Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and 2L J.D. Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Wait until Lady Whistledown gets her hands on this juicy gossip! The Netflix Original series, “Bridgerton” attained notable popularity after its release last year. Based on the romance novel series by Julia Quinn, the show centers around the Bridgerton family members’ search for true love. Fans expressed their love for the show various ways on social media. However, one musical duo exceeded the fan-generated content standards. In September 2021, songwriters and (or ) went viral on TikTok for their self-composed Bridgerton songs. They later released a 15-song album based on the show’s characters and storylines, entitled “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical.” This year, their album won a Grammy for “Best Musical Theatre Album，” making it the first album to win the award for music created on TikTok. Netflix’s official TikTok account even praised the album , “Absolutely blown away by the Bridgerton musical playing out on TikTok [.] Standing ovation for @abigailbarlow…”.

Unfortunately, Netflix’s applause ended after the Grammy-award premiered the live performance of the Unofficial Bridgerton Musical at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. Netflix is now suing Bear and Barlow for stealing “” to build their global brand. The song writing duo seemed to have crossed the line when they began profiting off the Bridgerton brand. Netflix argued that this is a direct violation of , which provides that only copyright holders have the exclusive right to monetize and create derivative works of their IP. Netflix claimed that the defendants declined their before the live performance and proceeded without authorization.

Netflix also took issue with the use of the “Bridgerton” name, as it risks consumers believing that the live performance is associated with the official brand. The concert particularly threatened the success of Netflix’s own live event “The ,” a multi-city event that transports fans into a regency-era ball, as depicted in the show. Since one of the event locations is in Washington D.C (where the defendants’ concert occurred), Netflix believes fans may choose one over the other.

It was obvious that Bear and Barlow invested time and resources into perfecting their work.  Of course, it is disheartening to see a small business be victim to a legal action by a global company like Netflix. However, the defendants acted without considering Netflix’s intellectual property rights. The show’s executive producer, denounced Bear and Barlow’s financial exploitation of the brand in a recent public statement. Rhimes acknowledged the efforts of the countless individuals who contributed to Bridgeton’s production, including author Julia Quinn. While this case may seem like a “David vs Goliath” situation, intellectual property rights function to protect original creators. With the increased prevalence of content creation on social media , it is important for creators to be aware of these IP laws. As catchy and creative as Bear and Barlow’s album is， they will likely not be able to continue to benefit from Netflix’s creative work.

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Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Meta platforms (“Meta”), formally known as Facebook, is the leading developer of the Metaverse. The Metaverse is described as a of the internet where users can participate in a variety of activities, some of which include attending concerts, playing games, buying digital clothing, and working. People can enter the Metaverse through virtual reality (VR) headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps, and other devices. While inside, users are represented by a Through the avatar’s point of view, one experiences the avatar’s virtual reality. Essentially, the Metaverse is a virtual simulation of the physical world.  However, a recent report from , a non-profit advocacy organization and online community that campaigns to hold corporations accountable, suggests that the darkest aspects of the physical world have manifested in the Metaverse.

Sexual Assault in the Metaverse

A   researcher wanting to study users’ behaviour on Meta’s social networking platform, , reported that her avatar was sexually assaulted only an hour after she entered the virtual space. Her avatar was led into a private party room where a male user sexually assaulted her while also making lewd comments. Meanwhile, other users outside the room watched and passed around what appeared to be a digital vodka bottle. The researcher expressed that although she was not physically harmed, the experience left her feeling disoriented and confused.

This is not the first time that VR users have reported abuse in the Metaverse. In December 2021, a woman published an article on describing her nightmare of an experience in the Metaverse. She explained that she had been harassed and sexually assaulted by a group of male users only one minute after entering Horizon Worlds. She also admitted to feeling helpless and being unable to access the safety features during the encounter.

What Makes the Experience Feel So Real?

The Metaverse is designed to give users an immersive experience; they are meant to psychologically feel like they are in the environment. This is achieved through immersive like acoustic input for the ears, haptic simulation for touch and high-resolution imagery. For example,  if you have either played or seen videos of people playing , the experience feels eerily realistic; you feel like you are actually the target of a zombie attack. The can make it difficult for the mind and body to differentiate between the physical and virtual world. This lack of discernment between reality and VR demonstrates the severity of this situation, and how traumatic it must feel to experience sexual violence in the Metaverse. Although the user’s body is not being physically violated, the experience may render significant psychological impacts. 

What is Meta Doing About This?

The Metaverse has default safety features like “”, which prevent users from coming within a four feet distance from each other. They recommend not turning this feature off when interacting with strangers. Another safety feature called, “”, allows users to immediately transport to an isolated area. These features still seem to put the onus on the users to protect themselves against cyber assault. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of Global Affairs, stated in a recently published “ In the physical world, as well as the internet, people shout and swear and do all kinds of unpleasant things that aren’t prohibited by law, and they harass and attack people in ways that are. The metaverse will be no different. People who want to misuse technologies will always find ways to do it.” While this statement may be true, the current minimally-moderated nature of the will inevitably allow abusive and harmful behaviour to thrive.

Conclusion

There are calls for increased user regulation in the Metaverse. However, the prevailing response is that moderating user’s behaviour will be practically impossible because these in real time and are thus difficult to track. We have seen first-hand, on networks like Twitter and Facebook, that as online communities expand, it becomes difficult to monitor harmful behaviour and content. The immersive nature of virtual reality arguably warrants serious consideration about what more can be done to protect users from virtual violence. The Metaverse is still in early stages of development and it is anticipated to significantly transform the future of human interaction. Meta and other companies involved in the Metaverse’s development should work to minimize the potential harms associated with their products to ensure users’ safety, as a company would in our non-virtual lives.

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Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and at 2L J.D Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

The global fashion distributer, is currently engaged in a trademark dispute with Amber Kotrri, the owner of “House of Zana.” House of Zana is a fashion boutique in Darlington, England that specializes in handmade kimonos and other garments. In April 2022, ZARA submitted a notice of opposition to Kotrri’s trademark application, claiming that brand names were “conceptually identical” for customers. ZARA’s lawyers also urged Kotrri to change her business name and remove all existing branding. Kotrri has refused to comply expressing that it would cause “irreparable harm to her business”. The occurred on March 25 2022, where Kotrri defended her business arguing that there is no similarity between the two brands.

Under third party trademark owners have two months to file a formal opposition after a trademark application is submitted. Generally, an will assert that the similarity of the trademark will cause confusion or that the trademark application covers similar goods/services. At the tribunal hearing, ZARA that the brands’ oral and visual similarities will lead consumers to “misread, mishear, mispronounce and/or otherwise perceive House of Zana as ZARA.” Further, ZARA alleged that sales could be affected if the average consumer accessed the House of Zana website erroneously when trying to find ZARA. It seems unlikely that people would confuse the popular high-street fashion retailer with a small boutique. Despite the aural likeness of the brand names, the logos are quite dissimilar. The House of Zana logo is written in an italicized font; this is distinct from the bold ZARA logo. ZARA is a globally recognizable brand with , whereas House of Zana has one store location. 

Other small businesses have been victims of ZARA’s vigilant trademark enforcement. Last year, ZARA also filed trademark oppositions against 23-year-old , the owner of “Zara Ceramics.” She received a letter from ZARA’s attorneys demanding that she rebrand within a year because the business name undermined ZARA Home. She eventually changed the name to “Zara McLaughlin Studios.”. Tara Nguyen, the owner of a small online fashion retailer, “Tara Sartoria” is also currently fighting back against a trademark opposition from ZARA.

IPilogue Writer Sally Yoon recently discussed the concept of a trademark bully in one of her on Apple’s numerous trademark opposition filings. To reiterate, a is loosely defined as “a larger or well-known company that takes a hyper-aggressive approach to asserting their trademark rights, sometimes to the point of absurdity”. ZARA is an established multi-national business with the legal resources to target these smaller businesses with trademark oppositions and infringement. Small-owned business are not likely to have the means to fight back and may end up financially suffering . For example, admitted that responding to ZARA’s letter of opposition cost her business “almost all of their resources”. Fortunately, by publicizing the incident, Amber Kotrri was able to acquire free legal services and significant public support, including over 85,000 signatures on a demanding that ZARA withdraw their legal action.

While public empathy tends to lean towards the smaller business in these disputes, the encourages trademark owners to actively police potential trademark infringement. Trademarks are important for any sized business to protect their investments from potential exploitation. This raises questions about whether ZARA is a trademark bully or justifiably enforcing their trademark rights.  The House of Zana trademark ruling decision is set to be delivered later this year.

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Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and 2L J.D Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

If you have ever incorporated music into your Instagram or Facebook videos, you may have committed copyright infringement. But don’t worry, you won’t need to get a lawyer! On July 20^th, 2022, Meta Platforms Inc. (“Meta”) was hit with a $142 million lawsuit. The suit was filed in California Northern District Court by Swedish music label and publishing company, . They claimed that Meta, on its social media platforms, has stolen hundreds of their content. In the , they argued that Meta violated the US for direct, induced, and contributory copyright infringement.

Who is Epidemic Sound?

Influencer culture and, by extension, content creation on social media, has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. In the past, content creators have had issues incorporating music into their posts due to . YouTube, especially, has been known to enforce copyright law by either muting or taking down infringing content. solves this problem by offering music licenses to creators who publish on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok and YouTube. For a $15 USD per-month subscription, users receive a license to use material from a catalogue of 125,000 sounds and songs. Epidemic holds the copyright to the content in their catalogues and offers their licensees (subscribers) guaranteed protection from copyright infringement claims. However, they that only subscribers are authorized to use their content. This is where Meta is implicated.

The Infringement

This action is primarily about Instagram’s “Reel Remix” and “Original Audio” features, which Epidemic claimed encourages and enables users to commit copyright infringement. The allows users to incorporate their own videos into existing reels. It is similar to TikTok’s Duet feature which simultaneously plays user’s videos on a split screen. The ““ feature also allows users to extract the music from existing video posts and include it in their own content. However, users who upload with these features usually do not have license to use the music in the original video which they extracted the music from. Even if the original video creator acquired their music through their Epidemic subscription, unsubscribed third parties essentially use Epidemic’s content without authorization. Epidemic’s suit also argued that Meta, itself, engages in copyright infringement by storing, reproducing, and distributing their content on Instagram’s Music Library. When users select songs for their posts, Meta makes a copy and transfers it to the user in violation of Epidemic’s exclusive reproduction and distribution rights.  Epidemic predicts that there are currently over 80,000 infringing videos circulating daily on Instagram and Facebook.

Epidemic also mentioned that they Meta about this issue, but Meta has refused to provide them with compensation or the to identify and protect their works. The claimed statutory damages for this action are quite significant, but under , parties are entitled to $150,000 per infringement. Since Epidemic owns the copyright to the sound recording and musical composition of the 950 songs it suspects are on Meta platforms, the price will be high. It is interesting that Meta has not taken precautions against such expensive litigation. Meta has not yet responded to the lawsuit, so we will have to wait to see how this case unfolds.

The post Instagram and Facebook Users Are Engaging in Copyright Infringement?! appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

On April 5^th 2022, the Federal Court released its decision for ,a copyright infringement action concerning images of singer-actress, Jennifer Lopez. Prior to trial, this case commenced as a simplified action procedure, whereby evidence is adduced through affidavit.

The Plaintiff, August Image LLC (“August”) is a photographic syndication agency based in New 91��ɫ, USA. Generally, holds contractual agreements with various photographers to sell and license their photos for commercial and/or editorial use.  For example, the allows users to purchase photos from categories like “beauty look book” or select photos from a specific photographer. In this case, August held a syndication agreement with the photographer of the Lopez portraits, Joe Pugliese, which granted them the exclusive and global right to sell, licence and promote his photographic portraits.

August asserts that the Defendant, AirG Inc, a Canadian social media brand, committed copyright infringement by reproducing six of Pugliese’s Jennifer Lopez photos on their without permission. They sought $22,412.45 in damages, which is the total license fee for the photos.

Why August image LLC’s Case Failed

The Court was satisfied that the photos were reproduced on the AirG website without permission. However, the Court ultimately dismissed August’s case because they failed to prove all the necessary elements of copyright infringement.

One of the central issues in this case was whether Joe Pugliese owned the copyright to the photographs.

According to the , the following conditions must be met for a copyright to be conferred to an author of an artistic work:(1) the work must be original; (2) the person must be the author of the work; and (3) they must, at the date of its creation, be either a Canadian citizen or a citizen of a signatory country on the Berne Convention (para 26). The provides that works created in one of the signatory countries must be given the same copyright protection in each of the other signatory countries as the latter grants to its own citizens. The United States is a signatory country. Although August was able to satisfy the first two criteria, they were unable to prove that Pugliese was a US citizen at the time that the photographs were taken. Therefore, he could not be recognized as a copyright owner, nor receive copyright protection under the Canadian Copyright Act. This factor was detrimental to their case.

Inadmissible Evidence

August did attempt to establish that Pugliese was a citizen of the United States. They supported this claim with the following evidence: the statement in Pugliese’s affidavit where he identifies himself as being “of Los Angeles, California”; a copy of the Copyright Registration Certificate (issued in the United States) which bears a California address and identifies him as a citizen; and the contract between August and Pugliese that also includes the same address.

The Court was not satisfied that any of this evidence confirmed that Pugliese was a US citizen in April 2015, when photos were created.  The Court indicated that the standard affidavit formula requires a person to insert their name followed by an address. This was not admissible proof of a US citizenship. The same was true regarding the address listed on the 2012 syndication agreement between Pugliese and August.

The Court spent more time analysing the admissibility of the Copyright Certificate of Registration as evidence of Pugliese’s citizenship. In the affidavit, Pugliese indicated that he had registered the Jennifer Lopez photographs with the United States Copyright Office, as he typically does with his works.  August asserted that this would establish Pugliese as the copyright owner and entitle him to copyright protection (para 46). Unfortunately, section 53(2) of the Copyright Act provides that only works registered with the Canadian Copyright Office will constitute as evidence that the copyright subsists and is owned by the registrant  ). Further, the Court stated that the statements regarding Pugliese’s citizenship and residence, in the certificate of registration, fell under the definition of hearsay (they were written by a person not involved with the case). The statements were also not accompanied by a declaration from Pugliese verifying the validity of the statements. Thus, the certificate was also inadmissible as to establish Pugliese as a US citizen and August was unable to prove that a copyright subsisted in the photographs.

Another Escape by AirG

In 2020, AirG was involved in a similar copyright infringement action, .  There, Lickerish, a UK company that provides beauty, celebrity, fashion and model medial argued the AirG reproduced images of Meghan Markle on their website without authorization. The Federal Court also dismissed this case. The Court failed to establish  copyright ownership — they were unable to prove that an exclusive licence existed between them and the photographer — and thus lacked standing to assert copyright infringement in relation to the photographs.  Ultimately, it seems that AirG has yet again managed to escape an infringement sanction.

Further Reading

August Image LLC v AirG Inc. 2022 FC 470: 

Federal Court Dismisses Copyright Claim Due to Plaintiff’s Failure to Establish Ownership:

The post Copyright Infringement Case Concerning Photos of Jennifer Lopez Gets Dismissed: An Overview of the August Image LLC v AirG Inc Decision appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Raenelle Manning is a IPilogue Writer and 2L J.D. Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

TikTok’s effectiveness, as a music marketing tool, became apparent during the early COVID 19 quarantine period, at which time a TikTok influencer created choreography to rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s newly released single, “Savage.” The dance quickly went viral as thousands of TikTok users, including Megan herself, uploaded videos of themselves performing the original choreography.  The virality of  “#Savagechallenge” contributed to the song’s commercial success. Besides being the in March 2020, it garnered 42.1 million US streams and peaked at No. 1 on Hot 100 and the Digital Songs chart. Other songs like Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License” and Doja Cat’s “Say So Remix” have also achieved remarkable success after being featured in viral TikTok trends.

However, not all artists are intrigued by the idea of using TikTok to promote their music despite its proven value. In a viral TikTok post, singer-songwriter , expressed that her record label would not release her new song unless they could “fake a viral TikTok moment” for promotion.  She later added, “I just want to release music, man. I deserve better tbh.” Florence Welch from voiced similar frustrations in a TikTok video of her singing acapella with the caption “[t]he [is] begging me for lo-fi TikToks so here you go. Please send help.” also released similar videos suggesting that their record labels were forcing them to utilise the platform. These recent claims have sparked discussion on whether it is fair for record labels to hold artists’ music hostage in exchange for TikTok content.

A Record Label is a Business

TikTok’s rise in popularity has undoubtably the music industry. Record labels, like several companies, have turned to TikTok and other social media platforms to market their products. As a business, their priority is to profit from their artists’ music — their products.  As mentioned, TikTok virality translates to increased streaming and sales. TikTok has become one of the most efficient platforms to promote new music, albums release dates, tours etc. It has also been used to gauge songs receptibility prior to release. In April, rapper , released a TikTok video of himself accompanied by a snippet of  his new single, “First Class.” This evolved into a viral TikTok trend of users using the song in the background of their videos. By using TikTok, the record label could guarantee that the song would be a hit before officially releasing the single. “First Class” earned a No.1 spot on , produced over 420,000 sales and achieved 54.6 million streams in its opening week. Since radio and television have mostly lost their influence among the younger generation, it is important for record labels to utilise social media platforms, like TikTok to engage their fanbase. TikTok functions like any the other promotion strategy to cultivate familiarity around newly released records.

What about the Artists’ Creative Control?

From a label’s perspective, marketing is equally as important as music production. When artist sign recording contracts to their music in exchange for the label’s professional services. Resultingly, they have limited input on marketing and distribution matters.  In the second part  of this article, Michelle Mao discusses the impact of copyright on artists’ creative control, in further detail.

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Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

On May 11^th, 2022, Google unveiled the , a 10-point scale designed to increase skin tone representation in image-based machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The MST Scale is expected to be a more inclusive alternative to the current tech industry’s standard, , which has generally people with darker skin tones.

This representative scale is the result of a collaboration between the Google Research Center for Responsible AI and Human Centred Technology (RAI-HCT) and , a Harvard professor and sociologist, who leveraged his extensive research on racial inequality and colourism. , Monk hoped to disassociate race from skin tone in view of the fact that racial and ethnic groups often include a spectrum of skin tones. “A lot of the time people feel that they are lumped together into racial categories: the Black category, White category, the Asian category, etc., but in this there’s all this difference. You need a much more fine-grain complex understanding that will really do justice to this distinction between a broad racial category and all these phenotypic differences across these categories”.

Along with other Google products, the MST Scale will be implemented into the . Google’s search field will include a feature that allows users to refine their results by skin tone. For example, beauty-related searches like, “prom make up looks” can be filtered to produce images of people with the selected skin shade.  Google also intends to create a standardized method of labelling web content with attributes like skin tone, hair texture and hair colour to increase representation.

Photo of

Skin Tone Equity in Technology

is a type of AI that allows computers to “see and understand images”, but when these systems are not intentionally built to include a spectrum of skins tones, they have been found to perform poorly on darker skin. Dr. Courtney Heldreth, a core researcher on the RAI-HCT team states that “ in how people are treated …and one example of colorism is when technology doesn’t see skin tone accurately, potentially exacerbating existing inequities”.

The issue of colour-biased technology has been previously raised in relation to facial recognition algorithms. A is another domain of computer vision that uses AI and machine learning to identify human faces in digital images.

As a MIT student, a dark-skinned black woman, noticed that some facial recognition systems could not identify her face, until she put on a white mask. In an effort to advocate for “algorithmic accountability”, she published an empirical study entitled, “” in 2018.  The study assesses the facial analysis software used by Microsoft, IBM and Face ++. The objective of the study was to determine how well these systems could identify the gender of people with various skin tones. She tested each company’s systems using a personally developed data set of 1270 faces of people with light and dark skin tones. The faces were comprised of notable male and female parliamentarians from three African nations and three Nordic nations. The subjects’ skin tones were labelled using the six-point Fitzpatrick scale. that “darker-skinned females are the most misclassified group with error rates of up 34.7%, while the error rate for lighter skinned males is 0.8%.” 

The study emphasizes that used to train it. The central issue was that the data sets used to develop the facial analysis software did not include a broad range of skin shades. Even if the data set was more inclusive, the those various darker shades. Since this study, there have been improvements to the accuracy of these company’s products. claims to have taken a more serious approach to addressing AI bias in their products.

Monk Skin Tone Scale Hopes to Improve Technology

There are to using computer vision systems that are not suitable to perform on darker skin tones. For example, the facial recognition software employed by law enforcement in the United States have been found to disproportionately misidentify African-Americans as suspected criminals. This is because they are underrepresented in the datasets used to develop the software, but overrepresented in mugshot databases. Resultingly, these biased have the potential to exacerbate racial disparities in criminal justice system and threaten civil liberties.

By making the MST Scale publicly available , Google is hoping that the MST Scale build systems that work better for people of all skin tones by creating representative data sets for  training and evaluating AI models for fairness. As our society becomes increasingly dependent on AI processes, it is important that these technologies are developed responsibly and with inclusivity and diversity in mind.

The post How Google is Reducing AI Bias with Skin Tone Inclusive Technology appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Raenelle Manning is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

On May 3, 2022, Bishop David P. Moten, a Texas pastor, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against rapper Kanye West for incorporating a sample recording of his religious sermon into one of his songs.

Moten sought damages from West and co-defendants, G.O.O.D Music, Def Jam Recordings and Universal Music Group. The allegedly infringing sample is used on “Come to Life”, a song featured on his 2021 album “Donda”. At the beginning of the song, Moten’s voice is heard saying “My soul cries out, ‘Hallelujah’ and I thank God for saving me”. The rest of the sampled sermon is featured in the background of the pre-chorus and chorus. Moten argues that “over the span of several years, defendants have demonstrated an alarming pattern and practice of sound recording of others without consent or permission.”  

In 2019, West was also hit with a for unauthorized use of a sound recording on his Grammy-nominated song, “Ultralight Beam.” The beginning of the song features the audio from a viral Instagram video which portrays a four-year-old girl praying. The child’s guardians sued for and a share of the record’s profits. In the same year, actor, West for sampling a recording of his performance titled “The Spirit of Marcus Garvey” on West’s song “Freee (Ghost Town pt.2).” that West “exploited the actual voice, words and performance without authorization.” Both suits were settled.

Sound recordings are subject to copyright protection under the US (“Act”),  which also provides that the owner of a sound recording has exclusive rights to reproduce, prepare derivative works from and publicly distribute the work. To incorporate a sound recording into a new musical work, artists must from the copyright holder. A grant of permission may accompany a written agreement to compensate the copyright holder through either a flat fee or  . Using the sound recording without permission constitutes copyright infringement. The states that copyright owners are entitled to “damages and profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement.”

Fair Use

An artist who fails to acquire permission from the copyright owner can use the ‘fair use’ defence. Under , fair use allows persons to use parts of a copyright protected work without permission for limited purposes. The court considers the following : (1) the and character of the use, including whether such is for commercial or non-profit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the of the copyright protected work (the court may consider whether the copied material has been creatively transformed by adding ); (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright protected work as a whole (the smaller the portion of the material used, the better for this defence) and; (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (the court may consider whether the audiences of the new and original work differ enough to not cause financial harm to the original copyright owner).

The fair use defence is in music sampling cases. However, Toronto-born rapper Drake successfully used the regarding the use of thirty-five second recording of a spoken-word piece on his song “Pound Cake.” West has previously attempted to employ the fair use defence in the  so he may similarly attempt to use the fair use defence for the current case. Moten seems to have anticipated the use of the defence.  He claimed that “Come to Life” — an arguably substantial usage — a factor that likely weighs negatively under the third factor of fair use consideration.

The of copyright legislation is to encourage creativity, but also to protect the rights of copyright holders. West and the record labels named in the lawsuit undoubtably have the resources to obtain compulsory sample clearance and compensate individual copyright holders. It is hence difficult to justify their continuous and deliberate failure to do either, especially when West’s creative projects are known to reap significant popularity and financial gain. For instance, prior to the album’s release, the “Donda” listening party’s ticket sales alone produced  To allow West to succeed on a fair use defence and evade his obligation to compensate would be seemingly unjust to Moten, whose sound recording arguably contributed to the album.  

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