Gardner v. Nike, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 2 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Under the Copyright Act of 1909 (“1909 Act”), copyright licenses (whether exclusive or not) were “not transferable as a matter of law.” Harris v. Emus Records Corp., 734 F.2d 1329, 1333 (9th Cir.1984). Unlike an assignee, a licensee “had no right to resell or sublicense the rights acquired unless he had been expressly authorized so to do.” 3 Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 10.01[C][4] (2001). The distinction between licenses and assignments was based on both the doctrine of indivisibility and the policy concerns underlying the 1909 Act. Under the doctrine of indivisibility, a copyright owner possessed an indivisible “bundle of rights,” which were “incapable of assignment in parts.” Id. § 10.01[A]. Thus, an assignment included “the totality of rights commanded by copyright.” Id. Anything less than an assignment was considered a license. Id. The purpose of the doctrine was “to protect alleged infringers from the harassment of successive law suits. This result was achieved because only the copyright proprietor (which would include an assignee but not a licensee) had standing to bring an infringement action.” Id. As discussed in Nimmer on Copyright and reiterated by the District Court, the doctrine of indivisibility created many problems for copyright licensees, including the licensee’s lack of standing to bring an infringement action and the exclusive licensee’s inability to register his license. Id. § 10.01[C]; see Gardner [v. Nike, Inc.], 110 F.Supp.2d”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 540 F. Supp. 2d 1128 - Nafal v. Carter

2. “(1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession. (2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title. (1) whether there are more direct victims of the alleged wrongful conduct who can be counted on to vindicate the law as private attorneys general; (2) whether it will be difficult to ascertain the amount of the plaintiffs damages attributable to defendant’s wrongful conduct; and (3) whether the courts will have to adopt complicated rules apportioning damages to obviate the risk of multiple recoveries.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sybersound Records, Inc. v. UAV Corp.

3. “Although neither party's plain language arguments is dispositive, the fact that Congress chose not to explicitly address this issue in the 1976 Act and the limiting ‘protection and remedies’ language of § 201(d)(2) indicates that the state of the law remains unchanged. Thus, we hold that the 1976 Act does not allow a copyright licensee to transfer its rights under an exclusive license, without the consent of the original licensor.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.