Photo Credit: Jason Leung
Artist Publishing Group and other plaintiffs want to reopen their copyright infringement lawsuit against over a dozen NBA teams, citing new evidence.
After a year of litigation and almost six months since having settled, Artist Publishing Group and other music publishers are seeking to reopen their copyright infringement claim against 14 NBA teams.
On October 31, plaintiff Jonna Johnson, who is also listed as an “interested party,” filed a motion to vacate the court’s May 29 dismissal order and to reopen the case, citing newly discovered evidence, fraud, misrepresentation, and misconduct.
Last December, the publishers sought to consolidate their 14 separate cases, all of which were markedly similar and largely overlapped. The allegations centered on the unauthorized use of protected works in videos posted to NBA teams’ social accounts.
Back in February, those cases entered mediation, which laid the groundwork for a settlement that landed at the end of May. Publishers asked the court to approve a multi-month discovery postponement, undoubtedly stemming from complications surrounding multiple cases with overlapping matters at hand.
Now, the plaintiffs seek to reopen the lawsuit based on new evidence. But it’s not clear when this new evidence was obtained, given that the parties reached a settlement before the discovery phase was in full swing. That said, the legal system works at a snail’s pace, and it’s unclear how much evidence was obtained during the year of litigation before last spring’s dismissal.
“Parties to the settlement allegedly withheld authorship information and misrepresented catalog ownership to secure a favorable pro rata settlement distribution, thereby committing fraud upon the court,” new court documents state. “Because standing to sue depended on the authenticity of the copyrights asserted, the dismissal was entered under a void premise if ownership was fraudulent [from the start].”
“The extraordinary public interest nature of this case—linking private music-publishing control to publicly funded sports franchises—warrants judicial review to prevent ongoing harm and preserve confidence in the judicial process,” the plaintiffs added. “For the foregoing reasons, [plaintiffs hope] that this court [will] grant relief […], reopen the case, and vacate the prior dismissal to address the fraud and concealment that undermined the integrity of these coordinated proceedings.”
