Lizzo's Touring Co. Beats Designer's Bias, Retaliation Suit

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge Tuesday tossed a former wardrobe assistant's remaining employment discrimination claims against singer Lizzo's touring company, finding the plaintiff may have witnessed some "inappropriate and unprofessional" conduct, but it was not sufficiently severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment.

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Analysis

Image Search Technology Raises New Copyright Questions

By Ivan Moreno

Technology that can uncover decade-old online images is testing the practical limits of copyright’s discovery rule, as courts weigh reasonable diligence against the reality that sophisticated search tools still miss infringement and defendants may no longer possess records proving authorization.

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Music Publishers Fight To Keep $3B Anthropic IP Case Alive

By Hailey Konnath

Major music publishers on Monday urged a California federal court not to throw out their $3 billion suit accusing Anthropic PBC of "brazen" mass copyright infringement of sheet music and songbooks, arguing that Anthropic's "thin challenges" to their claims mischaracterize the law and disregard their "extensive" allegations.

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Copyright Chief Says Cook Ruling Bolsters Firing Challenge

By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Copyright Office's Shira Perlmutter has asked the D.C. Circuit to reverse a federal judge's refusal to block her firing by the Trump administration, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision protecting Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook undercuts the lower court's reason for denying her preliminary relief.

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Wahlberg-Backed Gym Gets Final OK Of $10.5M Investor Deal

By Mike Curley

A Texas federal judge has given final approval to a $10.5 million settlement resolving investors' claims that a fitness franchise associated with the actor Mark Wahlberg misled them about its growth potential after going public.

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Judge Backs Carlton Fields' Bid To Seek Miss America Fees

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal magistrate judge on Tuesday recommended allowing Carlton Fields PA to intervene in a $500 million dispute over the ownership of the Miss America competition, one day after the company's CEO filed a new suit against its former counsel.

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Jason Isbell Says Suno Exploits Identities Like 'The Borg'

By Rae Ann Varona

Grammy winner Jason Isbell and several other musicians have lodged a proposed class action in Massachusetts federal court against Suno Inc., accusing the AI music generator company of extracting and exploiting musicians' identifying attributes much like a collective of identity-erasing cybernetic aliens from the Star Trek franchise.

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Judge Trims Gospel Singer's Claims In Contract Fight

By Elliot Weld

A Georgia federal judge has trimmed claims brought by a gospel musician who sued his business manager and record label, claiming that his copyright interests were stolen and he was deprived of royalties.

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Netflix, Ramey Spar Over Patent Suit Atty Fees

By Elliot Weld

Netflix and prolific patent attorney Bill Ramey have each made arguments for how much Ramey and his firm should be assessed in attorney fees in a patent infringement suit after a California federal court found it was meritless, with Netflix advocating for $3 million from Ramey's firm and his former client, while Ramey requested a finding of no fees or at least lower fees.

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Samsung Mini LED TVs Lack Actual Mini LED Tech, Rival Says

By Gina Kim

Samsung is falsely touting some of its televisions as incorporating advanced Mini LED technology that provides higher quality picture, despite that it simply "recycled" its preexisting low-end standard LED TV and relabeled them as a "supreme" Mini LED, alleges a Lanham Act suit filed Monday in California federal court.

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Calif. Privacy Agency Keeps Regulatory Heat On Data Brokers

By Allison Grande

A Virginia-based data broker has become the latest enforcement target of the California Privacy Protection Agency, which announced Tuesday that the company would pay a $36,400 fine and commit to honoring requests made through a new consumer data deletion tool to resolve claims that it failed to timely register as a data broker.

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Meta Says Section 230 Frees It From Doctor's Scam Suit

By Mike Curley

Meta Platforms Inc. is urging a California federal court to throw out an Australian doctor's suit alleging that its advertising tools resulted in his name and likeness being used to promote scams, saying evidence now shows that none of its tools introduced his name or likeness.

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Meta AI Glasses Privacy Suit Expands To Add Bystander Class

By Lauren Berg

Dozens of consumers are joining forces to sue Meta Platforms over allegations that the tech giant surreptitiously stores private videos captured by its "smart" glasses to train its artificial intelligence models, adding claims on behalf of bystanders who never agreed to be recorded, let alone used for training.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Bryan Koenig

Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery pressured state attorneys general challenging their merger to settle, the Federal Trade Commission successfully challenged a construction adhesives tie-up, state officials waded in against the NextEra-Dominion transaction, and Union Pacific Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. defended their combination under review by federal regulators.

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Meta Beats UK Co. Suit Over Instagram Shopping For Now

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A California federal judge has ruled in favor of Meta in an antitrust suit from a British company alleging Meta stole its plan for Instagram shopping, saying the injuries that were alleged happened years before the complaint was filed.

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Orgs Say 401(k) Forfeiture Suit Ignores Fed. Regulations

By Grace Elletson

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an employer benefit advocacy group urged the Second Circuit to back the dismissal of a suit claiming a marketing company illegally used forfeited 401(k) funds to pay for plan contributions, stating the practice has been allowed by decades-old federal regulations.

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Parler Ouster Talk Was 'Reaction' To Bad CEO, Jury Told

By Cara Salvatore

Billionaire Rebekah Mercer testified Tuesday that her team's strategizing about getting rid of Parler's then-CEO was simply "reacting" to his poor performance, even before the Jan. 6 insurrection sent the social media app "to hell in a handbasket."

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Meme Coin Platform Pump.fun Must Face Users' RICO Claims

By Katryna Perera

A New York federal judge has allowed racketeering claims to proceed against the operator of meme coin launchpad Pump.fun and its co-founders, while dismissing securities and unjust enrichment claims against the launchpad's related blockchain projects.

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Podcaster's Proxy Betting Claims Rile FanDuel, Regulators

By Alex Lawson

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission and FanDuel are looking into a recent admission by popular podcast host Bill Simmons that he allowed a proxy to log into his FanDuel account and place bets on his behalf.

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Fox Investor Sues Over Morgan Stanley Role In $22B Deal

By Jarek Rutz

A Fox Corp. stockholder has sued the media company and its board in the Delaware Chancery Court, seeking to block a shareholder vote tied to Fox's planned $22 billion acquisition of Roku Inc. until investors receive more information about alleged conflicts involving financial adviser Morgan Stanley.

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FCC Tells Justices To Keep Campaign Ad Pricing 'Status Quo'

By Katie Buehler

The Federal Communications Commission has joined a call for the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a Fourth Circuit order blocking it from extending discounted television and radio advertising rates to committees that buy spots in coordination with political candidates, urging the justices to maintain the "status quo," despite allegedly inconsistent characterizations of the norm. 

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Satellite Permitting, Robocall Bills Sail Through Subcommittee

By Nadia Dreid

The SAT Streamlining Act was one of half a dozen bills that breezed through a House energy and commerce subcommittee Tuesday afternoon, with lawmakers managing to get all six bills sent along to the full committee in under an hour.

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Brief

FCC Pulls Montana Radio License Over Unpaid Fees

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday it was revoking a Montana radio station's license for unpaid regulatory fees going back several years.

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Brief

Barnes & Thornburg Says Ex-NBA Star Owes $1M Legal Fees

By Jonathan Capriel

Former NBA player Luol Deng is being sued for more than $1 million by a Chicago-based law firm that claims he failed to pay legal fees connected to two real estate matters, according to a suit filed in Illinois state court.

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Strip Club Boss Wants Only Probation After $1.5M Tax Penalty

By Asha Glover

The former boss of a Connecticut strip club who pled guilty to five charges after being accused of hiding $5.7 million from the IRS told a federal court he should serve no prison time since he already coughed up more than $1.5 million in tax.

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How Does In-House Pay Compare? Take The Law360 Survey

How do in-house salaries vary across industries, roles, and organizational revenue? What compensation tools are companies using to lure top talent? Help Law360 Pulse answer these questions and more in this year's In-House Compensation Survey.

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HSF Kramer Added To $1B King & Spalding Malpractice Suit

By Jack Karp

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP and several of its partners on Tuesday were added to a $1 billion legal malpractice suit against King & Spalding LLP alleging that the firms engaged in multiple schemes to enrich a lawyer's friend at the expense of investment firm White Oak Advisors.

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Fla. Bar Tosses Complaint Over DHS GC's 'Worst' Judge Posts

By Adrian Cruz

The Florida Bar has refused to investigate the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for potential ethics violations over his recent series of social media posts attacking sitting judges, citing a potential conflict with the authority of the federal government.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Rodriguez On The Uses Of AI

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

Today, Judge Xavier Rodriguez is known as an expert in electronic discovery and a proponent of artificial intelligence, but his interest was piqued before he joined the bench of the Western District of Texas in 2003, when he was still a lawyer and the methods for sifting through electronically stored information were still primitive.

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Judges Say Social Media, Political Rhetoric Endanger Them

By Adrian Cruz

Increased access to social media and personal data via the internet, a larger number of high-profile cases, and inflammatory comments made by politicians have led to a rise in violent threats against judges and concerns about their safety, according to a recently published report.

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5th Circ. Judge Hints Court Order With AI Errors Can't Stand

By Spencer Brewer

A Fifth Circuit judge wanted to know why a panel should keep intact a court order blocking an anti-DEI Mississippi law that contained artificial intelligence hallucinations, asking whether the judges could confidently find that made-up citations did not ultimately sway the district court's decision.

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Ex-Warriors GC, DEI Exec Say Bias Complaints Led To Firings

By Lauren Berg

The Golden State Warriors' former associate general counsel and its former vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion allege they were unlawfully fired in retaliation for speaking up about enduring a workplace marked by gender and race-based discrimination.

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NY Firm, Clinics Reject FedEx's 'Staged' Crashes Claims

By Linda Chiem

A New York personal injury firm and various healthcare providers have told a Manhattan federal judge that FedEx has asserted implausible claims alleging they orchestrated an insurance fraud scheme to fabricate medical records and inflate accident claims, saying there is no such racketeering enterprise.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of August

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Anthropic, Zillow and ConocoPhillips. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from August.

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