Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 1 of 140 Nos. 16-56057 & 16-56287 ________________________________________________________________ IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT __________________________________ MICHAEL SKIDMORE, AS TRUSTEE FOR THE RANDY CRAIG WOLFE TRUST PLAINTIFF, APPELLANT AND APPELLEE vs. LED ZEPPELIN, ET AL. DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES AND WARNER/CHAPPELL MUSIC, INC., DEFENDANT, APPELLEE AND APPELLANT __________________________________ APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA HON. R. GARY KLAUSNER, DISTRICT JUDGE, CASE NO.15-cv-03462 RGK (AGRx) __________________________________ COMBINED ANSWERING AND OPENING BRIEF __________________________________ PETER J. ANDERSON, ESQ. HELENE M. FREEMAN, ESQ. LAW OFFICES OF PETER J. ANDERSON, PHILLIPS NIZER LLP A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION 666 FIFTH AVENUE 100 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD, SUITE 2010 NEW YORK, NY 10103-0084 SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 TEL: (212) 977-9700 TEL.: (310) 260-6030 ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANTS AND APPELLEES JAMES PATRICK PAGE, ROBERT ANTHONY JAMES PATRICK PAGE ET AL. AND PLANT AND JOHN PAUL JONES DEFENDANT, APPELLEE AND APPELLANT WARNER/CHAPPELL MUSIC, INC. ________________________________________________________________ Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 2 of 140 CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 26.1., counsel for defendants and appellees Atlantic Recording Corporation, Rhino Entertainment Company, Super Hype Publishing, Inc., and Warner Music Group Corp., and defendant, appellee and appellant Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., confirms that these corporate parties are owned and controlled, directly or indirectly, by AI Entertainment Holdings LLC, a privately held corporation and affiliate of Access Industries, Inc., also a privately held corporation. No publicly held corporation owns 10% or more of the stock of these corporate parties, AI Entertainment Holdings LLC or Access Industries, Inc. Dated: June 2, 2017 /s/ Peter J. Anderson Peter J. Anderson, Esq. Law Offices of Peter J. Anderson A Professional Corporation Attorney for Defendants and Appellees JAMES PATRICK PAGE, ROBERT ANTHONY PLANT, JOHN PAUL JONES, ATLANTIC RECORDING CORPORATION, RHINO ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY, SUPER HYPE PUBLISHING, INC., and WARNER MUSIC GROUP CORP. and Defendant, Appellee and Appellant WARNER/CHAPPELL MUSIC, INC. i Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 3 of 140 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 JURISDICTIONAL STATEMENT .......................................................................... 3 STATEMENT OF ISSUES PRESENTED................................................................ 4 Skidmore’s Appeal .......................................................................................... 4 Warner/Chappell’s Appeal .............................................................................. 6 STATEMENT OF THE CASE .................................................................................. 7 1. BACKGROUND FACTS ................................................................................ 7 (a) In 1967, Lou Adler’s Ode Records Released the First Spirit Album and His Hollenbeck Music Registered a Copyright in the Musical Composition Taurus .......................................................... 7 (b) In December 1968, Ode Records Released Spirit’s Breakthrough Album, The Family that Plays Together, which Spirit Toured to Support and which Did Not Include Taurus ......................................... 8 (c) Led Zeppelin, a UK Band, Was Formed in 1968 and its Members Were Never Present When Spirit Performed Taurus ............................ 9 (d) Stairway to Heaven, Released on Led Zeppelin’s Fourth Album in 1971, Was Written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and Contains a Descending Chromatic Scale ............................................. 9 (e) Despite the Success of 1971’s Stairway to Heaven, Hollenbeck Music, Wolfe and—After Wolfe’s Death in 1997—the Trustees Never Sued, Until Skidmore Sued in 2014 ......................................... 12 2. THE ACTION BELOW ................................................................................ 12 (a) Skidmore’s 2014 Filing of this Action ................................................ 12 (b) The District Court’s Rulings on Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment ............................................................................................. 13 ii Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 4 of 140 (c) The District Court’s Pretrial Conference and Rulings on Motions in Limine .............................................................................................. 14 (d) The District Court Allowed Skidmore to Provide New Rule 26 Expert Disclosures on the Eve of Trial ............................................... 15 (e) The Jury Trial ...................................................................................... 16 (1) Skidmore’s Case ....................................................................... 16 (2) Defendants’ Case ...................................................................... 22 i. Defendants’ Witnesses .................................................... 22 ii. The District Court’s Grant of Skidmore’s Request for Additional Time to Cross-Examine Defendants’ Witnesses ......................................................................... 27 (3) Skidmore’s Preparation of the District Court’s Jury Instructions ................................................................................ 28 (4) The Jury’s Verdict ..................................................................... 28 (5) The Entry of Judgment and the Amended Judgment, and Skidmore’s Decision Not to File any Post-Trial Motions ........ 29 (6) The Court’s Denial of Warner/Chappell’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and Additional Costs ...................................... 29 (7) Skidmore’s and Warner/Chappell’s Consolidated Appeals ...................................................................................... 29 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ............................................................................... 30 ARGUMENT ........................................................................................................... 33 1. SKIDMORE’S APPEAL ............................................................................... 33 (a) Skidmore Waived this Court’s Review of the Grant of Summary Judgment to Three of the Defendants ................................................. 33 iii Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 5 of 140 (b) The District Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion by Requiring that Skidmore Prove Substantial Similarity Between Stairway to Heaven and the 1967 Copyrighted Taurus Deposit Copy .................. 34 (1) The District Court Properly Recognized the Distinction Between Musical Compositions and Sound Recordings and that the Uncopyrighted Spirit Recordings Are Irrelevant ......... 34 (2) Skidmore Fails to Identify Any Compositional Elements in the Spirit Recordings that Were Excluded at Trial ................... 36 (3) The 1909 Act Did Not Expand Protection of Copyrighted Musical Compositions to Include Sound Recordings ............... 37 i. Section 1(e) of the 1909 Act Did Not Extend Music Composition Copyrights to Sound Recordings .............. 37 ii. The 1909 Act Has Never Been Interpreted to Extend Composition Copyright Protection to Sound Recordings ...................................................................... 39 (4) Federal Statutory Copyright Is Not a Registered Common Law Copyright .......................................................................... 41 (5) A Registered Copyright Protects the Work as Registered, Not an Amalgam of Versions Performed Over Time ............... 42 i. Skidmore Offers No Case Law Supporting His Copyrighted Work-as-an-Amalgam Argument ............... 42 ii. Under Established Law, the Registered Work Is the Copyrighted Work ........................................................... 43 a. Deposit Copies Establish the Copyrighted Work ..................................................................... 43 iv Case: 16-56057, 06/02/2017, ID: 10457904, DktEntry: 29, Page 6 of 140 b. The Fact that the Stairway to Heaven Recording —as the Alleged Infringement—Was Relevant Does Not Make Taurus Recordings Relevant ...... 46 c. New Versions of a Copyrighted Work Do Not Expand that Work’s Copyright Protection .............................................................. 47 d. Trying to Trivialize Deposit Copies, Skidmore Ignores the Law and Practice that Deposit Copies of Unpublished Works Are Retained ....... 47 (6) The District Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion by Excluding the Taurus Sound Recordings ................................. 49 i. The Taurus Deposit Copy Is the Work Protected by the Copyright that Skidmore Sued Upon ........................ 49 ii. Skidmore Presented No Evidence that the 1967 Taurus Copyright Protects Anything Beyond the Taurus Deposit Copy ...................................................... 50 iii. The District Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion by Excluding the Recordings of Spirit Under FRE 403 ...... 52 iv. Skidmore’s Parade of Horribles ..................................... 54 (7) The Claimed Error Is Harmless ...............................................