Music publishers’ NBA lawsuits are facing discovery-related delays. Photo Credit: JC Gellidon
Music publishers’ infringement litigation against more than a dozen NBA teams is still in full swing – though discovery delays appear likely to push the involved showdowns back by multiple months at a minimum.
Technically, those showdowns are separate; publishers including but not limited to Kobalt levied the underlying copyright complaints last summer. However, the allegations (centering on the purported unauthorized use of protected works in social videos) largely overlap, and the publishers are actively attempting to consolidate the cases.
First highlighted in December, that consolidation request, extending to the 13 remaining suits, is pending. (The Atlanta Hawks look to be finalizing a settlement; as of early December, related discussions were ongoing, an attorney for the defendant communicated in a court update.)
Closer to the present, the intertwined and increasingly convoluted legal battles seem poised for discovery delays, as mentioned.
The publishers as well as the Portland Trail Blazers just recently asked the court to approve a multi-month discovery postponement. In short, the parties said they’d “diligently pursued discovery” but nevertheless requested a 60-day cutoff extension from early February to early April.
Moreover, the litigants indicated that third-party discovery disputes in the publishers’ Orlando Magic suit were “likely to affect discovery in this case.”
These discovery disputes concern song-usage monitor TuneSat, which, in brief, is taking issue with all manner of requests from the Magic defendant. Admittedly, covering every angle here would take some time.
But as described by TuneSat in a letter supporting its motion to quash the requests, the NBA team is leaving no stone unturned as it zeroes in on possibly time-barred elements of the claims.
Among many other things, the Orlando Magic is said to be seeking information about when TuneSat “first created the digital fingerprint” used to find the allegedly infringed works and the “URLs that were downloaded from each of the team’s social media accounts and the dates they were downloaded.”
Also sought are specifics about “any search” of the social sites for the Orlando Magic and the results thereof, to name just one more example. Stated concisely, there’s quite a lot happening on the discovery front.
And it’s against this backdrop that the presiding judge today granted the initially noted discovery delay specifically in the Blazers action. Now, both sides have until January 10th to jointly submit a fresh scheduling order.
It’ll certainly be worth keeping an eye out for that update and monitoring the overarching disputes, which, along with similar actions, may well prompt licensing scrutiny from brands when it comes to their video uploads.
Associated Production Music is suing the American Hockey League and several teams over alleged infringement, for instance, though multiple settlements were disclosed last month.