In Effie Film, LLC v. Eve Pomerance (11–CIV–7087 (JPO)), the court granted Effie Film, LLC’s motion on the pleadings and found that its upcoming film did not infringe upon the copyrights in two screenplays by Eve Pomerance on a similar historical subject. In addition to paving the way for the Emma Thompson-written film Effie to

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted in part and denied in part a photographer’s Motion for Summary Judgment in Morris v. Young, a case that explored the requirements for establishing an issue of triable fact regarding fair use (and particularly transformative use) of photographs.

Facebook recently unveiled “Graph Search,” an innovation designed to help users find and connect their friends by their interests, shared history, and past activity on the social networking platform. The new feature, which will begin beta testing soon, greatly expands the search capabilities of the Facebook platform in a move some commentators speculate may help

2012 was a quiet year for any new copyright legislation that could affect those engaged in the creation, production and distribution of entertainment media. With the elections behind us, this could change in 2013. The Copyright Office has indicated that it is interested in tackling several issues that were identified as office priorities in a

On December 27, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a preliminary injunction against Aereokiller (formerly known as BarryDriller.com), a service founded by Alki David, someone not unfamiliar with television transmission and the law. Previously, in conjunction with rulings involving a similar technology at issue in WPIX v. ivi in

CDAS partner Al J. Daniel, Jr. served on the Appellate Staff, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. for a decade before moving to New York City. His litigation practice since then continues to include appellate work in courts of appeals and the Supreme Court. In his new article on SCOTUSblog, Mr.

In the latest phase of a long litigation, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, following a remand from an amended Ninth Circuit opinion, held that a company that claimed to have acquired the intellectual property rights in the cartoon character “Betty Boop” could not maintain a claim for trademark infringement against

A recent case brought against the online retailer Zappos demonstrates the importance of thought-out drafting when constructing website policies. While it may be tempting to leave terms of use as an inconspicuous hyperlink rather than put them right up front, the consequences can be that those terms are not enforceable at all.

The popular online marketplace cafepress.com (“CafePress”) is known for allowing users to upload graphic designs to its website, which then allows users to choose that design or others and have CafePress print it on a wide array of merchandise, including t-shirts, mugs, stickers, buttons, iPhone cases and Halloween accessories. The case discussed here looks at

On October 15, 2012, a California federal judge dismissed Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s (“Hebrew University”) lawsuit against General Motors LLC (“GM”) over the use of Albert Einstein’s image as part of a GM advertisement, holding that Einstein’s publicity rights have expired and now fall in the public domain. Hebrew University of Jerusalem v. General Motors