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LIL BO AND HIS PEEPS PREVAIL IN COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CASE

Rap artists Lil Jon, Lil Bo, and Big Sam, who together comprise the hip hop group Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz, prevailed in a copyright infringement case regarding the song “The Weedman”, from their platinum album, “Kings of Crunk”.  The case was brought by a freelance musician and producer who claimed copyright ownership of the work, and the artists prevailed after successfully asserting a defense which was primarily based on the existence of an implied license for the use of the work.  

The decision rendered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit can be found here.

LAPPING THE PACER?

For years now the federal judiciary has made documents filed in federal court litigation available through a search platform known as PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records.)    While the documents available through PACER are in the public domain, access to the documents requires registration as the documents are not indexed by commercial search engines.   Moreover, a government fee of eight cents a page is charged for reading, printing, or downloading the documents.  

The registration and fee requirements arguably have the effect of limiting public access to these records.  Accordingly, an individual named Carl Malamud has been asking paying users of PACER to send him their documents and has begun publishing these for free on his website.   

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