LJN Newsletters

CLAIMS OVER PHOTOS, PERFORMANCE IN DVD
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT/SAMPLED RECORDING

Do the recent rulings in the General Growth Properties bankruptcy spell doom for equipment debt securitizations? Not necessarily so, according to the recent rulings of Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in the $27 billion General Growth Properties Chapter 11 bankruptcy — at least with respect to the issue of substantive consolidation.

Internet gambling proponents suffered a major setback when a federal appeals court refused to strike down a 2006 law in which Congress banned all Internet gambling transactions that would be illegal in the gambler's state.

Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, has come up empty in her claims against Jerry Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica. Lapine had sued Jessica, author of the book Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, for copyright and trademark infringement. But Manhattan federal district court Judge Laura Swain threw those claims out, finding that there were sufficient differences between the two books.

The New York Supreme Court, New York County, denied a motion to dismiss a complaint by a personal manager who seeks unpaid commissions from artists he managed.

A pair of Beverly Hills film producers have been found guilty of conspiring to bribe a former Thai government official to obtain contracts that provided for, among other things, control of the annual Bangkok International Film Festival, the Justice Department said.

The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, affirmed a quantum meruit award based on contract-negotiation representation that attorney Todd Musburger provided to talk show personality Gary Meier.

The billions of dollars in movie merchandising profits reflect the incredible value of intellectual property. If a film is, for example, adapted from a book, or ' more commonly for merchandising in recent years ' a comic book or graphic novel, a movie studio must first obtain rights, either through assignment or more commonly licensing, from the literary work's author or owner. However, that does not mean the studio can begin production of action figures the next day.