At 4th Circ., DOJ Admits But Downplays Goldstein Trial Errors

By Jeff Overley

The U.S. Department of Justice late Tuesday acknowledged that it confused key statutory terms related to jury instructions at famed appellate advocate Tom Goldstein's criminal trial, while also insisting "the government's mistake here was understandable" and shouldn't upend a jury's guilty verdict.

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7th Circ. Says Compilation Copyright Doesn't Cover Article

By Elliot Weld

The Seventh Circuit has held that a publishing organization's copyright on a collection of writings doesn't automatically confer copyright protection on an individual article within that collection, affirming summary judgment in favor of two individuals who published that article as part of a book.

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Fla. Court Orders Trump Depo By Dec. 11 In $10B BBC Suit

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal magistrate judge Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC over the broadcaster's documentary on the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Google Can't Dodge Ex-NPR Host's AI Voice Misuse Suit

By Lauren Berg

Google cannot escape former NPR "Morning Edition" co-host David Greene's lawsuit alleging the tech giant misappropriated his voice in an artificial intelligence podcasting product, a California judge ruled.

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Spotify Beats Rapper's Bot-Streaming Royalty Suit For Good

By Ivan Moreno

A California federal judge has permanently dismissed rapper RBX's proposed class action accusing Spotify of failing to stop bots that distort streaming data and royalty payments, finding the platform had no duty to protect artists from third-party misconduct and rejecting his theory that Spotify selectively enforced its anti-fraud measures in favor of popular acts.

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Producer Drops Suit Claiming Drake Copied Demo In Hit Song

By Theresa Schliep

A producer accusing Drake of ripping off an unpublished hook and using it in a hit song "word-for-word, note-for-note" is dropping his lawsuit against the rapper, according to a filing in California federal court Tuesday.

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By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Copyright Office has reversed refusals to register website updates from Page Six, Decider and Mansion Global after changing a rule that excluded the publications from a streamlined registration process because their news coverage was too narrowly focused.

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Security Co. Sues Over Comedy Videos Using Its Uniforms

By Elliot Weld

A security company has brought a trademark infringement lawsuit against several comedians after its uniforms were used in staged videos in which a security guard is portrayed behaving inappropriately toward a group of skateboarders.

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4th Circ. Says W.Va. Daniel's Law Is Unconstitutional

By Rose Krebs

The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a district court determination striking down as unconstitutional West Virginia's law restricting the publication of the home addresses and phone numbers of law enforcement and judicial officials, saying the district court applied "well-established" First Amendment principles.

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Google Class Attys Get $2M In $8.25M Kids' App Tracking Deal

By Allison Grande

A California federal judge has awarded class counsel just over $2 million in fees and expenses as part of an $8.25 million deal to resolve a proposed class action accusing Google of surreptitiously tracking children's online activity, despite expressing "some concern" that the rates and hours billed by one plaintiffs' firm was "excessive" and rejecting some of the firm's travel expenses.

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OpenAI Sued Over Epilepsy Death Allegedly Tied To ChatGPT

By Emily Field

The parents of a Chinese national with epilepsy who died earlier this year sued OpenAI on Tuesday in California state court, alleging ChatGPT was effectively practicing medicine without a license when it designed a tapering schedule for the anti-seizure medication that was keeping their daughter alive.

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Snapchat Accused Of Letting Predators Exploit Kids

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The company behind the popular app Snapchat has been sued in Philadelphia court by a group of parents alleging that the platform allowed predators to sexually exploit their children while at the same time holding itself out to be a safe place for kids.

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Daily Mail, Publishers Fight Google's 'Multi-Year Delay'

By Bryan Koenig

Gannett, the Daily Mail and a certified class of website publishers urged a New York federal judge Monday not to let Google pause a scheduled advertising placement technology trial, arguing in twin briefs that the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust win is strong and Google's appeal won't disrupt the multidistrict litigation.

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Disney Says Fubo Can't Appeal Arbitration Order

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Disney has asked a California federal court to deny Fubo subscribers certification of an interlocutory appeal as they fight an order to arbitrate their case over streaming rates, saying they failed to satisfy the requirements for it.

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SpaceX Wants Low-Band Rework In Space Coverage Plan

By Christopher Cole

SpaceX called on the Federal Communications Commission to add a potential spectrum revamp of the lower 900 megahertz band to a proposal the board will consider this week to expand space-based cellphone coverage.

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Sinclair Pushes FCC To Adopt Next-Gen TV Standard

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

TV station chain Sinclair has urged the Federal Communications Commission to advance a proposal that would accelerate the transition to ATSC 3.0, the next-generation TV standard.

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Work With Providers To Stop Copper Theft, Think Tank Says

By Christopher Cole

Lawmakers need to develop partnerships with communications providers to investigate rampant copper wire theft and not just impose "heavy-handed" requirements on businesses, a think tank said.

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IRS Asks 1st Circ. To Toss Shuttered Bank Owner's Claims

By Zak Kostro

The IRS asked the First Circuit to dismiss unlawful property seizure and due process claims against former IRS Criminal Investigation officers in a dispute related to a shuttered online bank suspected of facilitating tax evasion and money laundering, saying the bank's former owner failed to establish plausible allegations.

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Judge Hellerstein, Gruff Moderator Of Major Cases, Dies At 92

By Pete Brush

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a former litigator and sometimes impatient Manhattan federal jurist who presided over decades of high-profile cases that often came under close appellate scrutiny, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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Texan Claims Austin Firm Hasn't Alerted Him To Data Breach

By Andrea Keckley

Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, an Austin, Texas-based law firm focused on collecting debts and taxes for public-sector clients, failed to protect its clients' personal information from a data breach, the plaintiff in a proposed class action claimed in Texas federal court Tuesday.

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BakerHostetler Malpractice Case To Expand With RICO Claim

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has allowed a trustee who has accused BakerHostetler and an Atlanta-based attorney of legal malpractice to file an amended complaint after the trustee asked to add claims of Georgia RICO Act violations.

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Weil To Wind Down As Top Attorneys Abandon Firm

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Alex Wittenberg and Aebra Coe

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the restructuring powerhouse that led Lehman Brothers, Enron and General Motors through bankruptcy, told Law360 Pulse Wednesday that the firm is preparing to wind down operations.

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NJ Atty Mishandled Property Damage Dispute, Court Told

By Hope Patti

A man told a New Jersey federal court that he was forced to pay excessive and avoidable fees to an attorney hired to represent him in a property damage dispute after the attorney mishandled the case by failing to advise him to tender the claim to his homeowners insurer.

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BigLaw Tip Middleman To Admit Role In $3.5M Trading Scheme

By Chris Villani

An alleged middleman in a sweeping scheme to trade off of deal information stolen from major law firms has agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces a prison term of nearly a decade, according to a plea agreement filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Mich. Judge Weighs Toshiba Legal Bills Discovery Fight

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she needs to review specific objections to DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co.'s multimillion-dollar attorney fee request before deciding whether Toshiba Corp. must disclose its own legal bills and litigation expenses following a nearly $394.4 million jury verdict over a botched power plant overhaul.

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Proskauer, Reddit Attys Called To Testify In Data-Scraping Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge on Wednesday called for live testimony from two Proskauer Rose LLP attorneys and Reddit's deputy general counsel as he weighs the law firm's bid to represent Perplexity AI in a lawsuit from Reddit, the firm's former client, over alleged data scraping.

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SC Gov.'s Counsel Still In The Running For Federal Judgeship

By Courtney Bublé

The chief legal counsel for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is "being actively considered" for a federal judgeship, according to the White House, but it's not a done deal yet.

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