Earlier this month the Central District Court of California made a ruling that Axanar Productions cannot claim fair use as a defense in the Paramount and CBS copyright lawsuit over a fan-made prequel to the Star Trek series. In 2015,…
Producers of London Fields are suing actress Amber Heard for $10 million, as the most recent complaint in the string of lawsuits regarding the film.[1] Nicola Six Limited and producers, Chris Hanley and Jordan Gertner, are alleging Heard to have…
Introduction In the year 2015 alone, the United States fashion industry generated over $343 billion in revenue.[1] Fashion is not just a business—it is also a respected art form in the United States.[2] Despite the economic and artistic significance of…
In light of a recent FCC proposal to abrogate the exclusivity rules which prevent a cable provider from reproducing a program where a broadcaster has obtained exclusive rights, this post will discuss the history and justification of these rules. A.…
Diversity in comics is always important but currently it is a hot topic in the comic book industry and broader pop culture fandom discourse.[1] In the vein of a modern legacy of reintroducing characters of color in their own titles,[2]…
Tatsuya Adachi is Editor-in-Chief of the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 34, and J.D. Candidate, 2016, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Introduction Flo & Eddie—performers of the Turtles’ hit record “Happy Together”—have recently been engaging in…
After close to three years of litigation, a copyright battle over whether the nation’s most sung song belongs to the public or a music publisher has finally been settled. The popular birthday celebration song that we’ve all grown up singing,…
Appropriation is commonplace in today’s art world. But what happens when the appropriator appropriates too much? Richard Prince has made a name for himself as a well-known appropriation artist. Naturally the use of a copyrighted image without permission of the…
On November 10, 2015, Federal Magistrate Judge Gail Standish from the Central District of California dismissed a copyright infringement suit made by Jesse Braham against music powerhouse Taylor Swift. Braham claimed that the lyric in Swift’s song “Shake It Off,”…
Merely a few weeks ago we discussed a trademark infringement suit initiated by Adidas against Forever 21. Forever 21 had allegedly copied Adidas’s famous three-stripe trademark. The infamous fast fashion company is now in trouble with a brand that many…
The past year has shown that for many female celebrities, privacy in their personal photos and videos might be one of the few luxuries that they cannot afford. In late August of last year, hundreds of nude images of alleged…
The phrase “patent troll” has been an Internet buzzword for almost a decade but the search for and implementation of effective tools to curb patent trolling is undoubtedly an ongoing endeavor. This blog post surveys current efforts to restrain patent…
