Election season is upon us, and while music may not be the first thing that comes to mind amidst scandals, poll numbers, and innumerable primary debates, politicians’ use of theme songs almost inevitably becomes a hot-button issue for musicians, recording artists, and lawyers.  Two presidential candidates have already angered artists who feel their music was

So far this year two federal courts have addressed important issues relating to Internet service providers’ (“ISP”) safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).  One court dealt with the necessity of registering a DMCA agent for the service of takedown notices with the Copyright Office, and the other addressed, for the first

Last year we reported on the hotly debated ruling of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (“USPTO”) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) in Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc., which cancelled six trademarks belonging to the Washington Redskins football team on the grounds that those marks were disparaging to Native Americans.  While the district court

Arne Svenson, a New York-based fine art photographer, prevailed on an appeal before the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department, filed by plaintiffs Martha and Matthew Foster, who had unsuccessfully sought to prevent the display, promotion, or sale of certain photographs from Svenson’s popular series “The Neighbors” by invoking New York’s right of

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Maloney v. T3Media, Inc. recently held that state right-of-publicity claims brought by former college basketball players complaining of photographs licensed of their likenesses without consent warranted dismissal with prejudice pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which prohibits suits aimed at inhibiting free expression.  Members of

Music “plagiarism” copyright infringement cases are not uncommon, and have made a comeback in recent years.  Artists from Led Zeppelin (Randy Craig Wolfe Trust v. Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”)), to Avril Lavigne (Dunbar v. Gottwald (Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”)), to Jessie J (Loomis v. Cornish (Jessie J’s “Domino”)) have lately become embroiled in legal battles over

A New York federal judge recently ruled in favor of Sony Music Entertainment (“SME”) in the latest dispute over the proper characterization of artist royalties on digital music sales, dismissing a breach of contract claim brought by rock group Toto (best known for the hits “Africa” and “Rosanna”). Ever since the Ninth Circuit’s 2010 decision

This Blog is an Update to a Previous Post. To read the original post, please click here. On August 1, 2014, we reported that former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega had filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against Blizzard/Activision over Activision’s portrayal of the despot in its highly successful game “Call of Duty: Black Ops

It’s been theorized that if you give a million monkeys a million typewriters, they will eventually produce the entire collected works of William Shakespeare. It’s been proven, however, that if a troupe of monkeys steals a camera, one will eventually take a really good selfie. By now you’ve probably heard this story, but just in

Note: This blog is cross-posted from Law360.com with permission of Portfolio Media, Inc. A lawsuit filed in California Superior Court has taken video game right-of-publicity cases beyond college athletes and Hollywood celebrities. Former Central American despot Manuel Noriega, from his prison cell in Panama, is suing Blizzard/Activision over Activision’s portrayal of Noriega in its highly