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Copyright Infringement Copyright Appeals

Vondran Legal

Was your Amazon merch on demand account terminated, here's why?

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Amazon.com is an amazing company that offers people just like you and me an incredible opportunity to create an online store and sell your creative designs and products....more

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

Fair Use at Scale: When Is "Spectacularly" Transformative Use Still Not Fair?

The recent ruling in a lawsuit against Anthropic highlights a growing complexity in how courts are approaching fair use in the context of AI training. Judge William Alsup held that developing Anthropic’s Claude model was...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Use of Floorplans in Real Estate Listings is Permissible Under U.S. Copyright Law

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Floor plans are a key part of real estate listings, providing fundamental information about the layout of a building to prospective buyers or renters. But home designer Charles James and his company Designworks Homes, Inc....more

Fenwick & West LLP

Two Federal Courts Rule That Reproduction of Books to Train LLMs Is Fair Use - But with Caveats and Strikingly Different Views

Fenwick & West LLP on

In separate high-profile actions brought by authors against Anthropic and Meta, two California federal judges ruled that the reproduction of copyright-protected books to train large language models (LLMs) was fair use that...more

Fenwick & West LLP

Ninth Circuit Pumps Brakes on Character Copyright Claim over Action Movie Car

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In a new precedential decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. v. Halicki that “Eleanor,” a stable of Ford Mustangs that appears across four action films, is not a copyrightable...more

Weintraub Tobin

(Podcast) The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim

Weintraub Tobin on

Can a car be a copyrightable character? In Carroll Shelby Licensing v. Halicki, the Ninth Circuit said no — ruling that “Eleanor,” the iconic Mustang from ‘Gone in 60 Seconds,’ lacks the distinctiveness and consistency...more

Weintraub Tobin

The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim

Weintraub Tobin on

Can a car be a copyrightable character? In Carroll Shelby Licensing v. Halicki, the Ninth Circuit said no — ruling that “Eleanor,” the iconic Mustang from ‘Gone in 60 Seconds,’ lacks the distinctiveness and consistency...more

Kaufman & Canoles

K&C Sports & Entertainment Law Weekly Roundup - June 2025 #3

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A former University of Michigan assistant football coach accused of hacking the personal information and intimate photos of thousands of students has asked a Michigan federal judge to set aside a default entry against him,...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. v. Halicki

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Ninth Circuit holds that custom Ford Mustang called “Eleanor,” which appeared in four films from 1974 to 2000, is not entitled to character copyright protection under Towle test and that licensor of custom car design did not...more

Proskauer Rose LLP

Three Point Shot - May 2025

Proskauer Rose LLP on

Rough Terrain Ahead: New York Ski Resort Operator Appeals Ruling That It Violated Antitrust Law by Buying Out Direct Competitor - Intermountain Management Inc. (“Intermountain”), a company operating popular ski areas...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Plausibly Alleging Access Requires More Than Social Media Visibility

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a copyright action, finding that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege either that the defendant had “access” to the work in question...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Woodland v. Hill

Loeb & Loeb LLP on

Ninth Circuit affirms dismissal of copyright infringement claim against musician Lil Nas X, finding that mere availability of plaintiff influencer’s photographs on Instagram does not amount to access to those photographs and...more

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Sound and Color, LLC v. Samuel Smith

Loeb & Loeb LLP on

Ninth Circuit reverses summary judgment in favor of pop singer Sam Smith in music copyright dispute, holding in unpublished opinion that hook in plaintiff’s song may be protectable as unique selection and arrangement of...more

Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP

Ninth Circuit Revives Copyright Suit Over Sam Smith’s “Dancing with a Stranger” and Reaffirms the Jury’s Role

On April 29, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived the copyright infringement case filed by Sound and Color, LLC against Sam Smith, Normani, and related parties (collectively, “Defendants”) concerning the hit song...more

Kaufman & Canoles

K&C Sports & Entertainment Law Weekly Roundup - April 2025 #4

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Jack Nicklaus just scored a $1 million win in a New York court, striking back against his former company’s attempt to control his personal brand....more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

To Recuse or Not to Recuse? An Update.

Dorsey & Whitney LLP on

Given that litigation in the United States can take years from start to finish, we rarely see a conclusion to the cases we follow. In a prior blog post, we looked at the potential recusal requirements of the U.S. Supreme...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Court Grants Interlocutory Appeal on AI Fair Use Issue

We previously reported on the groundbreaking AI Fair Use ruling in the Thomson Reuters Ross Intelligence case, where the court found that based on the facts of this case fair use was not a defense. Ross Intelligence moved,...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

Is (Copyright) Paradise Lost for A Recent Entrance to Paradise and Other AI-Generated Works?

Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Thaler v. Perlmutter. The opinion notably solidifies the U.S. Copyright Office’s position that works generated autonomously (and thus solely) by artificial...more

Perkins Coie

Fair Use Defense Failed in Thomson Reuters v. Ross, Jury Still out for Generative AI

Perkins Coie on

The first substantive decision on the fair use defense in an artificial intelligence (AI) copyright case came down against the defendant, who used AI to create a competing product. However, as the decision expressly limited...more

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC

Court Rules AI Can’t Author a Copyrighted Work

On March 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the Thaler v. Perlmutter case, which confirmed the refusal of copyright registration for a work created entirely by an artificial...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

DC Circuit Affirms Decision That Copyright Statute Requires Some Amount of Human Authorship, Leaves More Difficult Questions for...

Does copyright law require that a human create a work? Yesterday the D.C. Circuit in Thaler v. Perlmutter held that it does and that a machine (such as a computer operating a generative AI program) cannot be designated as the...more

Quarles & Brady LLP

German Birkenstock Decision Shows the Limits of Copyright Protection for Functional Designs

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“Aber ist es Kunst?” - That question—“But is it art?”—was before the German Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”), or Federal Court of Justice, in a recent proceeding involving the well-known Birkenstock sandal design. ...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Religious Texts, Copyrights, and Estate Law: A Case of Strange Bedfellows

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a case involving a deceased religious leader who owned the copyrights to works reflecting his teachings. The Court found that the copyrighted...more

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

Is Fair Use Threatening to Swallow Computer Copyright Protection?

This case tested the contours of the landmark Google v. Oracle computer software code fair use decision. Astronics, a military aerospace contractor, was accused of copying code from Teradyne, a competitor, in order to ensure...more

Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP

The Precedent: Bitmanagement Software GmbH v. United States

In this edition of The Precedent, we outline the recent federal circuit decision in Bitmanagement Software GmbH v. United States (Fed. Cir. Jan. 7, 2025)....more

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