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Mealey's Copyright

  • March 27, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Judge Missed Confusion Analysis In Lego Figure Injunction Order

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held March 26 that it cannot determine whether a Connecticut federal judge was right to rule that a toy company’s redesigned figurines still ran afoul of a preliminary injunction previously ordered in an intellectual property dispute with Lego A/S and affiliated Lego entities (collectively, Lego).

  • March 26, 2025

    Plaintiffs Drop 1 YouTube AI Training Suit, Let State Law Claims Be Dismissed

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a voluntarily motion to dismiss California unfair competition law (UCL) and other state law claims from a pair of cases involving the use of YouTube videos in the training of artificial intelligence while the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed a third case in the wake of a motion to dismiss their amended complaint.

  • March 25, 2025

    Copyright Plaintiffs: Microsoft Has Relevant Evidence In OpenAI Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — A magistrate judge imposed the wrong standard in concluding that Microsoft Corp. has to produce records related to OpenAI entities’ alleged copyright infringement because Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in the entities and their close relationship with the tech giant means Microsoft almost certainly possesses evidence relevant to the case, plaintiffs told a federal judge in California in seeking relief from the ruling.

  • March 24, 2025

    Judge Allows Limp Bizkit Copyright Claims Against UMG To Survive

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California allowed to stand copyright infringement claims from band Limp Bizkit and associated entities against Universal Music Group Inc. (UMG) in a royalty dispute, largely denying a motion to dismiss the band’s amended complaint.

  • March 19, 2025

    Copyright Act Contemplates Human Authors, Not AI, D.C. Circuit Affirms

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Copyright protections require a human author and the U.S. Copyright Office properly denied an application listing an artificial intelligence as the author, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said March 18 in affirming a district court ruling.

  • March 18, 2025

    AI Search Engine Sufficiently Targets New York, Dow Jones Says

    NEW YORK — Artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI markets its highly interactive website nationwide and is registered to do business in New York and transacts business in the state, providing a sufficient anchor to the jurisdiction, Dow Jones & Co. Inc. and a related affiliate tell a federal judge in opposing dismissal or transfer.

  • March 17, 2025

    ISP To High Court: 5th Circuit Wrong To Find Liability In Piracy Fight

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — An internet service provider (ISP) tells the U.S. Supreme Court that the question of whether ISPs can be held to be vicariously liable for copyright infringement based on the behavior of internet customers is a “major question” that could have far-reaching impact on ISP companies; according to the ISP, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to find in favor of plaintiff-appellee music labels that it was liable for failure to prevent instances of infringement.

  • March 14, 2025

    2nd Circuit Affirms Fair Use Finding, Fee Rejection In Professors’ Copyright Fight

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New York federal judge’s finding that a faculty member at a City University of New York (CUNY) community college did not infringe on the work of another CUNY faculty member during a presentation, agreeing with the judge that the defendant faculty member’s use of the copyrighted material constituted fair use.

  • March 13, 2025

    AI Plaintiffs Say Meta’s Torrenting Is Clear Copyright Violation

    SAN FRANCISCO — Meta Platforms Inc.’s torrenting of protected works to secure material to train its artificial intelligence constitutes a copyright violation and is not protected by fair use, plaintiffs tell a federal judge in California.

  • March 11, 2025

    Supreme Court Rejects Another Copyright Attorney Fee Petition Involving Photos

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 10 rejected a real estate company’s request to consider whether the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly upheld a rejection of its request for attorney fees in a copyright infringement case brought against it, and then voluntarily dismissed, by a plaintiff photography company; it’s one of multiple recent denials of certiorari petitions in copyright cases involving the photography company.

  • March 11, 2025

    Supreme Court: No Rehearing In Copyright Attorney Fee Fight

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 10 denied a copyright defendant’s petition for rehearing, again leaving in place a finding from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that he was not the “prevailing party” under federal copyright law in the face of the copyright owner’s voluntary dismissal of the case.

  • March 10, 2025

    Supreme Court Won’t Consider If Copyrights Affected By Contract Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 10 decided that it would not hear a software company’s argument that the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ reversal of a $1.6 billion award in a contract dispute with International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) would lead to ripple effects regarding the use of copyrighted software.

  • March 04, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms Copyright Judgment In Software Ownership Dispute

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed all of a California federal judge’s findings on copyright infringement in a dispute between a software company and a logistics company over the ownership rights to a software product, including the judge’s refusal to impose contempt sanctions on the defendant entity.

  • March 04, 2025

    Google, Alphabet Say AI Copyright Claims Lacking, Seek To Strike Class

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Whether plaintiffs satisfactorily registered copyrights, sufficiently detail their claims and could possibly justify injunctive relief in their consolidated action against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. sits with a federal judge in California after briefing on motions to dismiss and strike class claims wrapped up in the artificial intelligence case.

  • March 03, 2025

    Microsoft Identifies Individuals Allegedly Involved In Unlawful AI Conduct

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Microsoft Corp. filed an amended complaint identifying four individuals previously listed as anonymous defendants who allegedly used the company’s artificial intelligence systems for unlawful purposes, including creating images of misogyny and deepfake intimate images of celebrities.

  • March 03, 2025

    Judge: Photo Company Can’t Show Infringement By Real Estate Firm

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A photography company fails to point to any evidence that a real estate company intentionally participated in the infringement of two copyrighted photos that were posted on the social media accounts of an individual affiliated with the real estate firm, a federal judge in Florida ruled after considering dueling motions for summary judgment from the parties.

  • February 28, 2025

    Judge Won’t Let AI Copyright Plaintiffs Set Search Terms

    SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs’ efforts at relitigating issues they lost undermines rulings designed to prevent delays, and the parties appear to be “taking turns to simply conjure up something about which to fight,” a judge overseeing consolidated federal copyright litigation in California involving artificial intelligence said Feb. 27 in denying requested discovery.

  • February 28, 2025

    Record Labels Seek Rehearing In Copyright Row With Vimeo Before 2nd Circuit

    NEW YORK — A group of record labels asked the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reconsider its finding that the labels failed to show that video sharing website Vimeo Inc. had “red flag” knowledge that user-uploaded videos contained copyrighted musical recordings, arguing in a petition for panel rehearing that the decision was in part undergirded by an erroneous reading of the labels’ argument.

  • February 26, 2025

    Federal Judge: Musician Owes More Than $286K In Fees In Rap Copyright Battle

    NEW YORK — A musician who sued rapper Donald Glover, who performs as Childish Gambino, and multiple related entities for allegedly copying one of his songs in the 2018 hit “This Is America” owes more than $286,000 in attorney fees, a federal judge in New York ruled.

  • February 25, 2025

    Judge: Media Outlet Alleges Injury, Copyright Removal For Single DMCA Claim

    NEW YORK — While Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) protections don’t exactly match with historical analogs, the act hews closely enough to protected property rights to provide injury, and a news organization adequately alleges that OpenAI entities removed copyright management information (CMI) from articles during the training of artificial intelligence, a federal judge in New York said while dismissing the remainder of the DMCA claims against OpenAI and Microsoft.

  • February 25, 2025

    Supreme Court Leaves 5th Circuit Copyright Infringement Affirmation In Place

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rejecting a petition for a writ of certiorari on Feb. 24, the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear arguments from a distribution company that the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to uphold a finding of copyright infringement against it for its use of another company’s software.

  • February 21, 2025

    NBA Teams, Others To High Court: Take Up Copyright ‘Discovery Rule’ Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of eight teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) filed one of three amicus curiae briefs in support of a design company’s argument before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly vacated a New York federal judge’s finding that copyright claims against it were time-barred.

  • February 21, 2025

    Citing ‘Glacial Pace,’ Plaintiffs In AI Copyright Suit Seek To Compel Discovery

    SAN FRANCISCO — While the company behind the Claude artificial intelligence promises to produce discovery before upcoming deadlines, its “glacial pace” over the last four months necessitates a court order compelling the production by certain deadlines to ensure that it doesn’t benefit from further delay, plaintiffs in a copyright suit tell a federal judge in California in a Feb. 20 letter brief.

  • February 21, 2025

    Perplexity AI Says New York Court No Place For Copyright Suit

    NEW YORK — A copyright lawsuit challenging an artificial intelligence-assisted search engine doesn’t belong in New York courts, Perplexity AI Inc. told a federal judge there while advocating for dismissal or transfer to a court in San Francisco.

  • February 21, 2025

    9th Circuit: Singer Can’t Show Katy Perry, Others Infringed Song

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s dismissal of a woman’s suit against pop singer Katy Perry and several associated individuals and record labels, agreeing with the judge that the woman failed to show how Perry’s song “Smile” infringed on a song she wrote and recorded.