Commercial Litigation Update

The Court has decided the case of Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., holding that lack of knowledge of either fact or law can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration. Reversing the Ninth Circuit, the Court held that the appeals court was wrong to overturn a copyright infringement verdict that a fabric designer won against fast-fashion chain H&M when it ruled that inadvertent legal errors cannot be the basis for challenging a copyright registration.

On March 26, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided The Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a decision addressing the “fair use” doctrine, an important part of copyright law. “Fair use” tries to balance the extent to which one artist may build on a prior artist’s work without getting the first artist’s approval or license for doing so, and when so much of the quality or quantity of first work is copied that that artist’s work deserves protection against the latter piece. In the recently-decided case, which the Warhol Foundation had won ...