Media & Entertainment

  • January 12, 2026

    5th Circ. Urged Again To Find FCC Subsidy Regime Unlawful

    A conservative think-tank has again launched a Fifth Circuit legal challenge to the federal government's fee regime used to pay for telecommunications subsidies, less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the funding arrangement's constitutionality.

  • January 12, 2026

    Paramount Sues In Del. For Warner Bros., Netflix Merger Facts

    Paramount Skydance Corp. sued Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. in Delaware Chancery Court Monday for court-compelled disclosure of more details on WBD's proposed $82.7 billion tie-up with Netflix, and reported that it plans to run a slate of candidates for WBD's board to push Paramount's offer.

  • January 12, 2026

    TTAB Cancels 'Reefer Madness' TM Over Prior Apparel Sales

    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has canceled a Colorado cannabis company's "Reefer Madness" registration for use on mugs and apparel, after a challenge from a business that argued it had priority over the mark for merchandise sales following a musical theater production of the same name.

  • January 12, 2026

    Musician Accusing Mellencamp Of Theft Denies Faking Report

    A musician alleging that John Mellencamp's 1996 hit song "Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)" stole from his own noncharting track denied to a California federal judge Monday that he wrote a report attributed to his music expert and then failed to make him available for a meaningful deposition.

  • January 12, 2026

    FCC Scraps Verizon's 60-Day Phone Unlocking Mandate

    The Federal Communications Commission on Monday waived a rule stemming from Verizon's takeover of discount provider TracFone that forced the company to open its cellphones to other carriers after 60 days.

  • January 12, 2026

    Apple Hit With False Ad Suit Over Digital Content Sales

    Apple customers have sued the company in California state court, alleging it deceptively "sells" popular Apple TV programs and films without informing them that the limited digital license to any of the content could be terminated at any time. 

  • January 12, 2026

    Ad Tech Rivals Say 'Unique Harms' Make Complaints Separate

    Google's advertising placement technology competitors have told a New York federal judge their half-dozen complaints should remain separate, arguing that letting the search giant tee up a consolidation motion would hamper, rather than streamline, their antitrust claims, which followed the U.S. Department of Justice's successful litigation against the company.

  • January 12, 2026

    Judge Tosses Meta Rival's Mobile Streaming Patent Lawsuit

    A Washington federal judge has tossed the remainder of a lawsuit claiming Meta infringed mobile streaming application patents from a competing social media platform and refused to let the patent owner rewrite its complaint again.

  • January 12, 2026

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    The Delaware Chancery Court closed out the week with developments ranging from leadership changes in a $13 billion take-private case and posttrial sparring over a major earnout to fresh governance fights, revived fraud claims and sanctions tied to advancement rights.

  • January 12, 2026

    How AI Is Causing Real Copyright Uncertainty

    As artificial intelligence is used increasingly to generate images, sounds, software and other products, attorneys say they are left navigating an uncertain landscape when it comes to securing copyright protections for AI-assisted outputs, with few signs of clarity on the horizon.

  • January 12, 2026

    Justices Sign Off On Dismissal Of FIFA Bribery Cases

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday erased criminal bribery convictions against a former media executive and an Argentine sports marketing company stemming from the FIFA corruption probe, following through on federal prosecutors' surprising decision to abandon the cases last month.

  • January 12, 2026

    Justices Nix Bid To Revive $5M Lindell Challenge Award

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday opted not to review a software developer's petition seeking to revive his $5 million arbitral award against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, in which he had sought clarity on whether manifest disregard of the law is a valid basis on which such awards may be vacated.

  • January 12, 2026

    Justices Won't Hear Challenge To Foreign Word TM Rule

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a trademark appeal from an apparel company seeking to register "Vetements," the French word for "clothes," in a case that challenged a long-standing doctrine used to determine whether a foreign word can qualify as a mark.

  • January 12, 2026

    High Court Won't Hear Whistleblowers' FCC Fraud Claims

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review whether the D.C. Circuit erred by rejecting two lawyers' claims that entities linked to UScellular defrauded the government by falsely claiming small business credits in a federal spectrum auction.

  • January 09, 2026

    Oscar-Winning Writer Settles Publicist's Rape Case For $2M

    Oscar-winning Hollywood writer and director Paul Haggis has agreed to pay just under $2 million to put to rest a civil case in which a publicist accused him of raping her more than a decade ago — meaning he'll pay far less than the $10 million verdict a jury hearing the case returned against him in 2022.

  • January 09, 2026

    Bernstein Litowitz Asks To Exit $13B Endeavor Stock Suit

    Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP asked the Delaware Chancery Court on Friday to allow its attorneys to withdraw as lead co-counsel for the shareholder class action over sports and entertainment company Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.'s $13 billion take-private merger.

  • January 09, 2026

    Sens. Urge App Stores To Ban X, Grok Over Sexual Images

    A trio of U.S. Senate Democrats are calling on Apple and Google to remove the apps for the social media platform X and the generative artificial intelligence chatbot Grok from their app stores until the owner of these services, Elon Musk, adequately addresses the AI tool's generation of sexually explicit content, including "harmful and likely illegal depictions" of women and children. 

  • January 09, 2026

    Netflix Wins Atty Fees In 'Orgasm Inc.' Defamation Case

    A California state appellate court affirmed an award of attorney fees to Netflix Inc. after the streaming giant's anti-SLAPP victory in a defamation case over its documentary "Orgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste," saying the trial court had the authority to award fees despite the case being under appeal.

  • January 09, 2026

    Gov't Can't Use NYT Article As Evidence In Goldstein Trial

    A Maryland federal judge on Friday barred prosecutors from pre-admitting Thomas Goldstein's statements in a New York Times article as evidence in the SCOTUSblog co-founder's tax fraud trial, but she left open the possibility for the government to call either Jeffrey Toobin, the article's author, or a Times fact-checker, as a witness.

  • January 09, 2026

    FCC Approves Telecom's New Plan For Alaska Buildout

    An Alaskan telecommunications company has received the go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission to deploy its mobile service throughout the far-flung state with federal support, after the new plan showed the firm could triple the number of people for whom it provides service.

  • January 09, 2026

    Paramount Gets Early Win In 'Top Gun' Dispute

    A Manhattan federal judge Friday tossed a writer's remaining copyright infringement claim that alleged he wasn't credited for writing significant portions of the 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick" and kept alive Paramount's counterclaims for copyright infringement and fraud, saying the writer's copyright is invalid.

  • January 09, 2026

    WWE Fans Blast 'Bait And Switch' Scheme Over ESPN Access

    World Wrestling Entertainment fans filed a proposed class action Thursday in Connecticut federal court alleging it executed a "bait and switch" scheme by misleadingly touting they can watch premium live events on ESPN's new streaming service for free if they're existing subscribers, but then charging $30 a month for it.

  • January 09, 2026

    Is 9th Circ.'s Copyright Test Doomed After Kat Von D Verdict?

    Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D's realistic tattoo of a famous Miles Davis photo on a friend's arm — and the jury ruling that it did not violate copyright law — could imperil a decades-old Ninth Circuit doctrine for assessing similarity between works, with potential review by a full panel of judges on the horizon.

  • January 09, 2026

    Paramount Seeks To Toss Privacy Suit Over Kids' Data

    Paramount Skydance Corp. urged a California federal court to toss a "haphazard" proposed class action that accuses the media giant of unlawfully disclosing the personally identifiable information of children who streamed content on their families' devices, saying the kids' parents failed to sufficiently allege any of their claims.

  • January 09, 2026

    DC Judge OKs $14M Award Despite Russian Sanctions

    A D.C. federal judge has recognized approximately $14 million in arbitral awards originally issued to a Russian state-owned media company sanctioned by the United States for interfering in U.S. elections, concluding that a public policy exception to award enforcement does not apply.

Expert Analysis

  • 6 Tips On Drafting Machine Learning Patents Post-Recentive

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    While the Federal Circuit's decision in Recentive v. Fox narrows the scope of patent-eligible machine learning applications, there are several drafting and prosecution strategies that may help practitioners navigate Section 101 challenges, say attorneys at BCLP.

  • Regulating Online Activity After Porn Site Age Check Ruling

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    A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding an age verification requirement for accessing online adult sexual content applied a lenient rational basis standard, raising questions for how state and federal courts will determine what kinds of laws regulating online activity will satisfy this standard going forward, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.

  • DC Circ. Ruling Augurs More Scrutiny Of Blanket Gag Orders

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    The D.C. Circuit’s recent ruling in In re: Sealed Case, finding that an omnibus nondisclosure order was too sweeping, should serve as a wake-up call to prosecutors and provide a road map for private parties to push back on overbroad secrecy demands, says Gregory Rosen at Rogers Joseph.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Negotiation Skills

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    I took one negotiation course in law school, but most of the techniques I rely on today I learned in practice, where I've discovered that the process is less about tricks or tactics, and more about clarity, preparation and communication, says Grant Schrantz at Haug Barron.

  • Taxpayers Face Tough Choices Under NJ's New Nexus Rules

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    Though New Jersey’s new rules expanding the commercial nexus that triggers state taxation are likely to be challenged, businesses still need to carefully consider whether it’s best to minimize potential tax by reducing online customer support services or maintain their current instate services and begin paying tax, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • AG Watch: Texas Embraces The MAHA Movement

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    Attorneys at Kelley Drye examine Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's actions related to the federal Make America Healthy Again movement, and how these actions hinge on representations or omissions by the target companies as opposed to specific analyses of the potential health risks.

  • Opinion

    Bar Exam Reform Must Expand Beyond A Single Updated Test

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    Recently released information about the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ new NextGen Uniform Bar Exam highlights why a single test is not ideal for measuring newly licensed lawyers’ competency, demonstrating the need for collaborative development, implementation and reform processes, says Gregory Bordelon at Suffolk University.

  • Disney Art Suit Will Test Recent AI Fair Use Boundaries

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    While the first U.S. rulings to address the issue recently held that it's fair use for generative artificial intelligence models to train on certain copyrighted books without permission, Disney v. Midjourney, filed in June, will test the limits of the fair use framework in a visual art context, says Rob Rosenberg at Moses & Singer.

  • A Simple Way Courts Can Help Attys Avoid AI Hallucinations

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    As attorneys increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence for legal research, courts should consider expanding online quality control programs to flag potential hallucinations — permitting counsel to correct mistakes and sparing judges the burden of imposing sanctions, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and Connors.

  • Viral Coldplay Incident Shows Why Workplace Policies Matter

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    The viral kiss cam incident at a recent Coldplay concert involving a CEO and a human resources executive raises questions about how employers can use their code of conduct or morality clauses to address off-the-clock behavior that may be detrimental to the company's reputation, says Masood Ali at Segal McCambridge.

  • Tracking The Evolving Legal Landscape Of Music Festivals

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    The legal infrastructure behind music festivals is anything but simple, so attorneys advising clients in this space should be prepared for a wide range of legal challenges, including the unexpected risks that come with live events, says Meesha Moulton at Meesha Moulton Law.

  • Series

    Creating Botanical Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Pressing and framing plants that I grow has shown me that pursuing an endeavor that brings you joy can lead to surprising benefits for a legal career, including mental clarity, perspective and even a bit of humility, says Douglas Selph at Morris Manning.

  • Reddit v. Anthropic Is A Defining Moment In The AI Data Race

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    The recent lawsuit filed by Reddit against Anthropic in California state court marks a pivotal moment in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence by sidestepping a typical copyright dispute, focusing instead on the enforceability of online terms of service and ownership of the digital commons, says William Galkin at Galkin Law.

  • Opinion

    The Legal Education Status Quo Is No Longer Tenable

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    As underscored by the fallout from California’s February bar exam, legal education and licensure are tethered to outdated systems, and the industry must implement several key reforms to remain relevant and responsive to 21st century legal needs, says Matthew Nehmer at The Colleges of Law.

  • Unpacking Notable Details From FTC's 'AI Washing' Cases

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    The Federal Trade Commission has brought many cases involving allegedly deceptive artificial intelligence claims over the past couple of years, illustrating overlooked aspects of AI washing generally and a few new types of AI marketing claims that may line up in regulatory crosshairs down the road, says Michael Atleson at DLA Piper.

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