News

Seven CDAS Attorneys Names to Best Lawyers in America 2024 Edition

Seven CDAS attorneys have been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America. Published since 1983, Best Lawyers awards are compiled by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The CDAS attorneys included in the 2024 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America are: Frederick P. Bimbler, Entertainment Law

Sarah Conley Odenkirk Elected to Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Board

May 10, 2023 – Sarah Conley Odenkirk, co-head of the firm’s Art Law practice group, has been elected to the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Sarah joins a diverse group of artists, curators, museum directors, scholars and arts professionals nationwide. Sarah has a core practice in fine art, public art, blockchain technology, A.I., and

AI-Faked Drake, The Weeknd Song Amps Music Industry’s IP Alarm

Drake, The Weeknd, and other artists’ best bet to stop AI-generated vocal imitators under right of publicity laws—which generally protect one’s name, image, and likeness from being exploited without permission—attorneys said. But unlike copyright and trademark law, the right of publicity is based entirely on state laws. Some like New York and California provide explicit

AI Trends and Developments

Generative Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) platforms allow anyone to create artwork from the complex to the beautiful and bizarre by typing a text “prompt.” The rising popularity and use of such platforms have not only generated images, but controversy involving complex legal and ethical gray areas. Nancy Wolff, Scott Sholder, and Elizabeth Safran provide an overview

About Those NFTs…Can We Talk?

Nancy Wolff and Sarah Odenkirk recently published an article in ABA’s Landslide Magazine: Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”) may be used to manage intellectual property rights but must include clearly articulated governance and ownership parameters. Co-Heads of CDAS’s Art Law Team, Nancy Wolff and Sarah Odenkirk, provide practical guidance to understanding what rights can be licensed, what

Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard Wins Dismissal of International Copyright Infringement Suit in SDNY

March 31, 2023 — Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images, represented by Nancy E. Wolff and Benjamin S. Halperin of Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP (CDAS), have defeated an international copyright infringement suit that was filed against them in New York federal court.   The plaintiff, a photographer who worked for AFP for years in

The Perils of AI Art: Craiyon’s Commercialization Gamble

Craiyon—formerly known as DALL-E Mini—has captured the attention of the art and legal world in recent weeks, including this very blog in our first post on this fascinating service. The website, which touts itself as having the ability to produce “AI model drawing images from any prompt,” is undisputedly innovative and fun to use, yet

The Show Goes On: “Vape” is Ruled a Permitted Parody of Broadway Classic “Grease”

“Vape,” a theatrical parody of the original Broadway musical “Grease” that was later adapted in the 1978 feature film, recently prevailed in a copyright case where the court held that Vape was a fair use that did not require permission from the owners of Grease. The case, Sketchworks Industrial Strength Comedy, Inc. v. Jacobs, was

Thoughts and Takeaways from NFT.NYC 2022

NFT.NYC 2022 was a great event with many exciting companies and brands in attendance and many interesting Web3 projects being unveiled.  Below are some thoughts and takeaways on what I learned, what I believe will be taking place in the near future, and some of the Web3 issues that companies, content creators, and brands should