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Media & Entertainment
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May 25, 2012
Twitter, Others Beat Messaging Co.'s Patent Suit
A Delaware federal judge on Friday dismissed Cooper Notification Inc.'s patent infringement claims accusing Twitter Inc., Federal Signal Corp. and Everbridge Inc. of infringing its methods for sending messages to several places at once.
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May 25, 2012
U Of Ill. FOIA Suit Belongs In State Court, 7th Circ. Says
The Seventh Circuit ruled Thursday that state court is the proper venue for the Tribune Co.'s attempt to force the University of Illinois to reply to its state Freedom of Information Act request regarding the school's admissions scandal, a request the school argues is barred by federal privacy law.
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May 25, 2012
FCC General Counsel Schlick To Step Down
Federal Communications Commission general counsel Austin Schlick will step down from the post in mid-June and be replaced by his current deputy, Sean Lev, the regulator said Friday.
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May 25, 2012
Morgan Lewis Advises Pearson in $90M GlobalEnglish Buy
London-based publishing giant Pearson PLC has acquired California-based software company GlobalEnglish Corp. in a $90 million cash deal to enhance its presence in the market for educational programs geared toward students learning English as a second language, Pearson announced Friday.
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May 25, 2012
Social Media Privacy Law Clears Calif. Senate
The California State Senate on Friday passed a law that would bar employers and colleges from demanding access to Facebook profiles, Twitter feeds and other social media accounts of employees and students, sending the bill to the state Assembly.
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May 25, 2012
Ohio Latest To Float Bill On Workers' Facebook Passwords
An Ohio state senator on Thursday said she has introduced legislation that would bar prospective or current employers from requiring workers to provide access to private electronic accounts like Facebook, following a similar trend by lawmakers in several other states.
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May 25, 2012
Video-Linking Site Fights Porn Site's Injunction In 7th Circ.
An attorney for pornographic website operator Flava Works Inc. told the Seventh Circuit on Friday that a preliminary injunction against video-linking website myVidster.com must be upheld because the links infringe copyrights and a previous Ninth Circuit decision the defendant claims says otherwise doesn't apply.
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May 25, 2012
Aaron Spelling's Widow Sues Auction House Over Dolls
The widow of television producer Aaron Spelling has sued Maryland-based auction house Theriault's over the sale of a collection of antique dolls, alleging the company owes her money and the return of unsold items.
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May 24, 2012
Morgan Stanley To Make Facebook Price Adjustments
With lawsuits and controversy over the Facebook Inc. initial public offering increasing, Morgan Stanley reportedly said Thursday that it would adjust prices on thousands of trades made that day and that certain limit orders wouldn't be filled at $43 a share or higher.
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May 24, 2012
Segui Strikes Out For Clemens Prosecutors
While prosecutors hoped former Major League Baseball player David Segui would tell jurors in Roger Clemens' perjury trial Thursday that he knew former trainer Brian McNamee kept evidence of Clemens' steroid use, his poor memory turned his testimony into a bust.
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May 24, 2012
EU High Court Jump-Starts Formula One Trademark Row
The European Union's highest court on Thursday revived a challenge by the licensing arm of Formula One auto racing to another company's bid for an EU-wide trademark using the term "F1," ruling that a lower court improperly called into question the validity of Formula One's own marks.
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May 24, 2012
RealNetworks Pays $2.4M To End 'Deceptive' Free Trial Suit
RealNetworks Inc. agreed Thursday to pay $2.4 million to settle a suit brought by the state of Washington that alleged the digital media company duped consumers into paying for subscriptions to premium services after they agreed to a free trial.
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May 24, 2012
Edwards Jury Takes Another Look At Trial Exhibits
The jury in former Sen. John Edwards' campaign corruption trial, still locked in deliberations, asked Thursday for another look at all of the roughly 300 introduced exhibits from the trial, as media outlets continued pushing for the release of the jurors' identities.
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May 24, 2012
Ex-UCLA Player Hits Time Inc. With $10M Defamation Suit
A former University of California Los Angeles basketball star lodged a $10 million defamation suit against Time Inc. and a Sports Illustrated reporter in California state court on Wednesday, claiming a recent article inaccurately portrayed the player as a disrespectful and violent bully.
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May 24, 2012
Lack Of Licensing Deal Sacks Ex-NFL Players' Royalty Suit
A California federal judge on Tuesday found that a group of ex-professional football players could not collect licensing royalties allegedly owed by their union, ruling the athletes couldn't establish the same fiduciary relationship that led to a $26 million settlement in a related class action.
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May 24, 2012
How They Won It: Quinn Triumphs In 'Last Samurai' Showdown
With the reputations of “The Last Samurai” director Edward Zwick and his longtime collaborator Marshall Herskovitz on the line, Gary Gans of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP fought back against allegations of screenplay theft with a multipronged strategy that used the film itself as its own defense.
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May 24, 2012
Dish Faces Off Against Big 4 Networks In DVR Copyright Row
Dish Network Corp. on Thursday faced two lawsuits and launched one of its own over its new AutoHop feature, which allows users to record the four major networks' programming without commercials and which the satellite broadcaster's network opponents say runs contrary to copyright laws.
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May 23, 2012
Paramount Pays $19M To End 'Transformers 3' Head Injury Suit
An Illinois judge on Wednesday approved a $18.5 million settlement between Paramount Pictures Corp. and a Chicago woman who suffered a serious head injury during her work as an extra on the set of the 2011 movie "Transformers 3," according to Wednesday news reports.
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May 23, 2012
Flurry Of Facebook IPO Suits May Stand On Shaky Ground
Plaintiffs attorneys pounced when news broke of shady dealings surrounding Facebook Inc.'s now-disastrous initial public offering, but with their complaints short on hard facts and long on news reports, experts say Facebook may yet wriggle out of the hot seat.
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May 23, 2012
Nebraska Book Gears Up For Ch. 11 Confirmation
A Delaware bankruptcy judge agreed Wednesday to extend the exclusivity period for Nebraska Book Co.'s reorganization plan and expedite the hearing for an amended version of a crucial $80 million backstop loan in advance of the bookseller's Chapter 11 confirmation date next week.
Expert Analysis
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Facebook’s Instagram Deal: Why Is The FTC Involved?
Facebook Inc.'s $1 billion Instagram deal is between a social networking firm with 900 million subscribers and a firm that provides a photo-sharing application for mobile phones with some 30 million users — not exactly head-to-head competitors. But there are some possible anti-competitive scenarios that the Federal Trade Commission might consider, say managing directors of consulting firm ARPC.
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The Government’s Burgeoning Brady Problem
As the National Security Agency builds a multibillion-dollar structure that will be the epicenter of its efforts to capture, store and review vast amounts of digital data, it would be wise for the government to begin the process of shaping a fair and comprehensive approach to criminal discovery that accounts for the government’s accumulation of ever-increasing amounts of information, says Matthew Umhofer of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
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Case Study: Rosetta Stone V. Google
The Fourth Circuit's highly anticipated ruling in Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google Inc. implicitly acknowledges that keyword advertising programs are being used by some advertisers for deceptive purpose, and could renew interest in search engines as potential targets for trademark enforcement actions, say Sheldon Klein and Ashley Ewald of Gray Plant Mooty.
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Best Practices For Corporate Social Responsibility
As with many industries, the legal services industry has adapted to the demand for sustainability practices. An effective Corporate Social Responsibility program will manifest itself in all strategic planning, from best firm employee practices and environmental sustainability to providing legal services, recruiting and retention of employees, business development, marketing and philanthropy, says Howard Dakoff of Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC.
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The UMG-EMI Merger And The Substitutability Of Sound
Given the heightened scrutiny placed on digital sampling after the Bridgeport decision, musicians face increased pressure to get a license to sample a sound recording. It is possible that Universal Music Group's intended purchase of EMI's recorded-music business would lead to higher prices, lower output, and a loss of original and innovative music, says Daniel Vitelli of Constantine Cannon LLP.
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Textbook Copyrights Vs. Open Educational Resources
Three of the largest publishers of academic textbooks recently sued Boundless, a distributor of free electronic versions of popular college textbooks, for copyright infringement in the Southern District of New York. Because open educational resources is such a new field, the law respecting infringement there is not well developed, and this case could have a seismic impact on the textbook industry, say Christopher Morrison and James Tuxbury of Jones Day.
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Old-Fashioned Conspiracy In Cutting-Edge Technology
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the U.S. Department of Justice will continue to pursue litigation against Apple Inc., Macmillan Publishers Ltd. and Penguin Group Inc. for alleged price-fixing of e-books. The irony of this litigation is that it would appear that all the involved defendants were able to keep pace with technology, but not the simple evolution of corporate governance and compliance expectations, says Debra Rade of Rade Law LLC.
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Trending Topic: Twitter's 'Innovator's Patent Agreement'
Twitter's new “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” — a policy covering assignment of inventions by Twitter employees to Twitter — appears to be an attempt to square the open-source ethos of Silicon Valley developers with the reality that software patents are becoming increasingly valuable assets to their employers, says Andrew Liddell of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
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A Murality Play
There are few cases involving art murals, but recently, a muralist filed suit against RCA Records Inc. and Sony Music Entertainment over a music video that features one of her murals. The complaint touched on some interesting issues, including the tension between copyright and public space, say Valentina Shenderovich and Christine Steiner of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.
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I Know What You Watched Last Summer
The Video Privacy Protection Act has generated numerous putative class actions of late. While video rental service providers have been successful in defeating claims brought on the basis of retention of consumers' personally identifiable information alone, these cases are a reminder for potential defendants to review their record retention policies, say attorneys with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.