On July 19th, 2013, the Fourth Circuit held for the first time that copyright interests can be transferred electronically under Section 204 (a) of the Copyright Act. The Fourth Circuit’s decision adds to a growing body of law suggesting that an electronic “click” or “tap” can constitute a “signed writing” for purposes of transferring copyright

When we last updated you on the status of the Aereo case in the New York federal courts, we reported that on April 1, 2013, a split panel of the Second Circuit had affirmed the New York federal district court’s denial of an injunction against internet television re-broadcaster Aereo, despite a vigorous dissent from Judge

After reading the book and watching the film at issue, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi granted Sony Picture Classics Inc.’s (“Sony”) motion to dismiss Faulkner Literary Rights, LLC’s (“Faulkner”) copyright infringement action based on a paraphrase of a nine word quote from a William Faulkner’s work in the Woody Allen

Getty Images successfully defeated a claim by Marshall Thompson, singer and sole living member of the “Chi-Lite”, alleging that the online posting of his photo for possible licensing, was a violation of his right of publicity under Illinois Right of Publicity Act (IRPA), despite a contrary ruling (in a factually similar case) in Illinois in

On June 21, 2013, a Central District of California court refused to extend ACPA safe harbor protection to popular domain name registrar GoDaddy.com, finding that it intended to profit from the registration and maintenance of various domain names that encompassed plaintiff Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ OSCAR, OSCARS, OSCAR NIGHT, ACADEMY AWARD and

Overturning a lower court decision, the Second Circuit determined, in Kelly-Brown v. Winfrey, that Oprah must defend a trademark infringement lawsuit despite her argument that the trademark fair use doctrine shielded her production company’s use of the slogan “Own Your Power” in connection with its publications and other media offerings.

In Gary Friedrich Enterprises v. Marvel, the Second Circuit reversed the Southern District of New York, holding that there exist genuine disputes of material fact regarding the intent of a comic book creator and publisher Marvel Comics to assign renewal rights in “Ghost Rider” via a 1978 written agreement, the timeliness of the creator’s ownership

Any tennis player will tell you it’s better to have a first than second serve. Similarly, when it comes to TV channels looking for carriage, it’s better to be on a distributor’s first tier than a secondary, specialty tier. However, a recent United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling in

In February of this year, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that appropriation artist Thierry Guetta infringed photographer Dennis Morris’s copyright in a photograph of Sex Pistols singer Sid Vicious when he created seven works of art based on Morris’s black and white photograph. In its order granting Morris’s motion