There’s an adage that posits “If everybody’s thinking the same thing, then nobody’s thinking.” This line of reasoning seems to be on display at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. This blog recently reported on a remarkable Second Circuit opinion regarding transformative use that appeared to “walk back” the expansive view given this doctrine by a previous panel of the same circuit in Cariou v. Prince. Again, last week saw yet another panel walk back the extreme ruling of the same circuit in Capitol Records v. Vimeo with a ruling in the case of EMI Christian Music v. MP3tunes, LLC. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., examines the two opinions and whether the Second Circuit is indeed pulling back from some of it’s more extreme positions regarding copyright.
Have Great Minds Stopped Thinking Alike? The Split of Opinion within the Second Circuit on Copyright
