U.S. Supreme Court denies review of Mayweather copyright case

This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of a copyright infringement lawsuit from a musician that claimed that Floyd Mayweather, Jr. used a version of his song without his permission at Wrestlemania 24.

By denying musician Anthony Dash’s request for the Court to review his claims, it upholds a ruling that the musician was not able to prove he suffered monetary losses when Mayweather used a version of his song for his entrance music at Wrestlemania 24 in 2008.

The background facts of this case are interesting as Mayweather signed on to do a match at the WWE’s biggest event of the year.  It’s fairly common for celebrity guests to make appearances at this event. The contract Mayweather signed with the WWE did not include specifics on what entrance music Mayweather would use.  The WWE had communicated to Mayweather that it had selected a 50 Cent song for his entrance. But, the night before the event Mayweather’s manager told the WWE he would enter using another song and represented to the WWE that they had rights to it and granted the WWE the right to use it during his appearance.  The entrance music played for 3 minutes as Mayweather came in for his match against The Big Show.

Mayweather used the entrance music at one more WWE event.

Dash claimed that the entrance music played by Mayweather contained his copyrighted instrumental music over lyrics.  While he claimed that in 2005 he created the instrumental of the song, he did not file a federal copyright for it until 2009.

The court held that Dash could not prove actual and profit damages claims stemming from the use of his work for entrance music.  Specifically, the court was not impressed with the report produced by Dash’s expert claiming that he was entitled to $1,019,226 in actual and profit damages for the infringement at Wrestlemania alone.

(H/t: Law360.c0m)

Payout Take:  The crux of the issue centered on whether the musician could prove damages as a result of the infringement.  The report provided by his side appears overblown by just looking at the amount claimed.  I am half-joking when I write that the U.S. Supreme Court timed the issuance of this denial of review during “Wrestlemania Week.”  The underlying facts of the case are amusing considering the change in entrance music and the subsequent request for over $1 million for 3 minutes of playing a song of a relative unknown musician. With the U.S. Supreme Court finding in his favor, The Money Team gets another win.