First Republic Executives Fail in Attempt to Recover Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan Assets
Decades ago, Andy Warhol created 15 silkscreen prints and pencil illustrations based on Lynn Goldsmith’s 1981 photograph of the artist Prince. Goldsmith’s agent had licensed Vanity Fair to use the image to publish an...more
Reports of social media scams that have caused users to lose money had tripled by the end of 2020’s second quarter, resulting in the loss of $117 million during the first two quarters of this year alone. Romance scams and...more
Although it is generally accepted that tattoos are copyrightable, one of the only definitive judicial statements on the issue came by way of a preliminary injunction hearing in 2011 involving Mike Tyson’s famous tribal face...more
Sometimes the truth hurts – but what is the truth here? On October 23, Melissa Jefferson, professionally known as Lizzo, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court in Los Angeles seeking a declaratory judgment...more
In a precedential decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) dismissed a petition for inter partes review (IPR), finding that the one-year time limit for filing an IPR petition under 35 USC § 315(b) is triggered even...more
In January 2018, Mercedes-Benz began a marketing campaign that included photos of its cars in the Eastern Market in Detroit. The Eastern Market is home to many murals commissioned through the Murals in the Market Festival,...more
The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held that federal courts have jurisdiction to hear a declaratory judgment action for injunctive relief involving the Copyright Act even where the defendant does not have a...more
A play about an adult Cindy Lou Who is a fair use of How the Grinch Stole Christmas ("Grinch"), according to a July 6, 2018, opinion issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Affirming a declaratory judgment...more
Rapper Tyler, the Creator (“Tyler”), is facing a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which alleges he illegally sampled a 1971 soul song, “Why Can’t There Be Love,” in his 2015 hit, “Deathcamp.” ...more
Does a demand letter from a music rights holder that alleges “millions of instances of infringement” create a case in controversy with the recipient? You may be inclined to answer with an emphatic “of course!”...more
This copyright case pitted two big YouTube content brands against each other over issues of fair use. On one side is Equals Three, LLC, a YouTube content studio and channel created and owned by Ray William Johnson, an early...more
Last week, Robin Thicke was among several plaintiffs who “reluctantly” (you don’t often see that word used in a complaint like this) filed a declaratory judgment action against defendants including Marvin Gaye estate seeking...more