Entertainment and Media

We previously wrote about California Senate Bill 206, the “Fair Pay to Play Act,” back in April, and now Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed that bill into law.[1] The law becomes effective on January 1, 2023. After numerous revisions to the bill since our last post, here is a quick look at the final product.

The new Fair Pay to Play Act allows California student-athletes to earn compensation from licensing their name and image and to obtain professional representation by lawyers and agents to assist with that effort, all without losing scholarship eligibility or amateur status under the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s (NCAA) Division I and II eligibility criteria. Importantly, the law specifically prohibits colleges, athletic associations and intercollegiate conferences from paying such compensation to prospective student-athletes.
Continue Reading California’s Fair Pay to Play Act: This is Only The First Quarter

On March 16, 2016, the TTAB affirmed the refusals of an applicant’s mark, JAWS DEVOUR YOUR HUNGER, for online streaming cooking shows, holding that it is confusingly similar to the registered mark from the movie JAWS. Though the Board will rarely consider the fame of a mark in its du Pont analysis, the fame of the JAWS mark played a predominant role in the decision here. In re Mr. Recipe, LLC, Serial Nos. 86040643 and 86040656 [precedential].
Continue Reading T.T.A.B. Emphasizes the Fame of the Movie ‘Jaws’ in Its Refusal to Register a Cooking Show’s Mark

Last month, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a New York judge’s decision to dismiss federal copyright and state tort law claims alleged against the hip-hop icon, Jay Z, and his affiliated companies. Mahan v. ROC Nation, LLC, et al., No. 15-1238-cv, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 3182 (2d. Cir. Feb. 24, 2016).  The Second Circuit also directed the district court to calculate an award of attorneys’ fees and costs to award to the defendants for litigating what the court called a “baseless” appeal, adding to the more than $253,000 the lower court already awarded to the defendants.
Continue Reading Second Circuit Tosses Out Time-Barred Copyright Claims Against Jay Z

On February 17, 2016, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal by the Central District of California under the California anti-SLAPP statute of a publicity rights claim against the motion picture “The Hurt Locker.”  The plaintiff, Army Sergeant Jeffrey Sarver, an explosive ordnance disposal technician in Iraq, claimed the film appropriated his life story. Sarver v. Chartier, Ninth Circuit, Case No. 11-56986 decided February 17, 2016.
Continue Reading First Amendment SLAPPs Publicity Right Plaintiff in “Hurt Locker” Case

By Edwin Komen

On Friday afternoon, June 15, 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess, Central District of California in Los Angeles, denied CBS Broadcasting’s application for a temporary restraining order that would have prevented ABC from airing the premier broadcast of its new reality series “Glass House”. CBS complained that “Glass House” infringed the copyright in its long-running “Big Brother” series. Both featured contestants isolated in a confined space competing for prizes, building alliances and fighting with each other while they are systematically voted out of the competition. Judge Feess described these elements as “commonplace”. In doing so, Judge Feess dealt another blow to the admittedly fragile protection for one of television’s most valued commodities…a popular, highly marketable format capable of being translated and locally re-formatted for domestic consumption in local television markets around the world. The frustration of format owners may have well been summarized by Judge Feess, who observed, “When I first heard of Big Brother, I thought it sounded like Survivor in a house.”[1]
Continue Reading Are Formats The Floor Mats Of Copyright?

By Ryan Lindsey and Nick Setty

In Thorner v. Sony Computer Entertainment America, LLC (Case No. 2011-1114, Feb. 1, 2012) (Moore*, Rader & Aiken (D. Or. sitting by designation)), the Federal Circuit reiterated the prohibition against importing limitations from the specification and reversed a district court construction depending from consistent uses of the disputed phrase in the specification.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Narrows Claim Construction Options in Game Controller Suit

In Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash, humans interact as avatars in the “Metaverse,” the collective product of online shared three-dimensional space.[1] As imagined by Stephenson, this “Metaverse” has been created by all virtual worlds[2] – it is an augmented and enhanced physical reality, a physically persistent virtual space.[3] The novel is set in Los Angeles during the early 21st Century. The federal government of the United States has relinquished its authority to private entrepreneurs and organizations. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private automobiles reign supreme. Highway companies compete for traffic in the real world while the Metaverse is populated and travelled by user-controlled avatars and system daemons.Continue Reading Trademarks In The Veldt: Do Virtual Lawyers Dream Of Electric Trademarks?

The California Supreme Court heard oral argument on June 3 in an important “right of publicity” case, Christoff v. Nestle USA Inc. Issues included whether the single publication rule applicable to mass communication-based torts applies to right of publicity claims; whether use of another’s likeness on a product label is a “publication” for purposes of the rule; whether its continuing use on product labels and in various product advertisements constitutes a “republication” for each use giving rise to new causes of action; and whether the discovery rule applies to right of publicity claims.Continue Reading An Advertising Face-Off: Images and the Right of Publicity