Credible Fraudulent Transfer Advocacy
Appellate courts continue to use common sense when disposing of constructively fraudulent transfer appeals, as recent decisions show.
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Coordination of Mass Torts in State Court
April 29, 2008
With the number of mass/complex cases in state courts on the rise, state court litigants and jurists are recognizing the need to treat these cases differently from garden variety torts and are turning to established, but heretofore little used, state law coordination rules and procedures to manage this growing area of litigation.
<b>Decision of Note:</b> 'Video' License Encompassed Mobile Delivery
April 29, 2008
The Appellate Court of Illinois decided that a license to use the trademark 'March Madness' 'to advertise, promote, and sell publications, videos, and media broadcasts' included the right to deliver on-demand video content to mobile wireless devices.
Criminalizing Product Liability Claims? An Idea from Across the Pond
April 29, 2008
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007 is yet another example of a worldwide trend toward criminalizing the law of product liability. While the idea of establishing criminal corporate manslaughter has been discussed in the United States, it has not gained much momentum. The recent reform in the United Kingdom, however, may rekindle the efforts to criminalize product liability, especially during the course of this election year.
Bit Parts
April 29, 2008
Artist Consultant/Unfair-Competition Claim<br>Insurance/Intra-Band Litigation<br>Royalty Complaint/Ringtone and Download Licenses<br>TV-Affiliation Agreements/Promotional Payments
Cameo Clips
April 29, 2008
CHARACTER RIGHTS/COPYRIGHT TERMINATION<br>FILM PRODUCTION/COPYRIGHT CLAIMS<br>FILM PRODUCTION/RIGHT-OF-PUBLICITY<br>RIGHTS IN BAND NAMES/TRADEMARK CLAIMS
L.A. Litigator James Curry Joins Sheppard Mullin
April 29, 2008
A founding partner of one of L.A.'s few remaining litigation boutiques has jumped to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's Century City office. Entertainment litigator James Curry took his name off the door of White O'Connor Curry, a Century City firm that spun off of what is now Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro in an acrimonious split more than a decade ago.
Hollywood Ties to Anti-Piracy Push Across India
April 29, 2008
A robust local film industry has kept American films on the margins in India. Foreign films account for only 3% of the market in India, compared to European countries, where American movies account for between 70% and 95% of films shown. So if the United States wants to make a point about film piracy in India, it needs to show Indians that piracy hits the market for their own films, not just those of foreign companies.
Case on DAs' Movie Input, Book Is at CA High Court
April 29, 2008
When their 15 minutes of fame came, two Santa Barbara County prosecutors didn't shy away ' one authored a book based loosely on a rape case she was handling and the other consulted on a movie about an alleged killer he was trying to bring to justice. But their foray into the entertainment world went awry in October 2006 when a state appellate panel threw both prosecutors off their cases. Joyce Dudley's novel, 'Intoxicating Agent,' hewed far too close to her real-world rape case, the court held, while Ronald Zonen shouldn't have allowed producers of the movie 'Alpha Dog' access to highly sensitive files in his sensational death-penalty case. As a result, the court ruled, keeping the prosecutors on the cases would deny both criminal defendants a fair trial.
How Courts Are Defining 'Distribution' In Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Lawsuits
April 29, 2008
In the entertainment industry's efforts to stem the infringement of sound recordings and motion pictures on the Internet, more than 20,000 infringement actions have been commenced against individuals, mostly in connection with their use of peer-to-peer (P2P) services to share recordings with other P2P users. The legal basis for these actions is often misunderstood, however, by commentators ' and sometimes even by the courts. This article discusses several recent P2P cases that deal directly with a central element of most P2P cases, namely the allegation that users violate the plaintiffs' distribution rights under 17 U.S.C. Sec. 106 whenever they place a digital recording or video in a 'share' folder that other P2P users can access.
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