UMG Beats Drake's 'Not Like Us' Diss Track Defamation Suit

By Lauren Berg

A New York federal judge Thursday tossed Drake's defamation suit against Universal Music Group over the hip-hop artist's rival Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," saying the diss track's lyrics accusing Drake of being a "certified pedophile" are opinion and trash talk, not factual statements that are actionable.

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Weinstein Says Jurors Traded Threats, Tainting Verdict

By Cara Salvatore

Harvey Weinstein's legal team said his June sexual assault convictions were tainted by juror misconduct, including physical threats and an unfounded bribery claim, arguing in a motion for a new trial that a judge refused to properly investigate.

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Alex Jones Wants Justices To Pause $1.4B Sandy Hook Award

By Hailey Konnath

Infowars host Alex Jones has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay enforcement of a Connecticut court judgment awarding more than $1 billion to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, arguing that he has faith in the high court overturning the judgment against him.

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Musk's X Posts Trigger Disclosure In NYT Suit, Judge Rules

By Lauren Berg

The government must produce a list of any security clearances granted to Elon Musk in response to The New York Times' Freedom of Information Act request, a Manhattan federal judge ruled, saying the billionaire waived his privacy interest by posting about his top secret clearance, drug use and foreign contacts.

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Baldoni Atty Faces LA Malpractice Suit Over Client 'Betrayal'

By Emily Sawicki

Entertainment attorney Bryan Freedman has been accused in Los Angeles County Superior Court of turning his back on a former client, allegedly convincing him to sign an unfavorable settlement on trademark claims against "It Ends With Us" star Justin Baldoni, only to later begin representing the actor and director.

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Fla. High Court Hears Ex-Marvel CEO's Punitive Damages Bid

By David Minsky

The former CEO of Marvel Entertainment on Thursday urged the Florida Supreme Court to revive his punitive damages claim over the secret collection of his wife's DNA in connection to a hate letter campaign, arguing his client was wrongfully held to a higher burden in order to establish the claim. 

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Megan Thee Stallion Wins Sanctions Over Deleted Messages

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida magistrate judge Thursday sanctioned online personality Milagro "Mobz World" Cooper for deleting thousands of text messages and WhatsApp data after being told to preserve evidence in rapper Megan Thee Stallion's defamation and cyberstalking suit against her.

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Kentucky AG Enters Roblox Fray, Says App Attracts Predators

By Emily Field

The Kentucky attorney general has filed his own suit against Roblox, joining other plaintiffs alleging that the popular gaming platform fails to safeguard against adult sexual predators seeking to target and exploit minors despite assurances to parents that its platform is safe for their children.

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Roundup

Q3 Notches Biggest Megadeal Quarter In Three Years

By Al Barbarino

The value of global mergers and acquisitions worth $10 billion or more hit $289.5 billion in the third quarter, the highest since the second quarter of 2022, according to a report provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence on Thursday.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Paramount Eyes $60B Warner Bid, And Other Rumors

By Al Barbarino

Paramount Skydance is in talks with private equity firms including Apollo Global Management as it mulls a potential $60 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Another mega-deal that's further along its path to closing — Mars' $36 billion bid to acquire Kellanova — is set to win European antitrust approval. And Armani has approached potential buyers to sell a minority stake in the first phase of late designer Giorgio Armani's wishes.

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Photo Editing Software Co. Faces Patent Infringement Suit

By Abigail Harrison

A patent protection services firm told a North Carolina federal court Wednesday that a photo editing software company has knowingly infringed three of its patents related to advanced image processing.

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Clearview AI's £7.5M GDPR Fine Faces Renewed Scrutiny

By Eddie Beaver

A London tribunal has decided that a lower court was wrong to find that the U.K.'s data protection regulator lacked the power to fine Clearview AI Inc. £7.5 million ($10 million) over its collection of images of U.K. citizens from social media without their knowledge.

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X, XAI Say Texas Best, Fastest Court For OpenAI-Apple Suit

By Bryan Koenig

X Corp. and xAI urged a Texas federal judge not to transfer from the Northern District of Texas' Fort Worth Division their suit accusing Apple and OpenAI of anticompetitively edging out other artificial intelligence companies through a deal integrating ChatGPT into iPhones, stressing the speed of their chosen forum.

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Analysis

False-Statement Case Puts Comey In Rare Company

By Phillip Bantz

Former FBI director James Comey is the latest addition to the relatively short list of government officials who have been criminally charged over the past several decades with making false statements to Congress.

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Mobile Game Co. To Pay $25M To End Chancery Investor Suit

By Jarek Rutz

A China-based mobile gaming company has agreed to pay $24.75 million to settle a Delaware Chancery Court class action accusing it of engineering a $600 million share buyback that unfairly cemented its control of the company.

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WPP Faces Investor Suit Over AI-Focused Strategy

By Sydney Price

Communications holding company WPP PLC on Thursday was hit with a shareholder's proposed class action accusing it of overhyping the success of its artificial intelligence-based media arm amid increasing macroeconomic pressures.

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House Republican Wants Pentagon Spectrum 'Veto' Scrapped

By Christopher Cole

A key House Republican on telecom issues said Thursday he would oppose a provision tacked onto this year's defense policy bill in the U.S. Senate that could give the U.S. Department of Defense a "veto" over sharing certain spectrum bands with commercial users. 

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FCC Looks To Scale Down Broadband 'Nutrition' Label Reg

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission will consider making broadband "nutrition" labels a little leaner after the agency during the Biden administration imposed what the industry sees as overly burdensome requirements.

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Tort Report: Nuked 'Nuclear Verdict' Stays, Texas Justices Say

By Y. Peter Kang

The fate of a "nuclear verdict" that was used to jump-start tort reform campaigns across the country and a settlement of a suit over a Kiss guitar technician's death lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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NCAA Considers Relaxing Gambling Restrictions For Athletes

By Elaine Briseño

The NCAA seems poised to allow student-athletes and staff to bet on professional sports in an attempt to promote responsible gambling, with the Division I Administrative Committee adopting a proposal that would no longer prohibit such wagers.

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Breaking Down The Intersection Of Right-Of-Publicity Law, AI

Jillian Taylor at Blank Rome examines how existing right-of-publicity law governs artificial intelligence-generated voice-overs, deepfakes and deadbots; highlights a recent New York federal court ruling involving AI-generated voice clones; and offers practical guardrails for using AI without violating the right of publicity.

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Mich. Ruling Narrows Former Athletes' Path To NIL Recovery

A federal judge's recent dismissal of a name, image and likeness class action by former Michigan college football players marks the third such ruling this year, demonstrating how statutes of limitation and prior NIL settlements are effectively foreclosing these claims for pre-2016 student-athletes, say attorneys at Venable.

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Series

Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Painting trains me to see both the fine detail and the whole composition at once, enabling me to identify friction points while keeping sight of a client's bigger vision, but the most significant lesson I've brought to my legal work has been the value of originality, says Jana Gouchev at Gouchev Law.

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Sullivan & Cromwell Impersonators Hit With NY Fraud Claims

By Emily Sawicki

New York Attorney General Letitia James is attempting to take down a slew of businesses whose names are variants of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, accusing them of attempting a scheme to fraudulently redirect checks meant for the global corporate law firm.

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NY Atty General Indicted Following Pressure From Trump

By Lauren Berg

New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted in Virginia federal court Thursday on charges related to mortgage fraud, three weeks after President Donald Trump wrote a social media post encouraging U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action because James and two other political opponents were "guilty as hell."

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Jenn Mascott Of WH Counsel's Office Confirmed To 3rd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-47 on Thursday to confirm Jenn Mascott, currently serving in the White House Counsel's Office, to the Delaware seat on the Third Circuit.

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7th Circ. Nominee Taibleson Advances To Full Senate

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced on party lines the nomination of Rebecca Taibleson, a federal prosecutor in Wisconsin, to serve on the Seventh Circuit, as well as four district judicial nominees and five U.S. attorney nominees.

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Calif. Supreme Court Justice Martin Jenkins To Retire

By James Mills

California Supreme Court Justice Martin J. Jenkins, the first openly gay man and the third African American man to sit on the bench, will retire at the end of October, the court announced Thursday.

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