On Monday, July 27, we will consider the principal arguments in the pending 9th Circuit en banc rehearing of the Kat Von D copyright case. In addition, we’ll discuss a TTAB case that exposes a losing maintenance strategy for foreign owners of U.S. registrations based on Section 44(e) or Section 66. The plaintiff’s Petition for [...]
Copyright Cases: Rights Reservation does not Eliminate Standing for Licensed Rights and Fifth Time's the Charm for Ricky Martin Great Bowery Inc. v. Consequence Sound LLC et al. (available here) Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz entered into an agreement with a licensing agency, Great Bowery, granting it the exclusive, worldwide right to "license, market, and promote" [...]
SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH COX COMMUNICATIONS IN MUSIC PIRACY CASE, NARROWING GROUNDS FOR CONTRIBUTORY LIABILITY On Monday, March 30, we will discuss a hot-off-the-press Supreme Court decision that makes it significantly more difficult to hold service providers responsible for their users’ copyright infringement. In Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment (March 25, 2026), the Court [...]
Copyright in the Input, Uncertainty in the Output 2.o: The Legal Grey Area Expands Unsurprisingly, generative artificial intelligence (“AI” - an abbreviation whose definition has now entered common parlance, yet I provide one anyway for the non-AI user) makes headlines… again. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, recently released Seedance 2.0, a video-based generative AI model [...]
Copyright in the Input, Uncertainty in the Output: Navigating the Legal Grey Zone of AI Training In the era of artificial intelligence ("AI"), and more specifically software services based on large language models ("LLM"), the legal grey area may have just become a little less grey. Two recent orders issued by two Judges for the [...]
Tips from Recent IP Cases Please join us Monday, February 5, 2024 at noon where will discuss the importance of patent assignments stemming from Roku, Inc. v. International Trade Commission (Fed. Cir. 2024), the importance of timely filings in motion practice (or lack thereof) as seen in the trademark case Rolex Watch v. Beckertime (5th [...]
SoCal IP Law Institute MCLE meeting of January 29, 2024 - Emerging Themes in AI lawsuits Please join us Monday, January 29, 2024, where we will discuss emerging themes in the AI lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Stability AI, and others. Specific case discussions will include: Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 23-cv-03417 (N.D. Cal.) (Complaint)] [...]
Please join us at noon Monday, January 22, 2024 where we will view a video describing copyright issues surrounding the James Bond movies and books. video link here Guy Cumberbatch, of counsel to SoCalIP, will present. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to [...]
Please join us on Monday, November 13, 2023 at Noon, where we will discuss the issue of master ownership and the legal copyright conflicts between record labels and artists. Taylor Swift may be the first to make this copyright issue truly public, leaving fans wondering who really owns Swift's music and why. She says she [...]
Please join us on Monday, June 12, 2023 at noon for a discussion of the recent Supreme Court case Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith (May 18, 2023) In 1981 Newsweek commissioned professional photographer Lynn Goldsmith to photograph a then “up and coming” musician named Prince Rogers Nelson, which was published [...]
