Oksana Baiul, et al. v. NBC Sports

Section 301(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, grants Federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over “all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to the exclusive rights” defined in Section 106, if the rights pertain to a work which is “within the subject matter of copyright”. Section 301(b) provides that: “Nothing in this title annuls or limits any rights or remedies under the common law or statute of any State” for any work that is not “within the subject matter of copyright” or concerns legal or equitable rights that are not “equivalent” to any of the “exclusive rights” specified in Section 106. In this case, the Second Circuit held that Section 301 “completely” preempts all state causes of action of a performer that touch or concern a copyrighted work not based on express contract, even if Federal law provides no remedy for such causes of action. Such state causes of action include breach of “implied-in-fact” and “implied-inlaw” contract, violation of right of publicity under common law and California Civil Code Section 3344, and their equitable equivalents. In contrast, the Seventh Circuit has opined: “We are not so sure,” and stated that Section 301 “completely” preempts state law claims only when Congress has provided a specific Federal remedy. These conflicting approaches reflect substantial uncertainty in the application of this Court’s decision in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58 (1987) permitting Federal question jurisdiction on removal based on a preemption defense. Therefore, does Section 301(a) completely preempt all state law claims of a star artist who contributes a