'House Of Cards' Loss Not Tied To Spacey Illness, Jury Finds

By Craig Clough

A California jury has found that actor Kevin Spacey's absence from the final season of "House of Cards" was not due to a sex addiction sickness he was being treated for, a verdict that denies claims by the production companies behind the show that its insurers owed them around $100 million when he failed to return for the hit Netflix series' swan song.

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Netflix Beats Infringement Claims In Video Patent Trial

By Elliot Weld

A California federal jury has cleared Netflix of allegations that it infringed a set of patents held by DivX covering video compression technology.

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Boies Schiller Knocked By Judge In Meta Copyright Fight

By Adam Lidgett

A California federal judge has criticized attorneys from law firms including Boies Schiller Flexner LLP that are representing authors accusing Meta of unlawfully using copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence models, while still allowing the authors to amend their case again.

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Ketamine, WilmerHale Probe Off Limits In Musk-OpenAI Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has placed evidentiary guardrails on an April jury trial over Elon Musk's claims OpenAI duped him, excluding evidence on Musk's ketamine use and WilmerHale's investigation into Sam Altman's dismissal, but allowing evidence on Musk's rival startup, his romance with an ex-OpenAI boardmember and his Burning Man trip.

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Elon Musk Slams Twitter Stock Verdict Over Jury's $4.20 'Joke'

By Lauren Berg

Elon Musk did not get a fair trial over claims he defrauded Twitter investors before acquiring the social media platform, the tech billionaire's lawyer told a California federal judge Thursday, saying the jury rolled a marijuana "joke" into the verdict form to mock Musk and the trial process.

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Miley Cyrus' 'Flowers' IP Feud Should Advance, Court Told

By Elliot Weld

An entity that owns shares of the copyright to the Bruno Mars song "When I Was Your Man" has asked a California federal judge to let it proceed with its suit claiming the Miley Cyrus song "Flowers" was a rip-off, saying many listeners have observed similarities between the two songs.

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Artist Says Tech Cos. Cut Attribution From Work Used For AI

By Zak Kostro

A Los Angeles 3D artist and visual effects creator accused four tech giants of failing to protect rights on millions of works by artists and designers that were used to train large-scale generative artificial intelligence systems, according to proposed class actions filed in California and Washington federal courts Thursday.

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FKA Twigs Says LaBeouf Continues 'Abuse' With Illegal NDA

By Lauren Berg

English musician FKA twigs says actor Shia LaBeouf has tried to silence her with an illegal nondisclosure agreement that was included in the settlement the former couple entered to resolve her sexual battery claims, according to a new lawsuit filed in California state court.

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Attys In 'Cop City' Suit 'Better Learn' Filing Rules, Judge Says

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia federal judge castigated attorneys on both sides of a lawsuit by a documentarian who said he was prevented from filming at the controversial Atlanta "Cop City" project, striking their "inconsistent, incomplete and at times incoherent" filings and ordering them into his courtroom to explain themselves.

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Judge Voids Copyright Office's Publisher Demand

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Copyright Office's 2018 demand letter requiring an independent Richmond, Virginia-based publisher to surrender hundreds of its books to the Library of Congress was unconstitutional, but that the company couldn't seek an injunction against any future enforcement actions from the office.

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Court Won't Block DraftKings' Use Of NCAA TMs, For Now

By Theresa Schliep

An Indiana federal judge Thursday denied the National Collegiate Athletic Association's request for a temporary order prohibiting sports gambling company DraftKings Inc. from using terms like "March Madness" to describe the basketball tournament, despite concluding that the NCAA is likely to prevail on its trademark claims.

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Sony, USC Settle Fight Over Music Used In Social Media Ads

By Gina Kim

Sony Music has settled its copyright infringement suit accusing the University of Southern California of infringing more than 170 of its songs to advertise the school's sports program on social media, according to an order signed off by a New York federal judge Thursday.

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Acxiom Beats Consumers' Suit Over Data Sales, For Good

By Gina Kim

A Virginia federal judge tossed a complaint alleging data analytics company Acxiom gathers and sells individuals' personal information like their addresses, birth dates and other identifiers to its clients, ruling Wednesday the laws alleged to have been violated only protect a person's name, portrait, or picture, "not any of this other data."

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Live Nation Kicks Off Defense Case In Antitrust Trial

By Stewart Bishop

A coalition of state attorneys general on Thursday mostly concluded their antitrust case against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, following weeks of a trial that was nearly derailed after the U.S. Department of Justice dropped out, and Live Nation kicked off its defense case with a company executive who pushed back against claims of anticompetitive conduct.

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X Corp.'s Lack Of Antitrust Injury Dooms Ad Boycott Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

A Texas federal judge Thursday dismissed X Corp.'s sprawling antitrust suit that accused several advertisers of unlawfully boycotting the Elon Musk-owned social media company by substantially cutting back on or stopping ad purchases, saying X didn't suffer any antitrust injury.

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States Will Fill DOJ, FTC's Antitrust Void, Ill. AG Atty Says

By Bryan Koenig

The top antitrust attorney at the Illinois attorney general's office predicted Thursday that state enforcers will continue to pick up the pace as the Federal Trade Commission and especially the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division "become less transparent and less active."

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Dems Talk Nexstar-Tegna Merger At Telecom Act Hearing

By Nadia Dreid

Lawmakers touched on a lot of topics during the nearly three hours Thursday they spent dissecting the Telecommunications Act, which turns 30 this year, but the one that Democrats kept dragging the hearing back to was the FCC's recent approval of the $6.2 billion broadcast merger between Nexstar and Tegna.

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FCC Advances IP Networks, But Consumer Worries Persist

By Christopher Cole

Federal regulators pushed ahead Thursday on the national transition to all internet-based phone networks although concerns remain among public advocates that parts of the U.S. population that still rely on copper wires could eventually be left stranded.

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FCC Floats Caps For Offshore Telecom Call Center Work

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission Thursday floated new rules to encourage the onshoring of customer call centers in the telecom industry.

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FCC Defends Waiver Power In Nexstar-Tegna Merger Fight

By Jared Foretek

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday defended its authority to waive the television station ownership cap and approve the transfers at the heart of Nexstar's $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, telling the D.C. Circuit that the cap, as an agency rule, can be dispensed with for good cause.

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Investor Sues Music Catalog Firm Over Default Risks

By Jarek Rutz

A member of a music catalog investment group has sued in the Delaware Chancery Court to force the company to turn over financial records, alleging signs of mismanagement, missed payments and potential default risks tied to high-value music deals.

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DOJ Says SeaWorld Co.'s Walker Ban Violates ADA

By David Minsky

The U.S. government sued the owner of SeaWorld and other theme parks for alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Florida federal court, claiming in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that the venues ban people who use mobility devices. 

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Fed. Circ. In February: When Grammar Trumps Patent Specs

The Federal Circuit's decision in Netflix v. DivX last month highlights the challenge of interpreting potentially misplaced modifiers in complicated technological patents, and the potential for grammatical rules to provide a default interpretation for unclear claim language, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

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White & Case Staffer Sues Firm Over Nude Photo Ridicule

By Dorothy Atkins

A White & Case LLP staffer sued the law firm in New York state court Wednesday, alleging the firm's purported "hostile work environment" shielded his colleagues after they allegedly shared nude photos of him, which he claims were taken by his supervisor while he was unconscious at a firm-sponsored party.

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Akin Must Explain Client's 'Self-Indulgent' 9th Circ. Appeal

By Lauren Berg

Upholding a foreign arbitration award against a wine importer, the Ninth Circuit on Thursday ordered its attorneys at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP to explain why they and their client shouldn't pay their opponent's attorney fees for bringing a "frivolous" and "self-indulgent" appeal.

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Troutman, Former Associate Fight Over Scope Of Bias Trial

By Emily Sawicki

Weeks ahead of an anticipated May trial over discrimination and retaliation claims brought by a former Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP associate, the firm and its onetime employee are sparring over the scope of evidence that may be presented at trial.

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Maduro Judge Hints US Should Reconsider Legal Fee Refusal

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge suggested Thursday that the Trump administration should revisit its refusal to allow former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to access his country's funds to pay for his defense against narco-terrorism and trafficking charges.

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Antitrust Leaders Say Lobbyists Don't Impact Outcomes

By Matthew Perlman

The leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said Thursday that companies can lobby the agencies all they want, but enforcers will still make merger and conduct decisions based on the facts and the law.

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Bill To Give Admin More Control Over US Attys Advances

By Courtney Bublé

A Republican-led bill that would give the executive branch more authority over the installation of U.S. attorneys was advanced out of a House committee Thursday.

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