Three Boys Music Corp. v. Michael Bolton
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
212 F.3d 477 (2000)
The Isley Brothers' song 'Love is a Wonderful Thing,' never a top-100 hit but played on Connecticut radio stations for a few weeks in 1966, predated a same-titled 1990 song co-written by Michael Bolton and Andrew Goldmark (defendants) that reached number 49 on the year-end pop chart; both Bolton and Goldmark were soul-music devotees living in Connecticut as children during the Isley song's brief radio run, and copyright holder Three Boys Music (plaintiff) sued for infringement, winning a $5.4 million jury verdict that Bolton and Goldmark appealed.
Whether infringement of a copyrighted musical work can be shown through circumstantial evidence of access to the protected work and substantial similarities between the works.