedures to remove infringing products, “but these efforts have proved to be an unavailing game of whack-a-mole against the mass counterfeiting that is occurring over the internet,” it said. The aggregated effect of the massive counterfeiting that’s taking place has overwhelmed PFL “and its ability to police its rights against the hundreds of anonymous defendants" that are selling illegal counterfeits at prices substantially below those of genuine Pink Floyd merchandise, it said. PFL “has been and continues to be irreparably damaged” through consumer confusion, dilution and loss of control over its reputation and goodwill, plus the inferior quality of the counterfeit goods bearing the Pink Floyd trademarks, it said. The rise of e-commerce as a method of supplying goods to the public “exposes brand holders and creators that make significant investments in their products to significant harm from counterfeiters,” it said. The defendant is using a “fake online storefront” designed to appear to be selling genuine PFL products, while selling “inferior imitations” of those products, said the complaint. PFL is filing this action to combat the defendant’s counterfeiting of PFL’s registered trademarks, plus to protect “unknowing consumers” from buying unauthorized Pink Floyd products over the internet, it said.

Infinity FM Karaoke owes Pro Music Rights more than $120,000 in unpaid license fees, plus interest, for the public performance of Pro-licensed music in Infinity’s establishments, alleged an April 24 complaint in 20th District Judicial Circuit Court in Collier County, Florida, removed Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-00527) to U.S. District Court for Middle Florida. Under a May 2023 business license agreement, Infinity agreed to pay Pro a “bare” or minimum license fee, plus a per-usage fee, said the complaint. Infinity further agreed to submit a “musical work usage report” to the plaintiff on the first of each month, together with payment to Pro of the invoiced amount, based on that usage, it said. The defendant has “materially breached” the agreement by “failing and refusing to pay” Pro the license fees it owes, and by failing to “properly submit” the monthly usage reports, the complaint said. Pro has demanded that Infinity cure its material breach, but the defendant has failed, refused or neglected to do so, said the complaint. Pro has been damaged as a result, it said.