The Pitch newsletter is a monthly update of legal issues and news affecting or related to the music, film and television, fine arts, media, professional athletics, eSports, and gaming industries. The Pitch features a diverse...more
The media landscape continues to shift, and 2023 was certainly an eventful year. Layoffs abounded based not just on the slash-and-burn tactics deployed by private equity to gut local newspapers, but also on the national level...more
A recent string of lawsuits filed against large companies including a major movie studio, a professional sports league, CNN, HuffingtonPost.com, ESPN and Buzzfeed have returned the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA)...more
As the second year of the pandemic comes to a close, esports—competitive organized video gaming—continue to see viewership and revenue growth in a way that traditional sports have not. Esports viewership is expected to reach...more
As we inch closer to the summer solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere (the first day of summer for those of you who were asleep in science class), the heat is not rising only on the thermometer, but also in the halls of...more
Frozen in time, immortalized in a picture in the vestibule in the Palestra, Steve Bilsky rose up for a shot with three seconds remaining against Villanova. The date was January 15, 1969. Then as now, Villanova was a national...more
A new report out Tuesday from the Food & Drug Administration reveals that drug maker Novartis “concealed manipulated data” from the agency “while applying for approval of an extremely expensive gene therapy treatment and then...more
Parents and young athletes may have wrestled with the decision whether to play contact sports, as research shows the injuries that players can suffer from blows to the head. But lesser known parties to the games may be the...more
The Ninth Circuit recently became the third federal appellate court to tackle what constitutes “personally identifiable information” protected by the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (“VPPA”). Last year, the First Circuit...more
In the latest attempt to apply the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) to 21st-century technology, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of Chad Eichenberger’s lawsuit against ESPN Inc....more
In a decision that clarified aspects of the video privacy landscape, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an action alleging a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) based on an assertion that ESPN’s...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Eichenberger v. ESPN that allegations that the Video Privacy Protection Act was violated are sufficient to establish Article III standing, but that the definition of...more
• The 9th Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action alleging that ESPN disclosed “personally identifiable information” in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) by knowingly disclosing to...more
After concluding that the plaintiff in Robins v. Spokeo has Article III standing to pursue his case, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit may be considering a similar issue in the context of the Video Privacy Protection...more
Is it national origin discrimination for your employer to remove you from a work assignment because your name is the same as that of a long-deceased Anglo-American who is currently out of favor? Robert Lee, sports announcer...more
The lawsuit filed by New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul against ESPN and ESPN reporter Adam Schefter for invasion of privacy has survived its first challenge from ESPN. ESPN filed a motion to dismiss...more
As a child of the 60’s and 70’s and an insatiable NFL football fan, I can still hear the swaggering voice of narrator John Facenda in the now-iconic 1974 NFL Films production “The Autumn Wind,” which has been dubbed The...more
Big news out of the online lending space, as Lending Club’s chair and CEO—Renaud Laplanche—has resigned after an internal review “showed a violation of the company’s business practices” related to sales of $22 million in...more
This week ESPN fired pitcher-turned-broadcaster Kurt Schilling for an allegedly offensive tweet about the recently passed law in North Carolina requiring persons to use the restroom associated with the sex of their birth. As...more
New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul has filed suit against ESPN and ESPN reporter Adam Schefter for violations of Florida Statute § 456.057 and for invasion of privacy arising from a tweet containing a photo of...more
With EU Safe Harbor Invalidated, Companies Ask: What Now? - What happens now?: That is the question that businesses across the country are asking after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) threw out the...more
Draft Kings and Fan Duel, competing daily fantasy sports (DFS) sites, have been vying for attention by flooding the airwaves with a reported 60,000 commercials this year. However, a recent data leak has resulted in less...more
With the NFL season just beginning, and Tom Brady leading the New England Patriots to victory over the Steelers, we decided to provide you with a bit of football-inspired labor law. On September 3, 2015, Judge Robert Berman...more
Last week's Privilege Point discussed a court's consideration of privilege protection for communications with client and lawyer agents. Two weeks later, another court analyzed Debevoise & Plimpton's argument that the...more
The injuries suffered by a professional football player brought the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and its implementing regulations ("HIPAA") onto center stage of the media during the days...more