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Mealey's Copyright

  • October 22, 2025

    Judge Finds Songwriters’ Copyright Claims Against Pop Singer, UMG Fail

    MIAMI — A federal judge in Florida dismissed with prejudice a copyright infringement complaint filed by two songwriters against a Brazilian pop singer and UMG Recordings Inc., holding that the songwriters failed to plausibly allege access or substantial similarity between their song and the 2023 hit single “Funk Rave.”

  • October 22, 2025

    3rd Circuit: Judge Failed To Explain Denial Of DMCA Subpoena Sought By Streamer

    PHILADELPHIA — A Delaware federal judge should have explained the reason for denying a YouTube and Twitch streamer’s motion for a subpoena requiring Google LLC and another platform to identify certain allegedly infringing users under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, vacating the judge’s dismissal and remanding for further proceedings.

  • October 20, 2025

    7th Circuit Affirms Copyright Win For Rapper French Montana

    CHICAGO — In a matter of first impression for the court, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Illinois federal judge’s decision to grant summary judgment to a rapper accused by a producer of copyright infringement because the producer failed to show that the rapper copied a beat he made “as opposed to merely imitating it,” but the panel also affirmed the judge’s decision to deny the rapper’s request for fees.

  • October 20, 2025

    High Court Won’t Hear Design Firm’s Floor Plan Fair Use Arguments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a design company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in an Oct. 20 order list, setting aside the company’s contention that the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ holding that two real estate agents’ use of floor plans in resale listings was a noninfringing fair use created a doctrinal “Catch-22” that prevents architectural copyright holders from enforcing their rights.

  • October 17, 2025

    Judge Won’t Hasten Damages Deadline, Says Anthropic Must Face Copyright Claims

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a pair of rulings, a federal judge in California said she would not hasten previous deadlines for music publishers to produce damages estimates and that the artificial intelligence copyright claims against Anthropic PBC may proceed.

  • October 16, 2025

    Labels Tell High Court ISP Knowingly Provided Service To Infringers

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Record labels and music publishers tell the U.S. Supreme Court in an Oct. 15 response brief that an internet service provider (ISP) continued to provide internet service to individuals it knew were “‘habitual offenders’” of piracy, thus making the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding of contributory infringement correct.

  • October 15, 2025

    Copyright Protection Extends To AI Images, Man Tells Supreme Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Copyright protections are in place to ensure dissemination of creative works to the public and are invoked even when a human is not the creator and should apply to artificial intelligence-generated outputs for the same reasons, a man tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari.

  • October 14, 2025

    OpenAI, News Plaintiffs Reach Agreement Ending ChatGPT Output Preservation

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities will no longer have to preserve all ChatGPT outputs after reaching an agreement with news plaintiffs about the scope of what must be saved for copyright litigation consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

  • October 14, 2025

    Insurance Holding Company Sues Captive Operator, Seeks Preliminary Injunction

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An insurance holding company seeks a preliminary injunction in a Florida federal court against a captive operator and its associated entities it accuses of counterfeiting its name and trademarks to sell fake commercial insurance policies through two purported captive programs; in a concurrent complaint, the insurance holding company alleges direct, contributory and vicarious trademark infringement under the Lanham Act and unfair competition under several state common laws and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.

  • October 08, 2025

    Anthropic Must Face Copyright Claims As It Fights For Damages Disclosures

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California said music publishers’ artificial intelligence copyright claims against Anthropic PBC may proceed just days after the company asked for relief from a magistrate judge’s conclusion that the case’s novelty and complexity permitted delaying the disclosure of potential damages.

  • October 08, 2025

    Judge Tosses Athletics Fansite Copyright Suit Against Sports Fan Page Company

    ABERDEEN, Miss. — A Mississippi federal judge on Oct. 7 dismissed without prejudice a copyright infringement suit alleging that a company that maintains Facebook fan pages for U.S. professional and college sports violated the intellectual property rights of a Mississippi State University internet fansite, finding that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the suit because the fansite failed to show that the fan page company is “subject to personal jurisdiction” in Mississippi.

  • October 08, 2025

    Judge: Brief Correcting AI Errors May Not Contain New Arguments

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California in a contract and copyright infringement case granted an administrative request to withdraw a summary judgment motion containing artificial intelligence-generated errors, but said that as a sanction, the refiled brief cannot contain new arguments or authorities.

  • October 07, 2025

    Anthropic Pushes Back On Ruling Delaying AI Copyright Damages

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthropic PBC told a federal judge in California that music publishers already have all the information they need to calculate damages and neither the novelty nor the complexity of an artificial intelligence copyright case requires delaying the disclosure.

  • October 06, 2025

    High Court Rejects Writer’s Claim That Copyright Expert Was Wrongly Excluded

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 rejected a petition for a writ of certiorari from a playwright who contended that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to affirm a California federal judge’s grant of summary judgment to film production entities the writer accused of copying elements of her work.

  • October 03, 2025

    AI Copyright Plaintiffs Blocked From Expanded Discovery For 3rd Time

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California on Oct. 2 declined to expand the datasets subject to discovery in an artificial intelligence copyright suit, relying on her previous conclusion that discovery should be limited to The Pile dataset, which contains the copyrighted works and was used to train Nvidia Corp.’s NeMo Megatron large language model.

  • October 03, 2025

    Judge Tosses Temu’s Antitrust Claims Against Shein But Lets IP Claims Survive

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed much of a suit brought by the company behind online store Temu against the company behind competitor Shein, tossing claims of trade secret misappropriation, antitrust violations and others, but the judge will allow claims of copyright and trade dress infringement, along with other intellectual property claims, to proceed.

  • October 02, 2025

    D.C. Circuit Won’t Reconsider Copyright Register Job Interference Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued two per curiam orders Oct. 1 denying reconsideration and en banc reconsideration of a Sept. 10 order enjoining various federal government parties from interfering with Shira Perlmutter’s service as the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office pending appeal.

  • October 01, 2025

    6th Circuit: Software Company’s Copyright, Trade Secret Claims Fail

    CINCINNATI — An Ohio federal judge properly granted summary judgment to a defendant software company on trade secret and copyright infringement claims, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that the plaintiff software company’s trade secret claims were time-barred and that it failed to substantiate its copyright claim.

  • September 30, 2025

    Ross Intelligence Asks 3rd Circuit To Overturn AI Copyright Ruling

    PHILADELPHIA — Headnotes quote judicial opinions that are public property and not subject to copyright protections, and their limited use in training artificial intelligence constituted fair use, legal search company Ross Intelligence Inc. told the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opening brief challenging direct copyright and fair use summary judgment rulings.

  • September 26, 2025

    Judge Affirms Limits On Dataset Discovery In AI Copyright Fight

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Sept. 25 denied a motion for relief from a magistrate judge’s order limiting discovery into the datasets used to train artificial intelligence, saying courts regularly impose such limits when the discovery exceeds the allegations in a complaint.

  • September 26, 2025

    Judge: No Summary Judgment On IP Claims In Learning Materials Sharing Case

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut federal judge held that the owner of an online platform that allows users to share educational resources with each other will face copyright and trademark claims from a private university in the state, but the judge granted the platform owner’s motion for summary judgment as to certain state law claims.

  • September 26, 2025

    Authors Challenge Limits On Shadow Library Discovery In Nvidia AI Copyright Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — Responding to a motion by authors arguing that a magistrate judge improperly limited discovery to a single dataset in an artificial intelligence copyright suit, Nvidia Corp. told the court that the order merely limits the plaintiffs to their own allegations and that there was no error sufficient to overturn the nondispositive order.

  • September 26, 2025

    Judge Preliminarily Approves $1.5B Settlement In AI Copyright Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A $1.5 billion settlement between authors and Anthropic PBC in a copyright case took a step toward resolution on Sept. 25 when a federal judge in California granted preliminary approval in a docket-only minute entry.  The authors previously told the judge in a supplemental brief that changes to the agreement addressed concerns about its completeness.

  • September 24, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Won’t Order Immediate Damages Update In AI Music Copyright Suit

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California declined to order music publishers to immediately supplement damages computations under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 in an artificial intelligence copyright suit, noting the novelty and complexity of the issue.

  • September 24, 2025

    Judge Denies Preliminary Injunction In Latest Copyright Case Over Hulk Hogan Tape

    TAMPA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida dissolved a temporary restraining order against a radio personality barring him from publishing portions of a sex tape featuring the late professional wrestler known as Hulk Hogan in a documentary film about the tape; the judge held that the record indicated that the use of the tape in the film is likely a fair use.