Nov 11, 2024 Can You Avoid Copyright Claims By Modifying Props Used in Your Ads? By Brian Murphy In Crystal Castles, the arcade game released by Atari in 1983, the player controls Bentley Bear, a bruin tasked with collecting gems...
Sep 30, 2024 Trump in a “River of Trouble” for Infringing Copyright in Classic Isaac Hayes Song By Brian Murphy Since 2020, Donald J. Trump and his campaign organization have regularly played the Sam & Dave classic “Hold On, I’m Comin’” at campaign...
Aug 16, 2024 Predictably, an Oral License to Use Beat Track in Song Results in Copyright Infringement Case By Brian Murphy Plaintiff Brian White is a professional musician who writes and records beat tracks that he sometimes licenses to other artists. (We Got...
Jul 10, 2024 Tracy Anderson vs. Megan Roup - Round 3 By Amanda Barkin A federal judge tossed Anderson’s copyright claim against former employee (and current competitor), Megan Roup, for alleged infringement...
Jun 27, 2024 Time to Face the Music? Major Record Labels Sue AI Companies over Sound Recordings Allegedly Used in Training Data By Zach Lewis Last year, when a “fake Drake” song created using artificial intelligence made major headlines, we questioned whether generative AI would...
May 29, 2024 Tenth Circuit Refuses to Award Profits Under Copyright Act for Unauthorized Use of Photo in Ad By Brian Murphy I Dig Texas (IDT) and Creager Services (Creager) are competitors that sell attachments for skid steer loaders, a type of heavy machinery...
May 13, 2024 BLOCKBUSTER RULING: Federal Court Holds That Copyright Act Preempts X's Web Scraping Claims By Jeremy Goldman In a blockbuster ruling that is bound to have far-reaching implications, including in the swarm of copyright infringement cases brought...
May 09, 2024 Breaking News: The Supreme Court Finds Against 3-Year Limit on Copyright Damages By Nicole Bergstrom Edward H. Rosenthal In a decision issued this morning, the Supreme Court rejected the three-year cap on damages in copyright infringement actions espoused by...
Mar 28, 2024 Citing Warhol, 10th Circuit Reverses Tiger King Fair Use Ruling By Caren Decter Back in 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important fair use ruling in Warhol v. Goldsmith—holding that Warhol's use of Goldsmith's...
Jan 23, 2024 French Montana and the Scope of Copyright Protection for Sound Recordings vs. Compositions By Brian Murphy You have to tip your hi-hat to Eddie Lee Richardson, a/k/a Hotwire the Producer, a/k/a the plaintiff in this case. When he was 16 years...
Dec 29, 2023 Mickey Mouse (Version 1.0) Enters the Public Domain in the U.S. By Brian Murphy So, it is happening. The animated short “Steamboat Willie,” which was released in 1928 and features an early version of Mickey Mouse,...
Dec 26, 2023 Hallmark Holiday Movies and the Scènes à Faire Doctrine By Brian Murphy During the holidays, the television in my octogenarian parents' home toggles back-and-forth between Fox News (my father's choice) and the...
Dec 11, 2023 A Copyright Quiz: Find the Infringement! By Brian Murphy For many years, the plaintiff was part-owner and lead designer for a company that made stationery and office supplies. The plaintiff...
Dec 06, 2023 Plaintiffs' Argument that Meta's Large Language Model is an Infringing Derivative Work Makes Judge's Head Explode 🤯 By Brian Murphy Today I report on another opinion out of the Central District of California that addresses whether generative AI tools infringe upon the...
Dec 04, 2023 Two Courts, Two Ad Campaigns, and Copyright's Idea-Expression Dichotomy By Brian Murphy Lawyers say this to clients all the time: you can’t copyright an idea; copyright protection extends only to an author's original...
Nov 13, 2023 The Generative AI Journey Continues By Brian Murphy When it comes to tech powered by generative AI, we are on the verge of a Cambrian Explosion, a period during which we can expect an...