""[T]he Fourth Circuit found no extraordinary circumstances sufficient to reopen litigation... on a legal theory based on Supreme Court precedent that was 14 years old when Allen's FRCP 60(b)(6) motion was filed." On Friday, January 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling in Allen v. Stein that likely ends a decade-long copyright battle over documentary footage of a state-sponsored salvage project exhuming a shipwreck associated with the famed pirate Blackbeard."
"Videographer Frederick Allen and his company Nautilus Productions recorded footage of a private company's project to salvage Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge from the North Carolina coastline. In 2013, North Carolina state employees uploaded Allen's footage to state-sponsored social media channels, leading Allen to file suit in December 2015 against several state officials and the state's cultural resources department. That case ultimately wound up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in March 2020"
Allen and Nautilus Productions filmed a private salvage project recovering the Queen Anne's Revenge. In 2013 North Carolina employees uploaded Allen's footage to state social media, prompting Allen to sue state officials and the cultural resources department in December 2015. The Supreme Court held in March 2020 that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act did not abrogate state sovereign immunity for copyright claims. On remand, Allen sought relief under FRCP 60(b) to revive a Section 1983 takings claim using a theory from United States v. Georgia. The Fourth Circuit determined no extraordinary circumstances justified reopening the litigation and remanded with instructions to dismiss Allen's complaint with prejudice.
Read at IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law
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