Ronald H. Selle v. Barry Gibb, and Ronald H. Selle v. Barry Gibb

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• agreeing that “there was no more than a bare possibility that the defendants could have had access to [the] song and that this was an insufficient basis from which the jury could have reasonably inferred the existence of access”
• discussing and applying the doctrine in the context of “striking similarity” analysis
• “ ‘Striking similarity’ is not merely a function of the number of identical notes that appear in [two] compositions.”
• “[T]he burden of proving ‘striking similarity,’ which, by definition, includes taking steps to minimize the possibility of common source, is on the plaintiff.”
• “... no matter how great the similarity between the two works, it is not their similarity per se which establishes access”
• “[I]f the plaintiff admits to having kept his or her creation under lock and key, it would seem logically impossible to infer access through striking similarity.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).