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Media & Entertainment
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February 05, 2025
Paramount-Skydance Merger Block Sought Pending Del. Suit
Five Paramount Global pension fund stockholders sought a preliminary injunction in Delaware late Wednesday seeking to block closing on the estimated $8 billion Paramount-Skydance Media merger pending a decision on a still-sealed Court of Chancery breach of fiduciary duty suit filed Tueday night.
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February 05, 2025
FCC To Launch Spectrum Sale, Eyes More C-Band Use
The FCC's new Republican chief said Wednesday the agency will kick off rules for a new spectrum sale authorized by Congress and consider a plan to eventually open more midband airwaves in the C-band for private sector use.
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February 05, 2025
Tesla, Musk, Warner Bros. Ask To Toss 'Blade Runner' AI Suit
Tesla, its CEO Elon Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery asked a California federal judge Tuesday to throw out Alcon Entertainment's lawsuit alleging the electric vehicle company used an image created by artificial intelligence that infringes "Blade Runner 2049" to promote an autonomous taxicab, saying a "familiar post-apocalyptic scene" is not protectable.
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February 05, 2025
Fake Biggie Photo, Merch At Center Of New Ill. Suit
The estate of the Notorious B.I.G. hit Target, Home Depot, Nordstrom and others with a lawsuit Tuesday in Illinois federal court, claiming they infringed the late rapper's trademarks by selling art bearing his image and likeness, including canvas prints of an iconic portrait captured three days before his 1997 murder.
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February 05, 2025
Senate Panel Approves Car AM Radio, Rural Broadband Bills
A key Senate panel signed off on legislation Wednesday to require the continued installment of AM radio capability in cars, as well as to more thoroughly vet broadband providers that want to participate in federally funded deployment programs.
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February 05, 2025
Judge Nixes Jones' Ch. 7 Deal With Sandy Hook Families
A deal proposed by the Chapter 7 trustee in the bankruptcy case of right-wing conspiracy peddler Alex Jones that would have resolved the nearly $1.5 billion in claims held by the families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims failed to gain court approval Wednesday when a Texas judge said he couldn't grant the requested relief.
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February 05, 2025
Blake Lively Sued By PR Rep Over 'It Ends With Us' Claims
Another front has opened in the messy legal drama over the movie "It Ends With Us," as an Austin-based public relations consultant filed a defamation suit in Texas federal court alleging Blake Lively falsely roped him into her headline-making sexual harassment and retaliation claims.
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February 05, 2025
Utah Judge Rules For Arkansas State In 'Red Wolves' TM Case
A Utah federal judge has dismissed a trademark complaint from a Park City soccer organization seeking declaratory relief against Arkansas State University over its "Red Wolves" mark, saying the court lacked jurisdiction over the matter.
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February 05, 2025
Israeli Casino Game Co. Looks To Send Suit To Arbitration
An Israeli developer of mobile and web-based "casino-themed social games" has told a Kentucky federal judge that a woman who accuses the company of smuggling illegal slot machines into players' smartphones and computers must arbitrate her claims, even though she never agreed to its terms.
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February 05, 2025
Entertainment-Focused SPAC Raises $200M To Purse Merger
Special purpose acquisition company K&F Growth Acquisition II began trading publicly Wednesday after raising $250 million in its initial public offering, which will be used to help the SPAC merge with a target in the in-person and mobile experiential entertainment sector.
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February 05, 2025
Goldstein, Saying He's Mired In Debt, Asks To Redo Bail Terms
Prominent U.S. Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein has a negative net worth of more than $3.3 million and is mired in debt to his attorneys, he said in a filing Wednesday seeking to modify the conditions of his release ahead of a trial on federal criminal tax evasion charges.
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February 05, 2025
As Adams Case Teeters, A DOJ 'Ideal' Hangs In The Balance
The public courtship between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and President Donald Trump is worrying some white collar legal experts, who say that Trump influencing the U.S. Department of Justice to drop Adams' corruption case would depart from over 40 years of policies aimed at keeping politics out of prosecutorial decisions.
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February 05, 2025
Meta Can't Ask Mass. AG To Dig Up Docs From State Agencies
The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office is not obligated to search for and turn over documents held by other state agencies that Meta Platforms is seeking in the state's lawsuit alleging Instagram is harming children and teens, a judge ordered.
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February 04, 2025
Crypto Exec Says David Geffen Won't Give Back 'Stolen' Art
Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun on Tuesday sued film producer David Geffen in Manhattan federal court for the return of a valuable Alberto Giacometti sculpture that Sun says was sold out from under him by a former employee who was carrying out an elaborate fraud scheme.
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February 04, 2025
OpenAI Judge Rips Musk's 'Broad' Bid To Block For-Profit
A California federal judge indicated Tuesday she'll likely deny Elon Musk's bid to preliminarily block OpenAI Inc. from transitioning into a for-profit enterprise, criticizing Musk's filings for being vague and broad and saying she'll toss some claims, while adding "something is going to trial in this case."
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February 04, 2025
Google Gets OkCaller's 'Incoherent' Antitrust Claims Tossed
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday tossed for good antitrust claims from the company behind reverse phone number lookup website OkCaller.com, saying the newly amended suit does not rectify the previous problems, or if it does, the court cannot decipher the "incoherent" arguments.
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February 04, 2025
Meta Can't Be Sued For Church Mass Shooting, 4th Circ. Says
The Fourth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Meta can't be held liable for allegedly aiding in the radicalization of the shooter who killed nine people at a South Carolina church in 2015, saying a federal law granting immunity to third-party internet content providers applies to the claims.
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February 04, 2025
FCC Drops 5th Circ. Defense Of Nonbinary Gender Category
The Federal Communications Commission will no longer defend a nonbinary gender category on its employment diversity forms amid challenges brought by religious broadcasters in the Fifth Circuit, where judges grilled the FCC on Tuesday about its authority to collect and publish industry data on employee diversity.
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February 04, 2025
LinkedIn Shares Users' Info With Meta And Adobe, Suit Says
LinkedIn has been hit with a proposed class action in California federal court alleging it illegally shared with Meta and Adobe personal information belonging to its LinkedIn premium subscribers who watched online training courses on its LinkedIn Learning platform without their knowledge or permission.
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February 04, 2025
Lawmakers Hit Replay On Bill For Singers' Radio Royalties
Lawmakers in Congress have reintroduced legislation that would require radio broadcasters to pay artists when playing their music, a measure that would address what the recording industry has called a legal loophole in which songwriters and publishers get paid — but not performers and labels — when radio stations play their music.
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February 04, 2025
MGA Must Pay $71M For Copying OMG Girlz Dolls, Judge Rules
A California federal judge has affirmed a $71.4 million verdict against MGA Entertainment after jurors last year found a line of dolls from the toymaker infringed the trade dress and publicity rights of the OMG Girlz pop group owned by hip-hop moguls Clifford "T.I." and Tameka "Tiny" Harris.
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February 04, 2025
Music Group Criticizes Spotify Podcasts For Unlicensed Uses
The National Music Publishers' Association, which represents U.S. music publishers and songwriters, said Tuesday that it would begin sending removal notices for thousands of unlicensed uses of its members' works in podcasts on Spotify.
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February 04, 2025
Mellon Heir's Estate Defends $29M Tax Refund Request
A Pittsburgh billionaire made a "bona fide" deal to indemnify the trustees for his Mellon family millions as he drained a family trust account, so a $200 million settlement to partly replenish the fund for his heirs should be deductible and produce a $29 million refund of his Pennsylvania estate taxes, the estate's lawyer told a state appellate court Tuesday.
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February 04, 2025
Pauly Shore's Bid To End Comedy Store Assault Suit Flops
A California state judge on Tuesday rejected actor and comedian Pauly Shore's early bid to toss a lawsuit accusing him of directing bouncers at his famed club, The Comedy Store, to violently grab and assault a patron in 2022.
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February 04, 2025
Entertainment Cos. Stiff Workers On Wages, Suit Says
A former stagehand is suing the entertainment companies behind Coachella and many sporting events in California state court, saying she and other hourly workers are required to drive as much as three hours away from their homes for work without any compensation.
Expert Analysis
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Lights, Camera, Real Estate: Preparing For Film Facility M&A
As the entertainment industry struggles to recover from multiple strikes and a decline in production, certain aspects of selling or acquiring production facilities may become important to consider, as these assets are valued very differently from typical commercial real estate properties, say attorneys at Olshan Frome.
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Nintendo Suit May Have Major Impact On Video Game Patents
If Nintendo and The Pokémon Co. win their patent infringement case in Japan against Pocketpair, the game developer behind Palworld, it could pose new challenges for independent game creators — but it could also encourage innovation, says Charles Morris at Marshall Gerstein.
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Risk Disclosure Issue Remains After Justices Nix Meta Case
After full briefing and argument, the U.S. Supreme Court recently dismissed Facebook v. Amalgamated Bank as improvidently granted, leaving courts with the tricky endeavor of determining when the failure to disclose a past event in an Item 105 risk disclosure is materially misleading, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Think Like A Lawyer: 1 Type Of Case Complexity Stands Out
In contrast to some cases that appear complex due to voluminous evidence or esoteric subject matter, a different kind of complexity involves tangled legal and factual questions, each with a range of possible outcomes, which require a “sliding scale” approach instead of syllogistic reasoning, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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Netflix Dispute May Alter 'Source' In TM Fair-Use Analysis
The Ninth Circuit’s upcoming decision in Hara v. Netflix, about what it means to be source-identifying, could change how the Rogers defense protects expressive works that utilize trademarks in a creative fashion, says Sara Gold at Gold IP.
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Think Like A Lawyer: Note 3 Simple Types Of Legal Complexity
Cases can appear complex for several reasons — due to the number of issues, the volume of factual and evidentiary sources, and the sophistication of those sources — but the same basic technique can help lawyers tame their arguments into a simple and persuasive message, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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Tracking The Uncertainty Of The FTC's Negative Option Rule
The fate of the Federal Trade Commission's final rule requiring businesses that utilize negative options to provide consumers with a simple cancellation method remains in limbo as it faces multiple legal challenges and the threat of possible congressional action looms, say attorneys at Manatt.
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Plugging Gov't Leaks Is Challenging, But Not A Pipe Dream
As shown by ongoing legal battles involving New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Sean “Diddy” Combs, it’s challenging for defendants to obtain relief when they believe the government leaked sensitive information to the media, but defense counsel can take certain steps to mitigate the harm, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.
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Series
Gardening Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Beyond its practical and therapeutic benefits, gardening has bolstered important attributes that also apply to my litigation practice, including persistence, patience, grit and authenticity, says Christopher Viceconte at Gibbons.
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Litigation Inspiration: Reframing Document Review
For attorneys — new ones especially — there is much fulfillment to find in document review by reflecting on how important, interesting and pleasant it can be, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Key Takeaways From FDA's Latest Social Media Warnings
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's latest untitled letter concerning a drug company's social media promotion provides lessons for how companies should navigate risk presentation, FDA labeling requirements and superiority claims, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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California Supreme Court's Year In Review
Attorneys at Horvitz & Levy highlight notable decisions on major questions from the California Supreme Court's last term, including voter initiatives, hostile work environment and the economic loss rule.
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Service Providers Must Mitigate 'Secondary Target' Risks
A lawsuit recently filed in an Illinois federal court against marketing agency Publicis over its work for opioid manufacturers highlights an uptick in litigation against professional service providers hired by clients that engaged in alleged misconduct — so potential targets of such suits should be sure to conduct proper risk analysis and mitigation, say attorneys at Dechert.
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Series
Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.
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Best Practices For Influencer Trademark Protection
Though the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently decided that an influencer couldn't qualify for a retail services trademark registration for posting affiliate links to a third-party website, there are other trademark protections that influencers can pursue for their branding and marketing services, say attorneys at Nixon Peabody.