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Mealey's Copyright

  • April 30, 2025

    7th Circuit Affirms Jury’s Findings, Judge’s Injunction In Rolling Paper IP Fight

    CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a jury’s mixed verdict in an intellectual property dispute between two tobacco companies related to cigarette rolling papers made of hemp, which led to cross-appeals; the panel rejected arguments from the parties that a federal judge erred in responding to a question from jurors and that the judge’s injunction was overly broad.

  • April 29, 2025

    Supreme Court: No Certiorari For Challenge To 9th Circuit ‘Server Test’

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 28 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from a photographer who challenged a decision from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that upheld a California federal judge’s decision to dismiss the photographer’s copyright infringement suit based on the Ninth Circuit’s so-called “server test.”

  • April 29, 2025

    9th Circuit: Judge Abused Discretion By Tossing Copyright Suit With Prejudice

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge abused discretion when dismissing with prejudice a musician’s copyright infringement suit against another musician for alleged infringement of a song’s chorus, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, despite the plaintiff-appellant failing to respond to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the pleadings.

  • April 28, 2025

    OpenAI Scrapes Websites In Violation Of Its Own Instructions, Publisher Says

    WILMINGTON, Del. — OpenAI boasts about measures publishers can use to prevent the use of their online works in the training of artificial intelligence but then ignores those measures and scrapes copyrighted works from websites anyway, the online publishers of more than 45 media brands like Mashable, Lifehacker and IGN claim in an infringement complaint filed in Delaware federal court.

  • April 28, 2025

    Judge Says ‘Superman’ Copyright Suit Belonged In California, Dismisses

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed the most recent complaint involving the rights to the copyrights to comic book character Superman, holding that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the suit brought by the nephew of one of the character’s co-creators against DC Comics Inc. and other entities over alleged infringement of the character in multiple foreign nations.

  • April 23, 2025

    Judge Strikes Class Claims From Google AI Copyright Suit, Allows Amendment

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — As originally defined, a proposed class in an artificial intelligence copyright action constituted an improper fail-safe class, a federal judge in California said while allowing an amendment that cures the defect and finding two Google LLC entities’ challenge to the new class definition premature.

  • April 22, 2025

    Anthropic Says AI Copyright Action Too Unwieldy For Class Certification

    SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence copyright class action spans a century, would include more than five million works owned by various people, trusts and other entities and would require the court to decide ownership millions of times over, a company tells a federal judge in California in an opposition to certification.  In a separate letter brief, Anthropic PBC tells the court that the plaintiffs were misrepresenting a court’s order and the course and timing of discovery.

  • April 22, 2025

    AI Challengers Ask Court To Reconsider Denying Leave To Amend

    NEW YORK — The creation of multidistrict litigation governing copyright claims against OpenAI entities warrants reconsideration of a ruling denying leave to amend a complaint so that the consistency and finality goals at the heart of the consolidated litigation are assured, media outlets targeting the removal of copyright management information (CMI) from their works tell a federal judge in New York.

  • April 22, 2025

    Supreme Court Rejects Rehearing Bid For Fees In Photo Copyright Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rehearing petition from a real estate company sued by a photography company for copyright infringement in which the real estate outfit argued for a final time that it was due attorney fees as the prevailing party in the case after the photography company voluntarily dismissed the infringement suit.

  • April 11, 2025

    Coders Push Back On DMCA Identicality Ruling In AI Case

    OAKLAND, Calif. — The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not impose a requirement that distributed works be identical to the protected work and even if it did, allegations that Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI entities removed copyright management information and used exact copies of the works to train artificial intelligence would meet the standard, two coders tell the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opening brief.

  • April 11, 2025

    11th Circuit: No Fees For Tossed IP Claims In Land Purchase Dispute

    ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel left in place a jury’s finding that defendant real estate entities breached a land purchase agreement (LPA) but owed a plaintiff real estate company only $1 in damages; the panel also affirmed a Georgia federal judge’s decision to deny attorney fees to the plaintiff company for claims brought under the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act.

  • April 11, 2025

    Judge Won’t Extend Time For Amended Complaint In AI Music Copyright Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied a motion to extend the time for recording companies to file an amended complaint without leave of the court in their suit against an artificial intelligence company but said they can seek leave to file such a pleading whenever it is convenient.

  • April 09, 2025

    Supreme Court Rejects Artist’s Duct-Taped Banana Art Copyright Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by an artist who sued another artist who went viral after duct-taping a banana to a wall at a Miami art fair, leaving in place a finding from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the petitioner failed to show how the work infringed on his own art piece also involving a banana duct-taped to a wall from nearly two decades earlier.

  • April 09, 2025

    Judge Dismisses ‘Blade Runner’ IP Suit Against Tesla, Others With Leave To Amend

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California dismissed with leave to amend an independent film studio’s complaint against Tesla Inc., Elon Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., after issuing a tentative holding that the company adequately suggested for the purpose of surviving a dismissal motion that Tesla and Musk may have infringed upon copyrights related to the 2017 film “Blade Runner 2049” while promoting Tesla’s planned “cybercab” product.

  • April 08, 2025

    Judge Allows Appeal, Stay In Legal Summary AI Copyright Fight

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Trial of copyright claims stemming from the use of legal summaries to train artificial intelligence will have to wait after a federal judge in Delaware granted interlocutory appeal of his summary judgment order allowing the claims and stayed the case pending that review.

  • April 04, 2025

    Magistrate Judge: OpenAI’s Definition Of Competitor ‘Wildly Overbroad’

    NEW YORK — OpenAI entities’ portrayal of a small Chilean company working on artificial intelligence language bias as a competitor is “wildly overbroad” and would render anyone working in the field of AI a competitor, a federal magistrate judge in New York said in denying a protective order seeking to shield certain documents from an expert witness.

  • April 04, 2025

    Judge Denies Dismissal Of Copyright Suit Against Trump For Song Use

    ATLANTA — A federal judge in Georgia denied a bid from President Donald J. Trump and associated entities to dismiss the second amended complaint brought by parties charged with overseeing the works of late soul musician Isaac Hayes for alleged infringement of the song “Hold On, I’m Comin.’”

  • April 03, 2025

    AI Copyright Plaintiffs Ask Judge To Confirm Extension After Discovery Breach

    SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence copyright plaintiffs on April 2 asked a federal judge in California to enforce a recent ruling granting more time to respond to a summary judgment motion as result of the violation of a discovery agreement, saying the failure to turn over what the court already recognized as relevant evidence and its broad privilege claims are making responding “burdensome.”

  • April 03, 2025

    Judge Tosses Cannabis IP Suit Against Meta And NYC’s Intervenor Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York dismissed with prejudice a complaint against Meta Platforms Inc. by a “serial IP litigant” who accused the social media company of infringing copyrights associated with marijuana products, holding that the man failed to show Meta infringed the copyrights by allowing the posting of photos with the products’ logos.

  • April 02, 2025

    Thomson Reuters Rebuts Need For Immediate Review Of AI Copyright Ruling

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Interlocutory review in an artificial intelligence training copyright presents complicated issues of the type not permissible in immediate appeals and the resolution of any such appeal would not materially advance the case, Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GMBH tells a federal judge in Delaware on April 1 in opposing Ross Intelligence Inc.’s attempt at quickly reversing a summary judgment ruling.

  • April 02, 2025

    Judge: Chicago, Former Top Cop Infringed On Reporter’s Protest Video

    CHICAGO — Chicago’s use of a freelance photojournalist’s footage from protests that turned violent in summer 2020 during a police press conference did not constitute a fair use, a federal judge in Illinois held.

  • April 01, 2025

    Federal Judge: No Jurisdiction To Consider Kennedy Assassination Tape Copyrights

    DALLAS — A federal judge in Texas on March 31 dismissed a complaint brought by a group that focuses on access to public records against a Texas historical society that owns the copyrights associated with footage showing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, holding that the group failed to establish that the court has subject matter jurisdiction.

  • March 28, 2025

    Judge Dismisses AI Infringement Claims In Music Lyric Suit

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Contributory infringement and vicarious infringement claims in a case alleging that a company’s artificial intelligence outputs copyrighted music lyrics fail to establish requisite acts by a third party, and contradictory allegations about the removal of copyright management information doom that claim, a federal judge in California said in granting a motion to dismiss while allowing leave to amend.

  • March 28, 2025

    Some Claims Survive Dismissal In News Outlets’ AI Copyright Suit, Judge Says

    NEW YORK — Direct and contributory infringement claims survive a motion to dismiss but Digital Millennium Copyright Act, unfair competition by misappropriation and abridgment claims largely do not, a federal judge in New York said in an order allowing amendment and promising release of a forthcoming opinion “expeditiously.”

  • March 27, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Judge Missed Confusion Analysis In Lego Figure Injunction Order

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held March 26 that it cannot determine whether a Connecticut federal judge was right to rule that a toy company’s redesigned figurines still ran afoul of a preliminary injunction previously ordered in an intellectual property dispute with Lego A/S and affiliated Lego entities (collectively, Lego).