Kelly M. Klaus

When Hollywood’s biggest movie studios and Los Angeles’ most iconic recording companies need copyright work, they turn to Klaus.

A longtime Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP litigator, Klaus has made a name for himself representing the likes of Warner/Chappell Music Inc., the Walt Disney Co. and a host of other top-tier entertainment companies ensnared in thorny and reoccurring legal issues.

“I was very lucky that our firm has had a decades-long relationship with the major studios and music recording companies,” Klaus said in a recent interview, attributing his early interest in the field to his time studying under Stanford Law School professor and copyright law guru Paul Goldstein.

“The last couple of decades … have been a particularly active period in the copyright field,” Klaus continued.

Significant developments in that field are due, in part, to his work.

Last fall, Klaus and a team of Munger attorneys — representing six Hollywood studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America, Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. — were able to secure a permanent injunction against TickBox TV LLC, blocking the company from continuing its streaming services that distributed his clients’ content without permission. Universal City Studios Productions LLP et al. v. TickBox TV LLC, 17-CV07496 (C.D. Cal, filed Oct. 13, 2017).

“We thought it was a pretty clear-cut case of a party trying to induce copyright infringement,” Klaus said.

The decision came towards the end of a banner year for Klaus, during which he successfully urged a California appellate court to strike down Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland’s right of publicity lawsuit against FX Networks LLC over its portrayal of her in “Feud: Bette and Joan.” De Havilland v. FX Networks LLC, 21 Cal.App.5th 845 (2018).

Klaus also served as lead counsel on a lawsuit challenging movie rental company Redbox Automated Retail LLC’s use of movie download codes to let different customers access the same film. The defendant company responded to the legal action that the practice was protected by the first sale doctrine, which allows the purchaser of a copyrighted work to re-sell or rent out that copy. Klaus fought back.

“Our point was, no, the download copy is only available for someone who satisfied various conditions,” Klaus said, summarizing his argument on behalf of clients Disney, Lucasflim Ltd. and Marvel Worldwide Inc.

Senior U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson agreed and issued a published decision to that effect. Disney Enterprises v. Redbox Automated Retail LLC, 336 F.Supp.3d 1146 (2018)

Klaus is now preparing for a statutory damages trial to fight video-streaming company VidAngel Inc., against which he helped win an injunction blocking it from continuing to stream protected work owned by his clients Disney, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. Disney Enterprises Inc. et al. v. VidAngel Inc., 16-CV04109 (C.D. Cal., filed June 9, 2016).

— Nicolas Sonnenburg