Entertainment and Sports Law

In a split decision that closely examined what constitutes a person being considered a limited public figure for the purposes of defamation standards, the New York Appellate Division, First Department, ruled that acclaimed music producer Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald is neither a general nor a limited public figure for the purposes of his defamation suit against famed singer Kesha, who has claimed Gottwald drugged and sexually assaulted her.

When NBA star Jimmy Butler's former sports agency sued him last year seeking a portion of the proceeds from a $5 million Nike endorsement contract, Butler's lawyer didn't just stick to playing defense.

In a rare ruling, the Cinemark movie theater chain won the chance to keep litigating against its insurance company, seeking losses under a $500 million policy for business interruption from COVID-19.

A look at moves among attorneys, law firms, companies and other players in entertainment law.

Don Everly Prevails Over Late Brother Phil's Family Following Trial on Authorship of Everly Brothers' 1960 Hit "Cathy's Clown" Split Decision on Secondary Liability Claims Against Harry Fox Agency in Music Licensing Lawsuit Over Spotify Streaming of Eminem Compositions

In December 2018, China-based titan Tencent Music Entertainment launched a U.S. initial public offering (IPO). But the IPO resulted in an investor's class action suit alleging TME violated federal securities laws. This is part of a trend of increasing such securities suits against foreign companies, though the U.S.

The latest cryptocurrency craze has litigators closely watching from the sidelines. Buyers of digital non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are ready to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes more, but when disputes start to hit the scene, litigators said there is little to no case law as precedent.

Google didn't get an answer from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) it copied from Sun Microsystems were copyrightable. But it got just about everything else it could have hoped for in a decision that ended its 11-year copyright clash with Sun's successor, Oracle.