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The Copyright Act Copyright Litigation

Thompson Coburn LLP

Who Owns University-Created Art? A Work Made for Hire Showdown Offers a Cautionary Tale for Higher Ed

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In a decision potentially implicating a number of universities and creative employees, a federal court in Vermont recently held that the University of Vermont (UVM) owned the copyright to a new athletic logo created by a...more

Irwin IP LLP

But Your Honor, They Didn’t Transform Anything. I Was Already Willing to Say Anything for Cash!

Irwin IP LLP on

Santos v. Kimmel, No. 24-2196-cv, 2025 WL 2825050 (2d Cir. Oct. 6, 2025) - Fair use just got a late-night twist: the Second Circuit says Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes about former Congressman George Santos were more than funny—they...more

Offit Kurman

Court Reinstates Jury Finding in Disney Motion Capture Copyright Dispute

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The Ninth Circuit recently issued a partial reversal of a grant of summary judgment to Disney in a dispute stemming from the misuse of motion capture software. This case arose when Disney's visual effects contractor, Digital...more

Foster Swift Collins & Smith

Understanding Copyright Protection for Creative Writers: What You Need to Know

If you are crafting a book, screenplay, film, or any other creative work, copyright law can be both a shield and a tool for protecting your ideas. Imagine spending years finalizing a creative work only to discover another has...more

K&L Gates LLP

Busted! Melbourne International Film Festival Director Subject to Urgent Interlocutory Injunction Over Moral Rights

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On 6 August 2025, the Federal Court of Australia (the Court) ordered that Projector Films Pty Ltd and director David Ngo (the Respondents) be stopped from promoting, causing to promote or authorising the Melbourne...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

SoundExchange Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc.

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District court dismisses SoundExchange’s suit against Sirius XM Radio seeking $150 million in alleged unpaid royalties, finding that “licensing and enforcement of rights” under Section 114 of Copyright Act is not synonymous...more

Cranfill Sumner LLP

Why the NCAA Still Owns the Past: NIL, Copyright, and the Limits of Athlete Control

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The North Carolina Business Court recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by members of N.C. State’s legendary 1983 NCAA men’s basketball championship team in Members of N.C. State Univ.’s 1983 NCAA Men’s Basketball Nat’l...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Wrestling with prevailing defendant’s post-trial fee request in copyright dispute

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of attorneys’ fees to the defendant after it prevailed at trial in a copyright infringement suit, concluding that the district court adequately...more

Offit Kurman

Federal Court Rules SoundExchange Lacks Standing in SiriusXM Royalty Dispute

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Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed SoundExchange's $150 million lawsuit against SiriusXM, finding that the performance rights organization lacks legal...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Atticus Limited Liability Company v. The Dramatic Publishing Company

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In action over competing live stage rights to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Second Circuit affirms district court’s ruling that “derivative works exception” to Copyright Act’s termination provision does not perpetuate...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

To kill a derivative: Licensee has no post-termination copyright control

Addressing a dispute concerning two derivative stage adaptations of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of declaratory relief, finding that...more

Venable LLP

Federal Courts Split on ‘Server Test’ in Copyright Infringement Cases Involving Embedded Images

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Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas joined a number of other federal district courts that have challenged, narrowed, or simply rejected the applicability of the “server test,”...more

Weintraub Tobin

(Podcast) The Briefing: What Is Fair Use and Why Does It Matter?

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Creators, beware: just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s fair game. In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard Buckley break down one of the most misunderstood areas of copyright law—fair use. In this...more

Weintraub Tobin

The Briefing: What Is Fair Use and Why Does It Matter?

Weintraub Tobin on

Creators, beware: just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s fair game. In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard Buckley break down one of the most misunderstood areas of copyright law—fair use. In this...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Trump v. Woodward

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In President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against journalist Robert Woodward arising from Woodward’s publication of audio recordings of Woodward’s interviews of Trump in 2019 and 2020, district court dismisses Trump’s second...more

Weintraub Tobin

(Podcast) The Briefing: The Wrong Argument – Why Authors Lost Against Meta and What Comes Next

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In a major win for Meta, a federal court recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by prominent authors who claimed their books were illegally used to train the company’s Llama models. But the ruling doesn’t give AI companies a...more

Benesch

Judge Certifies Authors’ Copyright Class Action Against Anthropic

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On July 17, 2025, US District Court Judge William Alsup approved a class certification against Anthropic for copyright infringement. According to Judge Alsup, it will be straightforward for the entire class to prove harm...more

Weintraub Tobin

(Podcast) The Briefing: The Supreme Court Dodges the Discovery Rule Question—What That Means for Copyright Enforcement

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The Supreme Court sidestepped a major copyright showdown—again. What does it mean when infringement claims surface decades later? In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Tara Sattler break down the latest in the...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Use of Floorplans in Real Estate Listings is Permissible Under U.S. Copyright Law

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Floor plans are a key part of real estate listings, providing fundamental information about the layout of a building to prospective buyers or renters. But home designer Charles James and his company Designworks Homes, Inc....more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Fair use or foul play? The AI fair use copyright line

The US District Court for the Northern District of California granted summary judgment in favor of an artificial intelligence (AI) company, finding that its use of lawfully acquired copyrighted materials for training and its...more

Ballard Spahr LLP

Novel Ruling Offers Framework for ‘Fair Use’ of Copyrighted Material for Training AI Systems

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The recent federal court finding—that using copyrighted books to train an AI large language model (LLM) qualifies as fair use—provides some guidance for companies developing or deploying generative AI systems and for...more

Frost Brown Todd

Midjourney Faces Disney Lawsuit Just as Court Backs Fair Use in AI Training

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On June 11, 2025, Disney and several affiliated production companies filed a federal lawsuit against Midjourney, Inc., a leading artificial intelligence (AI) image-generation platform. The suit alleges “calculated and...more

Baker Donelson

The Northern District of California Weighs in on "Transformative" Use of Copyrighted Books for Training Generative AI Tools

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Only a few months ago, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware ruled that the use of "headnotes" in a legal search tool, for the purpose of training a competing legal tool driven by artificial intelligence (AI),...more

Womble Bond Dickinson

Multiple California Courts Enter Summary Judgment That Using Copyrighted Material to Train AI Platforms is Fair Use

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Within a roughly one-week period in late June 2025, two federal judges in the Northern District of California entered summary judgment rulings on the issue of “fair use” in connection with generative AI platforms’ use of...more

Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP

Twin California Rulings Mark a Turning Point for AI‐Copyright Fair Use

In the space of forty-eight hours, two judges of the Northern District of California issued detailed, partially contrasting opinions on whether large language model (“LLM”) training that copies entire books without...more

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