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 Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) was created to make paying songwriters and publishers easier. Just as performance rights organizations issue blanket licenses to music users (radio stations, television, venues,...more
DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED V PLATKIN - Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation brought a lawsuit against New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, claiming that a law prohibiting the distribution of digital...more
The IRS concluded its special summer series with important reminders to tax professionals and taxpayers to protect themselves against Identity theft. The reminders for tax professionals and taxpayers to reduce identity...more
Finjan LLC v. SonicWall, Inc., Appeal No. 2022-1048 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 13, 2023) In the Federal Circuit’s only precedential opinion this week, a majority affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement on appellant Finjan’s...more
The Orrin G. Hatch–Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act, or Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), signed into law on October 11, 2018, has transformed the music streaming industry in the years since its implementation. The...more
Microsoft made a huge gaming move on Monday with its $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the “parent company of gaming studios like Bethesda,” and maker of titles like “The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake and...more
Online platform operators have a rare cause to be cautiously optimistic at news from the European court. In a recently-published European Court of Justice (ECJ) opinion, Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe stated that,...more
Companies may face a challenging regulatory environment following the EU-wide implementation of the Copyright Directive by 7 June 2021. On 21 January 2020, the UK government confirmed that the UK will not be required to...more
The CJEU in its Tom Kabinet judgment has ruled that the supply of e-books qualifies as “an act of communication to the public” under the InfoSoc Directive instead of “a distribution to the public” as is the case with physical...more
With the approval of Law 27 December 2019, no. 160 (the Budget Law), the Italian digital services tax (the DST), initially provided by Law 30 December 2018, no. 145, has finally come into force, being effective as of 1...more
For the last twenty years, the music industry has been in a pitched battle to combat unauthorized downloading of music. Initially, the industry focused on filing lawsuits to shut down services that offered peer-to-peer or...more
On August 9, 2019, the US Treasury Department published proposed regulations for the classification of “cloud transactions” and “transactions involving digital content” under the source of income rules of the Internal Revenue...more
U.S. Copyright Office Approves Mechanical Licensing Collective - There is a new federally appointed team in charge of licensing music to digital services which will result in payments to songwriters. The U.S. Copyright...more
Recently passed budget legislation in both Connecticut and Rhode Island included tax increases on sales of digital goods and services. The Connecticut bill has been signed into law. The Rhode Island bill passed late last...more
Today the Council of the European Union adopted the EU Copyright Directive (the “Directive”), ending a negotiation process which first started with the Commission’s proposal for a new Directive in early 2016. ...more
On 26 March 2019 the EU Parliament voted to pass the draft Copyright Directive (“Directive”) into EU law. After adoption by the EU Council (representatives of Member State governments) and official publication, the EP’s...more
On 13 February 2019 the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council finally agreed the text of the long-awaited draft Copyright Directive (COM(2016)593) (“Directive“). ...more
A purchaser of an article of commerce expects to be able to freely sell it regardless of any intellectual property rights that it may embody. The resale of digital files, however, runs into a special barrier that ReDigi...more
The recently enacted Music Modernization Act (MMA) dramatically modernizes licensing in the digital age and attempts to fill gaps in the copyright landscape. The Act encompasses not only the MMA itself but, as well, the...more
Over the years, tastes have shifted from bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin to more electronically-produced sounds. But no matter your opinion of Justin Bieber’s or Lady Gaga’s artistic chops, there’s no doubt music –...more
The Maryland House of Delegates is considering legislation (House Bill 426) that would impose sales and use tax on digital products and sales tax on digital codes. If signed into law, Maryland would begin taxing digital...more
A federal appeals court finds that online music service ReDigi infringed Capitol Records' copyrights by allowing users to resell legally purchased iTunes files. Digital music files may not be lawfully resold, according to...more
In a case involving the infringing download and distribution of plaintiff’s film through peer-to-peer BitTorrent networks, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s...more
As we reported this spring, the “Music Modernization Act” (MMA) working through Congress avowed to bring the royalty determination formula for digital music services into the 21st Century. In April, the House of...more