Copyright Cases: Rights Reservation does not Eliminate Standing for Licensed Rights and Fifth Time’s the Charm for Ricky Martin

Great Bowery Inc. v. Consequence Sound LLC et al. (available here)

Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz entered into an agreement with a licensing agency, Great Bowery, granting it the exclusive, worldwide right to “license, market, and promote” some of here photographs. Great Bowery later sued several defendants to enforce those rights against them for purported infringement. The defendants asserted that because Ms. Leibovitz retained certain “right[] to collaborate with or deliver” those same images “to Robert Pledge and/or Contact Press Images for use in special products or other endeavors [she] deals of interest.”

From 2016 to 2022, Ms. Leibovitz famously photographed many of the Star Wars cast for the new Skywalker Sequel films and as several extended universe television series were being written and filmed for Vanity Fair Magazine. Great Bowery found some of those images on various sites operated by the defendants. Great Bowery produced the license and the defendants sought summary judgment on the basis that Great Bowery lacked standing. The district court reasoned that by excluding certain rights, Ms. Leibovitz had not actually granted Great Bowery exclusive rights to enforce (without at least adding her as a co-plaintiff, which Great Bowery tried to do late and was denied).

The Eleventh Circuit here found that the district court’s decision not to allow Great Bowery to amend the complaint to add Leibovitz was correct, but that summary judgment regarding the exclusive versus non-exclusive state of her license was inappropriate and remanded for further proceedings to ascertain the scope of rights granted to Great Bowery.

Cortés-Ramos v. Martin-Morales (available here)

In 2014, Cortés-Ramos is a well-known Puerto Rican singer who submitted an original musical composition for consideration for the FIFA World Cup Official Album. The contest was promoted by Ricky Martin. He was later notified that his song was selected as one of 20 finalists for the album. The email asked him to sign and return several documents to Sony Music. He did sign those documents, had them notarized, and returned them. Shortly after, Martin-Morales (better known as Ricky Martin) released his own song, “Vida.”

Cortés-Ramos’ claim is essentially that Ricky Martin somehow copied his song and that Sony had put together the contest as a fraudulent inducement to enter the contest. There have now been four appeals to the First Circuit, the last of which was dismissed without prejudice for failure to have obtained a copyright registration prior to filing his original complaint.

Cortés-Ramos re-filed his copyright application which resulted in a registration. He then sued Mr. Martin again. The district court in Puerto Rico dismissed his complaint based upon the transfer of rights to Sony pursuant to the documents he signed. The district court found that Mr. Cortés-Ramos had assigned those rights to Sony and, therefore, granted summary judgment for Ricky Martin and invalidated the newly-obtained copyright registration.

Here, on appeal, the First Circuit in a rather humorous opinion found that Mr. Cortés-Ramos should be afforded the opportunity to engage in discovery of what, exactly, he signed and the contents of the documents that Sony (Martin) purportedly has that he has signed. In such a consideration, the First Circuit reviews “authoritativeness, timeliness, good cause, utility, and materiality.” The First Circuit reasoned that Cortés-Ramos had shown at least the first four, so the granting of summary judgment was premature. The case is remanded for still more litigation.

Conclusion

Copyright law continues to be an exhilarating ride.

We will discuss the these issues and cases in our SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, July 13, 2026.

Jonathan Pearce, a partner at SoCal IP, will lead the discussion.