The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a lower court’s holding that Fox’s use of the name “Empire” for its hit television series is protected by the First Amendment, leaving record label Empire Distribution without any recourse on its trademark infringement claims.  A copy of the full decision is available here. 

In a decision highlighting the subtleties of trademark law and claimed “parody” websites, Will Applebee, a lawyer-turned-sports writer, has successfully defended his sports humor website, NOTSportsCenter.com, against ESPN’s recent efforts to seize its domain name to protect its flagship brand. ESPN’s SportsCenter is a popular daily sports news television program that offers breaking news, highlights,

In a case of first impression, New York’s highest court ruled that New York common law does not include a right to control public performances of pre-1972 sound recordings. The ruling arises from a years-long legal battle between The Turtles, the 1960s rock band most famous for the hit song “Happy Together,” and Sirius XM,

  A recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a $1.6 million award of actual damages in a copyright infringement case, affirming the “premium” price a federal jury in Delaware placed on the defendants’ extensive use of the plaintiff’s rare stem cell images. The plaintiff, photographer Andrew Paul Leonard,

The #hashtag, once confined to Twitter, has become ubiquitous across virtually all social media platforms.  The hashtag (formerly known as the “pound” sign) has revolutionized the way information is organized, discovered, and shared online.  Social media users use hashtags – i.e., a keyword or phrase preceded by the hashtag symbol (#) – to identify social

Artist Steven Gardner was not pleased to find Cafe Press selling merchandise bearing four of his illustrations on www.cafepress.com, without his permission.  Gardner filed a copyright action against CafePress, and Cafe Press moved to dismiss, claiming that it was only acting at the direction of its users and could not be liable for direct infringement. 

Note: This blog is cross-posted with permission from CopyrightAlliance.org. Photographer Michael Kienitz (“Kienitz”) appealed the Western District Court of Wisconsin’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Sconnie Nation LLC and its vendor, Underground Printing-Wisconsin LLC (collectively, “defendants” or “Sconnie Nation”), contending defendants were liable for copyright infringement in connection with their unauthorized use

In Arrow Productions, Ltd. v. The Weinstein Company LLC, et al., No. 13 Civ. 05448, 2014 WL 4211350 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 25, 2014), Judge Griesa undertook the judicial task of determining whether Defendants’ unauthorized recreation of scenes from Arrow’s copyrighted film constitutes fair use by viewing “all that is necessary” to make such determination – scenes