SCOTUS Cert Recap: Copyright Act’s Fair Use Defense, ‘Dormant’ Commerce Clause, and Independent and Adequate State Ground Doctrine
Highlights
On March 28, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the following three questions:
Is a work of art that copies from a prior work but that conveys a different meaning than the prior work necessarily “transformative” for the purpose of the Copyright Act’s fair use defense?
Does California’s Proposition 12 – which requires all pork sold in California to come from pigs housed in compliance with the state’s animal-confinement rules, even pigs raised entirely in other states – violate the Constitution’s Commerce Clause?
Is Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g), which requires a state prisoner seeking post-conviction relief to identify a “significant change in the law” that would probably have produced a different result in the prisoner’s case, an adequate and independent state-law ground to support a state-court judgment denying post-conviction relief?
On March 28, the U.S. Supreme Court added three cases to its docket for next term: one about when a work of art “transforms” a prior work for the purpose of the Copyright Act’s fair use defense, another involving a “dormant” Commerce Clause challenge to a California law that prohibits selling any pork in the state unless the pork comes from pigs housed in compliance with California’s animal-confinement rules, and a third concerning whether the independent and adequate state ground doctrine bars the Court from reviewing an Arizona state-court decision denying a request for post-conviction relief.
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