Stanford Center for Internet and Society

The briefing on BT's motion for attorneys' fees is now complete.

In May, BT secured a complete victory over Plaintiffs Ralph Vargas and Bland-Ricky Roberts when the court granted his summary judgment motion and dismissed Plaintiffs' case in its entirety.

After a very long saga, BT has been vindicated in his fight againt New York Musician Ralph Vargas and Vargas's producer, Bland-Ricky Roberts, who together alleged that BT copied a drumbeat from Vargas's album. Today, the Court held Vargas and Roberts presented no credible evidence that BT had done so, granted summary judgment in BT's favor, and dismissed the case in its entirety.

Read the decision here.

This case is about much more than whether one artist copied a particular drumbeat from another. Basic drumbeats and rythm patterns should not be subject to copyright protection at all. If one musician can sue another and impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs just because one short drumbeat happens to sound a bit like another, that threatens creative freedom in a profound way. We hope this discourages Vargas and others from pursuing spurious claims like this.

After the Court reserved judgment on BT's summary judgment motion pending his recreation of "Aparthenonia" from scratch, plaintiffs moved to have the Court reconsider its decision under Local Rule 6.3. Plaintiffs argue that the Court did not have the authority to ask BT to recreate "Aparthenonia" and that in doing so the Court misconstrued or ignored the applicable law. But the motion (full text available here) fails to explain why the Court wouldn't have the authority to ask for evidence which would be dispositive of the cause of action and also fails to raise any issues that were not fully explored in the summary judgment briefs and oral argument.

Plaintiffs' filed their opposition to BT's motion for summary judgment on October 12, 2006 (available here). Instead of arguing the issue of access, plaintiffs abandoned that argument and staked their entire case on the theory that "Aparthenonia" and "Bust Dat Groove" are so "strikingly similar" that access (and copying) can be inferred. To prevail under this theory, plaintiffs would have to show that the works are so similar that the second work could only be created by copying the first--that the similarities between the two works preclude even the possibility of independent creation

On September 25, 2006, the Clinic and co-counsel at Kirkland Ellis moved for summary judgment on behalf of BT. The primary thrust of the motion centers on plaintiffs' failure to show any plausible theory of access to plaintiffs' work. Plaintiffs bear the burden of showing copying in order to succeed on their infringement action and--absent direct evidence of such copying--must be able to show access to that work.

I don't know if a picture deserves its own post, but I guess I'm going to find out. Here's a group shot from last week's BT concert at the Red Devil Lounge in SF that Shireen blogged about earlier. I have been a BT fan since high school, so I was pretty psyched.

My full set of pictures from the event can be found on my Flickr page at:
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The Clinic represents Brian Transeau against claims of copyright infringement in the Vargas v. Pfizer litigation in the Southern District of New York (Case No. 04 CV 9772 (WHP)). Mr. Transeau is an accomplished musician and a pioneer of the trance music genre who is better known by his stage name, BT.

On November 27th, BT and Thomas Dolby opened their “Sonic Duel for Virtual Supremacy” Tour at Red Devil in San Francisco. BT was kind enough to invite us, and the show was fantastic.

BT performed “This Binary Universe,” which you can listen to online at: thisbinaryuniverse.com.

Thomas Dolby performed an eclectic mix of songs, including a recent rendition of an old ditty adapted to tell the story of Dolby’s copyright infringement suit against K-Fed, whose recent song “America’s Most Wanted” sampled Mobb Deep’s “Got It Twisted,” which had sampled Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science.” Although Mobb Deep’s use of the song was licensed by Dolby, K-Fed’s wasn't. (K-Fed settled.)

On November 3, the motion for summary judgment on behalf of Brian Transeau (BT) was argued before Hon. William H. Pauley, federal district court judge for the Southern District of New York.

Plaintiffs conceded BT had no access to the copyrighted work that they allege he copied. They therefore attempted to prove that BT’s work in “Aparthenonia” was so "strikingly similar" to plaintiffs’ work as to preclude the possibility of independent creation.