U.S. Supreme Court Leaves Copyright Holders Without Remedy! March 23, 2020: After North Carolina passed Blackbeard's Law & was sued for copyright infringement the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, has affirmed a lower court’s ruling that Nautilus Productions cannot pursue its lawsuit against the state. Justice Kagan wrote for the Court that the Court’s 1999 decision in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank , which invalidated the federal statute that sought to hold States monetarily liable for patent infringement, “all but prewrote” this decision by the Court. In a separate concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas questioned “whether copyrights are property within the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Ginsburg, lamented that “something is amiss” in the Court’s prior precedents, while nonetheless agreeing that they control and therefore co...
