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 The justices heard arguments in filmmaker Frederick Allen's
appeal of a lower court's ruling that North Carolina could not
be sued under federal law for allegedly infringing his
copyrights on five videos and a photo of the salvage operation
for the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship that went down in 1718.
The justices sought to balance the rights of individuals to
protect their creations through copyrights with the fact that
states typically are shielded under the U.S. Constitution from
lawsuits seeking damages through a form of protection known as
sovereign immunity.
The case hinges on whether that shield applies to copyright
infringement. In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed a law allowing
states to be held liable for illegal copying.
Blackbeard, whose name was Edward Teach, prowled the shipping
lanes off the Atlantic coast of North America and throughout the
Caribbean before being slain - shot, stabbed and decapitated -
during an encounter with British naval forces at North
Carolina's Ocracoke Inlet.
Blackbeard ran the Queen Anne's Revenge, his flagship, aground
on a sandbar 58 years before the United States declared
independence from Britain. By law, the ship and its artifacts
are owned by the state.
A private salvage company located the wreck in 1996. Allen and
his firm, Nautilus Productions, documented the efforts by divers
and archaeologists to recover artifacts off the coast of
Beaufort, North Carolina. Allen obtained federal copyright
registrations on the videos and still images.
Allen and Nautilus sued North Carolina in federal court in 2015
after state officials used some of the videos on YouTube and a
photo in a newsletter. The state also passed a law converting
the materials into public records.
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The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
threw out the case last year, ruling that Congress exceeded its
powers in passing the 1990 Copyright Remedy Clarification Act as
an attempt to override state sovereign immunity in copyright
disputes.
Appealing to the Supreme Court, Allen said states are flagrantly
infringing the copyrights of authors and invoking sovereign
immunity as a way to avoid paying damages. But several justices
appeared skeptical that there is evidence of widespread
infringement by states. A study around the time the law was
passed documented 16 violations over the prior decade.
"That wouldn't strike me as a major national problem," liberal
Justice Elena Kagan said.
Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer expressed concern that a state,
if immune from paying damages, could engage in brazen piracy
such as streaming popular movies on a device and charging money
for it.
Echoing Breyer's point, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh
added, "It could be rampant, states ripping off copyright
holders."
North Carolina Deputy Solicitor General Ryan Park said such a
scenario would be extreme.
"I don't think it's respectful to the interests of state
governments to say that they will infringe at will if damages
liability is taken off the table," Park said.
A ruling in the case is due by the end of June.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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