Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Passport Video

dissenting:

AMENDED DISSENT

The district court has misstated critical facts and has misstated the governing law. For these reasons, we should reverse its grant of a preliminary injunction.

The Facts. That the plaintiffs hold copyrighted materials and the defendant used portions of them were not and are not disputed facts. Passport’s principal defense was that its use of the materials was fair use. Here the facts were disputed. Here the district court made critical misstatements as follows:

Finding of Fact 11: “The portions of The Ed Sullivan Show included on The Definitive Elvis are exact reproductions; the Defendants did not add anything new or transformative to the copyrighted work.”

Finding of Fact 13: “The portions of Ed Sullivan’s Rock & Roll Classics — Elvis Presley included on The Definitive Elvis are exact reproductions; the Defendants did not add anything new or transforma-tive to the copyrighted work.”

Finding of Fact 22: “Portions of ‘The Elvis 1968 Comeback Special,’ ‘Elvis Aloha From Hawaii,’ and ‘Elvis in Concert’ have been copied and appear in The Definitive Elvis. The portions of these works included on The Definitive Elvis are exact reproductions; the…