Artist’s Copyright Case Against Mile High Set for Jury Trial in February

U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris issued an order on Thursday granting plaintiff Leah Bassett summary judgment as to liability for copyright infringement and denying the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the same count.

Back in May, Saris issued an order granting in part the defendants’ motion for summary and denying in part Bassett’s cross-motion for summary judgment. On Bassett’s copyright claim, Saris held that the court “lacked an adequate record to rule on Defendants’ argument that their use of Bassett’s copyrighted works was de minimis and therefore noninfringing,” as the judge put it in her order issued Thursday.

At the time, Saris deferred ruling on both parties’ motions on the copyright claim, pending the submission by Bassett of an analysis that “describes exactly how long each copyrighted work appears in each film, with accompanying screenshots for each period of time.”

“Bassett submitted to this Court tables of contents for each of Defendants’ ten films accompanied by hundreds of pages of screenshots,” Saris noted in her order. “Based on these submissions, the Court concludes that at least one of Bassett’s copyrighted works appears in each of the ten films in a greater than de minimis capacity – specifically, at least one work is clearly visible for at least 30 seconds (at one time or in aggregate) in each of the ten films.”

After listing the films and the copyrighted works which appear in each for at least 30 seconds, Saris wrote that “accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment as to liability on Count IX is ALLOWED. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to Count IX is DENIED.”

In her order, Saris instructed Bassett within 30 days to “produce an expert report to determine the appropriate measure of damages for works that appear in each film for a greater than de minimis capacity, meaning a substantial majority of the copyrighted work is ‘clearly visible’ for at least 30 seconds in aggregate.”

“The report should clearly describe, for each film, which works appear in a greater than de minimis capacity,” Saris wrote. “Defendants shall submit their expert report 30 days thereafter. Parties shall then have 30 days to conduct expert depositions.”

Saris’ ruling paves the way for the case to proceed to jury trial, which is now set to begin on February 1, 2021, with a pretrial conference set for January 14.

Bassett filed the case in March, 2018, alleging breach of contract, copyright infringement, trespass and violation of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, among other claims, against a variety of defendants associated with Mile High Media. For more background on the case and Bassett’s claims, click here.