The hotly disputed legal issue between the majority and dissent in the recent, highly-publicized “Blurred Lines” decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerned whether Marvin Gaye's 1976 hit song “Got to Give it Up” was entitled to “broad” or “thin” copyright protection.
Pop musicians may be running out of creative space. And this problem is being exacerbated by the behaviors of what we might call the “legacy” interests — parties who own copyright interests in already-created songs but who won't be making any new music.
A Delaware federal bankruptcy judge's ruling in May approved the $310 million sale of The Weinstein Co.'s television and film assets to Dallas-based Lantern Capital Partners. The development was the latest blow to women who had hoped to recover against the company for abuses suffered at the hands of company co-founder Harvey Weinstein.
In a lawsuit over rights to a card game with a pivotal role in the Star Wars saga, Lucasfilm Ltd. won an early battle against app maker Ren Ventures Ltd. when a federal district judge in San Francisco declined to dismiss Lucasfilm's claims based on Ren Ventures' use of various trademarks, primarily centered on the game Sabacc.
Brief Use of Graffiti Art in HBO's Vinyl Show Found De Minimis
Chinese Film Company Subject to Personal Jurisdiction in Location Security Company's Colorado Lawsuit
The justices in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association found the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act infringed on state sovereignty. The decision could transform sports and sports gambling from coast to coast.
Legislature Considers Publicity Law Update
Ruling in a matter of first impression, New York's high court dismissed suits filed by Lindsay Lohan and the daughter of ex-mobster Sammy “The Bull” Gravano against the makers of Grand Theft Auto V, by disagreeing with the plaintiff's claims that characters in the game were intended to be their look-alikes.
The Supreme Court of Indiana accepted a certified question from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit involving the interpretation of the state's right-of-publicity statute.
Only a small fraction of television news broadcasts are made available online. For a party to monitor and view all news coverage of an event, it would essentially have to watch and record all news broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's exactly what media-monitoring service TVEyes did. Fox News filed suit against TVEyes, claiming copyright infringement of 19 of its hour-long programs and alleging that TVEyes would divert Fox News's viewership and its ability to license its news clips to third parties.
The California Court of Appeal created some First Amendment breathing room for the creators of docudramas — at the expense of legendary actress Olivia de Havilland — when the court ordered her suit against FX Networks over its Emmy Award-winning miniseries Feud be stricken under California's anti-SLAPP law, even if it did play a little fast-and-loose with de Havilland's character.
