Podcast - Art, Law and the Athlete: Protecting Equine Imagery in the Studio and Market
Work This Way: A Labor & Employment Law Podcast | How Employers Can Protect Intellectual Property with Bryan Baysinger of Maynard Nexsen
(Podcast) The Briefing: Who Owns What – Understanding Copyright in Collaborative Projects
Elaborating on the application of the fair use doctrine in the documentary context, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment after determining that seven of the eight works at issue were works...more
Under standard copyright law, an author owns the copyright the moment the work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression – written down, recorded, photographed, or saved to a hard drive. The work-for-hire doctrine creates...more
The Supreme Court denied certiorari of the D.C. Circuit’s holding that works created entirely by autonomous AI systems are categorically ineligible for copyright under the Copyright Act. Thus, even though the Copyright Act...more
On Friday, February 13, 2026, Saudi Arabia enacted a new Copyright Law, which will replace the previous Copyright Law issued in 2003. The new law (Royal Decree No. M/169 dated 14/08/1447 AH) represents a significant...more
On January 8, 2026, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York granted Universal Music Group’s motion to dismiss, and in so doing, prevented hip-hop group, Salt-N-Pepa, from exercising its termination rights...more
Every business relies on intellectual property, whether it is created by the business or licensed from third parties. It is embodied in software, branding, marketing content, proprietary processes and the everyday work...more
On the third episode of "The Tack Room," Partner Kayla Pragid speaks with senior counsel Terry Middlebrook and nationally recognized equine and sports portrait artist Kyle Lucks about the meeting point between creativity and...more
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
Many companies engage outsourced developers to assist with writing software code, whether for mobile apps, SaaS products, or websites. However, many template MSAs, Service Agreements, or Development Agreements have IP...more
The purchase order, or PO, is a ubiquitous transaction document introduced by accountants principally for the twin purposes of budget control and fraud prevention. But the PO form also gives you a chance to achieve certain...more
The copyright office can copyright register and protect 'creative works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.' This can include all sorts of creating things like lyrics for a song, a screenplay for a movie,...more
Hosts Tina and Jennie welcome their colleague Bryan Baysinger, head of Maynard Nexsen’s Intellectual Property practice group, to discuss how employers can protect their IP in the modern workplace. From remote work and...more
Who owns the rights when you co-create something? It’s not always as simple as you think. In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard D. Buckley, Jr. explain copyright ownership in creative collaborations—and...more
You may believe that your company has an unfettered right to do what it wants with a computer program created by its workers—but that may not be the case. Consider the two similar scenarios below: Suppose that your...more
In response to the increased use of sophisticated artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies capable of producing expressive material, the U.S. Copyright Office (“CO”) published a two-part series on the copyrightability of...more
As discussed in Part 1, understanding the application of the Copyright Act’s works made for hire doctrine is needed to protect an organization’s intellectual property. Specifically, the application of the doctrine to...more
Understanding the work made for hire doctrine under the Copyright Act of 1976 is key for effective intellectual property management. The default ownership rule under the Copyright Act provides ownership to the author (i.e.,...more
Let’s say your employee, using company resources, develops a software algorithm that could revolutionize your product line. That’s great news, right? But before you issue a press release and pop the champagne corks, you must...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Collaborations with athletes, actors, and singers have always been a great way for companies to grow their brand recognition and create profitable products. With the Super Bowl (and, of course, its famed...more
In Short - The Background: Generative artificial intelligence ("GenAI") tools allow individuals to readily generate content, including works that traditionally would be copyrightable if authored by a human being, such as...more
The D.C. district court recently affirmed the U.S. Copyright Office’s position that a work generated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) technology is not eligible for copyright protection. The case is Stephen Thaler v....more
We recently wrote about Dr. Stephen Thaler’s challenge to the Copyright Office’s refusal to register copyright in “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” in which he has asked a federal appellate court to grant him summary judgment...more
It is ideal for a business to employ policies and strategies to own intellectual property, not merely to receive an assignment or license thereto. One tool for doing so is to ensure that copyrightable works are created under...more
There are many common misconceptions about copyrights and other rights associated with the ownership and control of a creative work, such as moral rights. These misconceptions often result in poor contract drafting, which can...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a summary judgment grant, ruling that an author was an independent contractor when writing the screenplay for a horror film and entitled to authorship rights, and...more