More Copyright Oddities: Why Does Yoko Ono Get To Hold Copyright On Lennon Videos Others Purchased

from the something's-missing dept

Michael Scott points us to a story about a copyright battle involving Yoko Ono and some video footage of John Lennon. I can only assume that the AP report summarizing the case is leaving out some important details, because otherwise the ruling doesn't make much sense. From the article, the timeline of events appears to be:

• 10 hours of video footage of John Lennon were shot at his estate in 1970 (when the Beatles were still together) by Anthony Cox (Yoko Ono's ex-husband, prior to her marriage to Lennon).
• In 2000, Cox sold the footage to World Wide Video for $125,000. Since he shot the video, it seems reasonable to assume the copyright did, in fact, belong with him -- unless there's some evidence of a work for hire agreement somewhere (not mentioned in the article). Thus, it would seem the sale would be legit.
• In 2001, a third party, Anthony Pagola, claimed to have copies of the same videos, and demanded that World Wide Video let him sell them. WWV claims that Pagola got the tapes from an ex-employee of WWV who stole them.
• In 2002, Pagola sold the videos and "the copyright" to Yoko Ono for $300,000. The owners of WWV claim that their signatures were forged on the sale sheet by Pagola
• In the intervening years, WWV created a documentary out of the footage, which it planned to release in 2008 until Ono sued them.
• WWV countersued, claiming that Ono was violating its copyright
• Ono asked the judge to declare the copyright was hers... and the judge agreed.

Assuming all of this is true, it's hard to see how Ono has a valid claim to the copyright, but the courts have ruled in her favor. The Boston Globe article has a bit more info, though it's still troubling. Apparently, the judge's reasoning was that WWV failed to take action to "reclaim the copyright" in the intervening years, even though it had "plenty of warnings" that Ono believed she had purchased the rights.

This seems incredibly backwards, with a touch of copyfraud thrown in for good measure. Why should WWV need to "reclaim" the copyright on something when they simply believed they held the copyright all along. Since, once again, copyright is not tangible property, it makes perfect sense that WWV would believe it still held the copyright in question, even if Ono thought she had purchased it. The fact that they didn't make a proactive effort to "reclaim" what they thought they already had doesn't seem to be a reason for Ono to now keep the copyright. It seems like evidence that WWV believed it properly held the copyright all along.

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Judge Sides With Ben Stein Over Yoko Ono In Fair Use Dispute

from the imagine-copyright-made-sense dept

Back in April, we covered the dispute between Yoko Ono and the controversial Ben Stein movie Expelled. Ono was upset that the movie used a snippet of John Lennon's Imagine for criticism purposes. While the movie has many problems, and given the controversial nature of the subject matter, one can understand why Ono doesn't want the song used in the movie -- that doesn't mean she had a legal leg to stand on. As we noted, it seemed pretty clear that the movie makers were very much on the right side of the law, and now a judge has agreed. In turning down Ono's request for an injunction against the movie, the judge noted that the defendants were likely to prevail using a "fair use" defense.

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Yoko Ono vs. Ben Stein: Imagine There's No Expelled...

from the who-do-you-side-with? dept

Talk about a legal argument I'd want no part of: Yoko Ono is suing the makers of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled. The movie has received a ton of bad press, and there have been widespread dissections with the many problems in the movie which seems to have difficulty understanding what the scientific method is actually about. Apparently, in one part of the movie, the famous John Lennon song "Imagine" is used, and some of the people complaining about the movie got angry at Ono, thinking she had licensed the song to be in such a controversial movie. The clip was not licensed -- but the filmmakers claim that it's protected fair use, saying that they're using a short clip of the song for commentary purposes. I haven't seen the film, nor can I find that particular clip online, but, as awful as Expelled sounds, I have a hard time siding with Yoko Ono on this. Media companies have, for too long, been overly aggressive in claiming that any use of music in a movie must be licensed. That seems to go against the concept of fair use entirely, and it would be good to change that. I just wish it wasn't with a movie such as this one.

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Yoko Ono Clarifies Lennon Trademark Dispute

from the thanks dept

Earlier this week, we wrote about a dispute over the trademark on "Lennon" between Yoko Ono and the singer Lennon Murphy. As we said, while it did seem odd that Ono waited until the very last minute to protest the trademark, the really problematic part was Murphy applying for the trademark in the first place. Yoko Ono (or, more likely, a representative of Ono) contacted us today by email to clarify her position:

"A musician named Lennon Murphy is claiming that Yoko Ono has sued her and that Yoko is seeking to stop Lennon Murphy from performing under her name, Lennon Murphy. Both of these claims are untrue.

Several years ago, Lennon Murphy sought Yoko's permission to do her performances under her name, Lennon Murphy. Yoko, of course, did not object to her request. Subsequently, without Yoko's knowledge, Lennon Murphy filed an application in the United States trademark Office requesting the exclusive right to utilize the name "Lennon" for musical performances. Yoko's attorneys asked Lennon Murphy's attorneys and manager to withdraw her registration of exclusivity to the name LENNON for the trademark. Yoko also offered to cover all costs Lennon Murphy had incurred in filing for the trademark. But Lennon Murphy went ahead to register.

Yoko did not sue Lennon Murphy, but sought to stop her from getting the exclusive right to the name Lennon for performance purposes. For that, Yoko's attorneys, simply notified the Trademark office that Yoko did not believe it was fair that Ms. Murphy be granted the exclusive right to the "Lennon" trademark in relation to musical and entertainment services. As you can see, this is a very important issue for Yoko and the Lennon family.

Yoko says: "I am really hurt if people thought that I told a young artist to not use her own name in her performances and had sought to sue her. I did no such thing. I hope this allegation will be cleared."

Thank you for your kind attention,
Yoko"

So there we have it. In retrospect, this actually looks like a rather lame publicity stunt by Lennon Murphy, first registering for a trademark on the name, and then complaining about Ono's request to the USPTO not to grant it.

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There Can Be Only One... Lennon?

from the oh-please dept

ehrichweiss writes "Yoko Ono filed what is essentially a lawsuit with the Trademark and Trial Board of the US Patent & Trademark Office this week over a musician's ownership of the trademark of "Lennon", attempting to force the musician to give up her trademark. The musician, Lennon Murphy, has owned the trademark since 2003 and had sought permission from Arista records and Yoko to release under the name "Lennon" back in 2000. Yoko apparently waited until 2 days before the statute of limitations ran out to file the lawsuit."

The details on this are a bit murky, but the reality is that neither party looks good here. It seems rather silly that the musician tried to trademark "Lennon" in the first place. While it does seem odd that Yoko Ono waited until two days before the statute of limitations expired to file her complaints about the trademark, just the fact that people are arguing over whether or not a given name can be covered by trademark suggests how far lost our intellectual property laws have become. It's easy to make Yoko Ono look bad over this, but the fact that Murphy singer tried to trademark Lennon in the first place does seem problematic.

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