Following the Supreme Court's Decision in Allen v. Cooper, Yesh Music and the University of Minnesota Have Voluntarily Dismissed Their Copyright Dispute
On September 30, 2019, Yesh Music ("Yesh") filed suit in New York against the Regents of the University of Minnesota (the "University") for alleged copyright infringement. As we reported on October 7, 2019 and December 13, 2019, the suit concerned a video that the University had allegedly uploaded to YouTube.
Yesh's complaint claimed that the video was a University advertisement synchronized with a musical composition to which Yesh holds the copyright. It also maintained that the relevant copyright identification data had been removed from the composition in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The University, in a November 5th brief to support a motion to dismiss, asserted that the video was student made, that the Court in New York didn't have personal jurisdiction over the University, and that regardless, the University had sovereign immunity from the suit. The University also pointed out that the Supreme Court decision of Allen v. Cooper was pending, and that that decision would be dispositive on the issue of sovereign immunity. Therefore, the University suggested that, if dismissal wasn't merited, the court should stay the case until the Supreme Court issued its decision in Allen v. Cooper. Yesh agreed that a stay was appropriate and filed a brief to that effect.
The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Allen v. Cooper on March 23, 2020. You can read our report on the decision here. In a nutshell, the Court held that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 had not properly abrogated state sovereign immunity for copyright infringement suits. According to the Court, states (and state actors like the University of Minnesota) can indeed assert sovereign immunity in copyright cases.
On May 13th, Yesh and the University filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, ending their suit with prejudice. Although no reason is provided for the dismissal, it is likely that the Supreme Court's decision factored into the parties' dismissal.