The appeals court in a two-to-one decision, and 84 page document, upheld the trial court. Often, as here, important issues are not just “does it sound the same,” but much more arcane legal points like: which version of federal copyright law even applies to this case? They decided that it was the 1909 Copyright Act, not its replacement Copyright Act in 1976. So this court has to decide how the 1909 Copyright Act impacted copyrights protected in the 60s, and allegedly copied in the current decade. It is up to the trial court.

Source: Forbes March 21, 2018 20:02 UTC