X-Men composer dismissed from song infringement lawsuit

July 21, 2020 – Federal district court judge Gregory H. Woods today granted a motion to dismiss firm client Ron Wasserman from a copyright infringement suit pending in New York federal court, which claims that the theme song from X-Men: The Animated Series borrowed the melody from another theme song for a circa 1980’s live-action television series produced and broadcast in Hungary. In the early 1990’s, Mr. Wasserman was a staff composer employed by Saban Entertainment. Saban produced the X-Men Series and Mr. Wasserman contributed to the scoring of that series, including its theme song. In a carefully-reasoned opinion, in which he disposed of other grounds for dismissing the case, Judge Woods agreed with the arguments firm lawyers David Given and Brian Conlon made that the New York court did not have personal jurisdiction over Mr. Wasserman to adjudicate the plaintiff’s claim and that he should be dismissed from the case.  Judge Woods also declined the plaintiff’s request to transfer that part of his case against Mr. Wasserman to the federal court in Los Angeles.  Additional proceedings in the matter are pending.

UPDATE – August 4, 2020 – Plaintiff has released Mr. Wasserman from any claims, and filed his notice of voluntary dismissal with the court today. The client paid no money to plaintiff for this outcome.