Impact of Mickey Mouse on public domain. The latest artificial intelligence and intellectual property cases - Thaler lost again. Nirvana Nevermind baby gets day in court. Tolkien estate and more.
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - Senator Hawley Targets Disney with So-Called Copyright Reform Bill
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Senator Hawley Targets Disney with So-Called Copyright Reform Bill
Podcast: The Briefing by the IP Law Blog - Heirs of Evel Knievel Clearly Do Not Have a Friend in Disney
The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Heirs of Evel Knievel Clearly Do Not Have a Friend in Disney
Daily Compliance News: October 12, 2020-the Trump Swamp edition
Stealth Lawyer: Lou Mongello, Disney Expert & Historian
Surinamese sprinter Issamade Asinga sued the Gatorade Company on Wednesday, alleging his recent doping ban was the result of eating contaminated “recovery gummies” that the brand manufactured and provided....more
In a ruling that’s being hailed as a win for fair use, a federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit brought by disgraced ex-congressman George Santos against late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, in Santos v. Kimmel, American...more
Floyd Mayweather finds himself deep into a lawsuit, as fraud and theft claims have been put against his name. The American boxer and rapper Tyga are now part of a suit by Leonard Sulaymanov, who has alleged the non-payment of...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has granted a limited appeal in Pittsburgh’s challenge to a Pennsylvania court ruling that the city’s tax on visiting athletes and performers is unconstitutional. ...more
The legislature of New York’s Nassau County passed a law on Monday to ban women’s and girls’ sports teams from using sports facilities in the county on Long Island unless they exclude transgender girls and women from playing....more
The National Football League must pay more than $4.7 billion in class-action damages for overcharging subscribers of its “Sunday Ticket” telecasts, a California federal jury said on Thursday....more
January 1, 2024, brought numerous hangovers along with an unprecedented amount of media attention to intellectual property law. That is because, as of the new year, one of the most famous cartoon characters in history –...more
The expiration of the 95-year copyright for Disney’s first Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie marked a momentous day in IP history. It also shines a spotlight on the public domain, and the inescapable fact that, as time...more
Copyrights protect creative works. Trademarks protect indicators of source. Can a creative work also act as a trademark? Yes, and the character of Mickey Mouse as portrayed in Disney’s animated classic Steamboat Willie is a...more
In the United States, an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression (meaning the work can be communicated in a visual or audio form) is a protectable copyright. This means that the owner has the...more
Several artists, frustrated with Artificially Intelligent (AI) image generators skirting copyright laws, are using AI-image generators to produce images of Mickey Mouse and other copyrighted characters to challenge the...more
In this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss Senator Josh Hawley’s proposed copyright bill and its implications for the Walt Disney Company. ...more
Last week, Senator Josh Hawley proposed a new copyright bill in the Senate that would have the effect of eviscerating existing copyrights for certain parties. The bill is known as the Copyright Clause Restoration Act...more
Appropriate for the pirate genre, citing the parties’ “dueling experts,” a District Court recently denied Disney’s motion for summary judgment in a copyright lawsuit in which the plaintiffs claimed the films in the popular...more
- What will the “Endgame” be for the lawsuit between Walt Disney Company and former Marvel comic book creators? In the spring of this year, a host of famed artists and illustrators of Marvel characters such as Iron Man,...more
In March, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a copyright lawsuit that alleged Pixar’s 2015 film “Inside Out” was based on Denise Daniels, a child development expert, who had pitched her idea to Walt Disney Co... ...more
Certain literary or graphic characters may, in some cases, enjoy copyright protection. Think James Bond – or Batman and even his Batmobile. Recently, the Ninth Circuit was called upon to determine whether the Moodsters,...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that “lightly sketched anthropomorphized characters representing human emotions” were not copyrightable. Daniels v. Walt Disney Co., Case No. 18-55635 (9th Cir. Mar. 16,...more
To follow up a story we two previous blogs, Redbox and Disney have settled their lawsuit over Redbox’s sale of download codes from Disney “combo packs. Combo packs were sets that Disney sold comprising a Blu-Ray and DVD of...more
The Central District of California recently sank a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company’s Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, finding that numerous elements of the Plaintiffs’ allegedly similar...more
After losing on its first attempt, the Walt Disney Company managed to turn the tables on Redbox to obtain a preliminary injunction against Redbox’s sale of movie download codes. The case arose out of Disney’s marketing of ...more
Redbox scored a win in its copyright dispute with Disney as a federal district court judge refused to award the studio a preliminary injunction against Redbox’s sale of digital download codes. Disney’s complaint was that...more
Redbox and Disney have filed their briefs in preparation for argument, scheduled for February 5, on Disney’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Redbox’s alleged copyright infringement. The judge’s ruling could make...more
In November of last year, a division of Walt Disney Company brought a lawsuit against Redbox. The Mouse now has kicked it up a notch by moving for a preliminary injunction....more