Cover Story Entertainment Law & Finance

It’s been an active season for the federal appeals courts on the copyright law front. This article summarizes three of these recent circuit court decisions.

Certain substantive aspects of trademark law and practice are now meaningfully different between the UK and EU, and procedural differences that were already present are now more pronounced. These changes raise important considerations for entertainment businesses operating across Europe.

On Dec. 1, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Cox Communications Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment. The case turned on whether Internet Service Providers could be “contributorily liable for copyright infringement, when the provider knew that specific subscribers were using its service to flagrantly infringe and continued to supply those repeat infringers with service.”

Agreements among band members typically provide for who owns rights in a music group’s name when a founding member leaves and/or a new member joins. But what if there’s no intra-band agreement covering these scenarios? The two recent court decisions in this article offer potential outcomes.

Two federal courts recently issued rulings on notable issues impacting whether and how artists can terminate prior assignments of copyrights in their works.

There are two key federally created entities whose mission it is to issue licenses and collect royalties on behalf of rights holders for digital transmissions of music: SoundExchange and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). This article reports on recent court rulings over whether the plaintiffs had viable causes of action related to SoundExchange and MLC royalty payments.

Early in Van Halen’s career, Neil Zlozower shot photos of the music group at Sunset Sound Studios with Eddie holding his famous "Frankenstein" guitar. Years later, Zlozower sued the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum, alleging copyright infringement after the institution included two of his Van Halen photos, unlicensed from and uncredited to Zlozower, in exhibits at the museum.

The VPPA may be nearly four-decades old and video-rental stores largely a thing of the past, but the rise of online content, streaming services and ancillary activities has brought with it frequent litigation based on the VPPA. The key challenge in these litigations is how to interpret the VPPA’s 1980s terms in light of today’s digital advances.