Copyright
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 04.24.18
* The long, drawn out saga of the “Monkey Selfie” case has crossed another milestone with the Ninth Circuit ruling that the monkey can’t sue for copyright violations. Reached for comment, the monkey’s attorney expressed disappointment in the decision and hurled feces. [Courthouse News Service]
* Jones Day loses more partners to the lateral market. We assume they saw the Above the Law Law Firm Rankings and decided they had to get out. [American Lawyer]
* Colorado passes “secret prisons” reform bill… in secret. Hurray irony! [9News]
* Kimberly Yuracko named the new dean of Northwestern Law. [Northwestern University NewsCenter]
* Good news for DLA Piper: the Second Circuit upholds their malpractice victory. [Law360]
* K&L Gates adds firepower in Asia. That should serve them well until Trump hears a scary Pokemon Go story on Fox and cuts off all trade to Japan. [International]
* Checking in on the finale of the Global Legal Hackathon. So if you got a suspicious request for money from your practice management software the other day, it was probably hacked. [Legaltech News]
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Intellectual Property
What Harley Davidson's $19.2M Throttling Of Sunfrog REALLY Means... And It's Not The Money
When it comes to intellectual property rights, companies ignoring their impact do so at their own risk. - Sponsored
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use. -
Intellectual Property
When A Crested Macaque Is A Necessary Party: Ninth Circuit Denies Joint Motion To Dismiss Monkey-Selfie Case
Why on earth is this case still in the court system? The Ninth Circuit may be preparing to hand down a very important opinion.
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Intellectual Property
Tatt's Enough! Court Orders Body Art Case To Trial
Tattoo art should enjoy the same protections as any other graphic work -- including copyright protections. -
Intellectual Property
Crying Foul: Why Lebron's 'Uninterrupted' Copyright Claims May Be A Half-Court Shot
LeBron recently stated that he is confident the lawyers will figure it out, but they seem to have their work cut out for them. -
Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 04.08.18
* Remember the “revealed preferences” law school rankings that debuted last year? Christopher Ryan and Brian Frye have issued the 2018 edition. [SSRN]
* And C.J. Ryan offers yet another set of law school rankings, this time focused on “value added” (similar in philosophy to the ATL rankings, but Ryan’s top ten is very different from ours). [SSRN]
* If brevity is the soul of wit, then Supreme Court opinions are getting less and less witty; Adam Feldman has the data to prove it. [Empirical SCOTUS]
* A serious threat to political speech and election integrity, according to media law expert Charles Glasser: the weaponization of copyright law. [Daily Caller]
* Andy Oldham, President Trump’s latest Fifth Circuit nominee, is very, very smart — and very, very conservative. [Texas Tribune]
* The latest headline-making case handled by legendary litigator Ed Hayes is a doozy — involving a former beauty queen, a hedge-fund magnate, an ostrich farm, and… an STD. [New York Post]
* Interested in constitutional law and possessed of a progressive perspective? Here’s a great job opportunity you should check out. [Constitutional Accountability Center]
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Intellectual Property
NBA Player LeBron James And Alabama Football Coach Nick Saban Squabble Over Copyright
Sorry, LeBron, but talking in a barbershop is not only a non-protectable idea under copyright, but it’s not even a unique idea. -
Intellectual Property
The Eyes Have Had It: How The Second Circuit Addressed Its Copyright Fair Use Problem
Is transformative use really fair use under the Copyright Act? - Sponsored
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
ChatGPT ushers in the age of generative AI – even for law firms. -
Intellectual Property
Unfair Use? Why Google's Ongoing Battle With Oracle Matters To Your Business
It's worth it to carefully review all underlying licenses to APIs before engaging in any development for commercial use. -
Intellectual Property
Oracle v. Google Is More Evidence That The Federal Circuit Has No Business Deciding Copyright Cases
It seems inevitable that copyright holders could try to add on patent claims simply to ensure Federal Circuit review. -
Intellectual Property
The Courts Call It Correct In 2 Massive Recent Copyright Cases
The correctness of the two decisions, of course, did not stop campaigns of frantic hand-wringing. -
Intellectual Property
Blurred Lines: Can You Copy A Music Genre?
This Ninth Circuit decision could damage copyright's important limits, spurring more lawsuits and chilling the creation of new music. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.22.18
* The First Law Student is single. People reports Tiffany Trump broke up with her longtime boyfriend as part of her law school transition. [People]
* Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz clash on television when Toobin points out that Dershowitz’s cable appearances these days are less legal analysis than auditions for Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s job. [Daily Beast]
* Charles Cooper says Jeff Sessions is not currently under investigation for false statements or perjury. Update your scorecards accordingly. [USA Today]
* Ninth Circuit rules in favor of the Gaye family in the Blurred Lines lawsuit. Wait, that’s still going on? [Courthouse News Service]
* Former Florida State deputy general counsel arrested in child sex sting. [Tallahassee Democrat]
* In-house counsel are very concerned about GDPR. [Big Law Business]
* Some people have some entirely understandable problems with Lindsay’s new ad. [Ad Age]
* CSM believes the Austin bomber case shows off law enforcement’s deep surveillance powers. Yeah, they were so deep they pretty much did nothing for weeks. [Christian Science Monitor]
Sponsored
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
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Intellectual Property
H&M’s Legal And Public Relations Dumpster Fire
Let’s see if H&M 'acts differently' the next time it is caught exploiting an artist’s work without consent. -
Intellectual Property
Wrecking Ball? Why Proving Copyright Infringement In Musical Works Is More Difficult Than You Think
A $300M claim is nothing to shake a stick at, and can be heck of a 'wrecking ball' if not handled correctly. -
Intellectual Property
Plaintiff In Lawsuit Against Disney And Marvel Wants To Destroy DVDs Of Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, And Beauty And The Beast
The most egregious part of this complaint comes from the prayer for relief, which is a bit scorched earth. -
Intellectual Property
Making A Point: Street Artists Prevail In VARA Dispute
This type of claim almost never sees trial, but it resulted in a $6.7 million verdict, all because one of the parties was a jerk. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.13.18
* Winston & Strawn revenue up 19 percent last year after securing a hefty contingency fee in the pink slime matter. Despite their victory, we suspect these lawyers are using their windfall on grass-fed free-range beef. [American Lawyer]
* In the continuing war on class actions as a lingering nuisance to our corporate overlords, the Supreme Court may be taking aim at cy pres settlements to “protect the class” by making class actions harder to pull together. [National Law Journal]
* The photographer from the horrendous decision ruling that embedded Tweets are copyright violations is fighting an effort by defendants to get an interlocutory appeal to clear up this travesty as quickly as possible. You know, to save the Internet. [Law360]
* In an article that manages to avoid any reference to Ready Player One, Rhys Dipshan considers the IP challenges facing widespread adoption of VR and AR products. As an example, the article considers what would happen if someone put that famous picture of Albert Einstein into the game. Perhaps the better question is why isn’t that in the public domain and can VR be the technology that finally reverses the broken IP regime Sonny Bono dropped on us? [Legaltech News]
* Can California’s sanctuary laws survive federal assault? Professor Noah Feldman says they should. [Bloomberg]
* Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff considers the sideshow of a career his Penn Law colleague Amy Wax has decided to pursue. [Faculty Lounge]
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 03.12.18
* President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, claims that he used his home equity line to pay off Stormy Daniels out of the goodness of his heart, and while people have been focusing on the fact that he may have violated campaign finance laws, not many have mentioned that he likely violated New York’s ethics rules, would could get him disbarred. [Slate]
* Remember the time that Judge Katherine Forrest ruined the internet with a single ruling? Several media outlets are preparing to appeal to the Second Circuit, saying the copyright decision could change the internet as we know it. [Big Law Business]
* Dean Andrea Lyon of Valparaiso Law — the school that’s not closing, per se, but will stop accepting students and is hoping to merge with another school or move locations — will be resigning on June 1. No one knows what will happen to the school, and soon there won’t even be a dean. These poor students… [Indianapolis Business Journal]
* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a foodie, and in honor of her upcoming birthday — and because “[s]he eats real food and plenty of it” — here are a few of the Notorious One’s favorite places to dine in her hometown of New York City. [am New York]
* The February bar exam has come and gone, and with it, hundreds of jobs across the entire legal services industry. According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 200 fewer people were employed in the legal sector last month than in January. Hopefully things improve before graduation. [American Lawyer]
* “Katy Perry represents everything we don’t believe in. It would be a sin to sell to her.” Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, 89, who had been locked in litigation with the singer and the archdioces for several years over the sale of her former convent, collapsed and died in court on Friday during a post-judgment hearing. [NPR]
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