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Mealey's Copyright

  • June 06, 2025

    Copyright Claims About Spanish-Language Religious Films Time-Barred, Judge Rules

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed with prejudice a Mexican motion picture company’s copyright infringement complaint involving multiple Spanish-language films telling stories from the life of Jesus Christ, agreeing with the defendant film distributors that the plaintiff company’s claims are time-barred by the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations.

  • June 04, 2025

    2nd Circuit Partly Revives Contract Dispute Over Musical Composition Payments

    NEW YORK — In a June 3 summary order, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel partly revived a music publisher’s complaint against a South Korean musician, holding that a January 2014 licensing agreement did not make changes to the division of copyright ownership interests of musical compositions.

  • June 03, 2025

    Judge Orders Pesticide Company To Provide More Answers In IP Discovery Dispute

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio federal magistrate judge on June 2 ordered plaintiff pesticide manufacturers identify with specificity the protectible elements of two copyrights they say were infringed by a defendant pesticide manufacturer, granting the defendant company’s motion to compel discovery in which the company accused the plaintiff entities of responding to questions about the copyrights with “evasive” answers.

  • June 02, 2025

    Nurse Testing Material Firm Opposes AI Copyright, Trademark Dismissal

    LOS ANGELES — A nursing test preparation company opposing summary judgment tells a federal judge in California that copyright covers its presentation of factual data and that the sale and use of its materials to train artificial intelligence constitutes infringement.

  • May 30, 2025

    9th Circuit: Car Chase Film’s Mustang Not A Copyrightable Character

    PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel largely affirmed a California federal judge’s rejection of copyright infringement claims brought by the owners of the rights related to the film “Gone in 60 Seconds” regarding a Ford Mustang known as “Eleanor,” holding that the car is not a copyrightable character under a Ninth Circuit test.

  • May 29, 2025

    8th Circuit Reverses Summary Judgment In Source Code Copyright Row

    ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 28 ruled that a Missouri federal judge wrongly dismissed a plaintiff software company’s copyright infringement complaint for basing its claims on a faulty submission to the U.S. Copyright Office, holding that there is a dispute as to whether the company was aware of the inaccuracy.

  • May 29, 2025

    Judge Details Stay, Interlocutory Appeal In Legal Summary AI Copyright Suit

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Because sufficient questions exist about the originality of Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GMBH headnotes and whether a competitor’s use of them to train artificial intelligence constitutes fair use, an interlocutory appeal and stay of the case will advance the litigation and potentially foreclose the need for a costly trial, a federal judge in Delaware said while reiterating that he believes his rulings properly allowed the case to proceed to trial.

  • May 29, 2025

    Register Of Copyrights Denied TRO In Suit Challenging ‘Purported’ Removal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office seeking to enjoin her removal was denied from the bench by a federal judge in the District of Columbia on May 28.

  • May 29, 2025

    OpenAI: No Reason To Reconsider Denying Leave To Amend For News Outlets

    NEW YORK — News outlets’ motion for reconsideration of a ruling denying them leave to amend their artificial intelligence copyright suit is procedurally improper, and because the outlets never demonstrated that ChatGPT produced their copyrighted works, the motion lacks any foundation, OpenAI Inc. entities told a federal judge in New York in an opposition brief.

  • May 27, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Partially Strikes Expert After AI Mangles Study Citation

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California on May 23 struck a portion of an expert report offered by Anthropic PBC containing errors introduced by its Claude artificial intelligence and ordered the company to produce 5 million prompt-output pairs evenly divided between pre-suit and post-suit periods.

  • May 27, 2025

    OpenAI: ChatGPT Output Preservation ‘Unprecedented’ Privacy Violation

    SAN FRANCISCO — Requiring preservation of ChatGPT outputs users wish to delete simply so news plaintiffs in a copyright suit can secure a litigation advantage constitutes an “unprecedented” privacy violation and sets a “dangerous precedent,” OpenAI entities tell a federal court in California in a May 23 supplemental opposition after a magistrate judge ordered the preservation and denied a motion for reconsideration.

  • May 27, 2025

    Register Of Copyrights Sues, Seeks TRO After ‘Purported’ Removal By Trump

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office filed a complaint and a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in a federal court in the District of Columbia challenging her “purported” removal by President Donald J. Trump “without any authorization from Congress or advice and consent from the Senate.”

  • May 22, 2025

    Kanye West Ordered To Supply Requested Discovery, Pay Fees In Copyright Fight

    LOS ANGELES — Kanye West and associated entities must turn over evidence in a copyright infringement suit claiming the rapper included unapproved music samples in two tracks on his album “Donda,” a federal judge in California ruled; the judge held that West and the related entities were wrong to argue that they were not in possession of any responsive documents.

  • May 21, 2025

    Sheeran To High Court: Don’t Grant Certiorari In Gaye Copyright Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — English pop singer Ed Sheeran tells the U.S. Supreme Court that it should leave in place a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmation of a federal judge’s finding that the singer did not infringe on a Marvin Gaye tune, arguing to the high court that the rights holder wrongly argues that the Second Circuit deferred to a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office.

  • May 20, 2025

    Lil Nas X Photos Not Shown To Be Copies, 9th Circuit Agrees

    SAN FRANCISCO — An artist failed to show that his semi-nude Instagram photo posts were reasonably likely to have been accessed by singer and rapper Lil Nas X, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, upholding a California federal judge’s dismissal of the artist’s copyright infringement suit brought over the rapper’s own posts.

  • May 20, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Won’t Reconsider ChatGPT Output Preservation Ruling

    SAN FRANCISCO — A magistrate judge in California turned away OpenAI entities’ concerns over privacy and the technical issues in denying reconsideration of an order requiring preservation of ChatGPT outputs, saying the company had not shown that the outputs were not relevant to the case or that a different outcome was required.

  • May 19, 2025

    Lack Of High Court Quorum Begets 2nd Circuit Copyright Order Affirmation

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 19 affirmed a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold a judge’s rejection of a pro se author’s copyright claims against a host of entities; the high court noted in an order list that the affirmation was the result of a lack of quorum of justices.

  • May 19, 2025

    Judge: Software Maker Failed To Show How Tech Firm Infringed On Program

    NEWARK, N.J — A software company failed to show that a defendant technology company infringed on a copyrighted software program, a New Jersey federal judge held; the judge said that the plaintiff company failed to “explain when or how the allegedly infringing computers were used other than through vague and conclusory statements.”

  • May 16, 2025

    Anthropic Admits Its Claude AI Mangled Cite Used By Expert In Copyright Suit

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthropic PBC’s Claude artificial intelligence mangled a citation to a study referenced by an expert in a discovery dispute during formatting, but it was an “honest citation mistake” and the crux of the cite and the positions for which it stands were all correct, the company lawyer said May 15 in a response to a federal judge in California overseeing a copyright case.

  • May 15, 2025

    Judge Stays Discovery In ‘Miss Cleo’ IP Fight While Mulling Dismissal

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge held that defendant television networks illustrated that there was adequate reason to stay discovery while the court considers a motion to dismiss intellectual property claims related to the television psychic character “Miss Cleo”; the judge held that the Psychic Readers Network Inc. (PRN) failed to show that it would be prejudiced by the stay of discovery.

  • May 15, 2025

    OpenAI Must Preserve Output Data, Magistrate Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must preserve user output data and segregate output log data going forward after consolidated news plaintiffs indicated that the amount of data being deleted is significant and the company offered no evidence about any efforts it was taking or could take to preserve the evidence, a federal magistrate judge in California said while setting a briefing schedule and hearing on potential spoliation motions.

  • May 15, 2025

    Court Won’t Reconsider Limiting Copyright To Humans

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc of a ruling limiting copyright protections to human authors, turning away a man’s arguments that artificial intelligences share similarities with corporations entitled to such protections.

  • May 14, 2025

    AI Plaintiffs Direct Court To Copyright Office Report On Fair Use

    SAN FRANCISCO — The plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit directed a federal judge in California to a recent U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) report suggesting that fair use defenses might not be available when the AI’s purpose is similar to that of the copyrighted training data and that “the speed and scale at which” AIs can produce similar works could be considered an effect on the market.

  • May 13, 2025

    Authors, Nvidia Agree To Consolidate AI Copyright Suits

    SAN FRANCISCO — Authors in a pair of federal suits in California alleging improper use of copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence agreed in a May 12 joint stipulation to consolidate their actions against Nvidia Corp.

  • May 09, 2025

    If Corporations Enjoy Copyright Protection, So Should AI, Man Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Corporations and artificial intelligences share similarities, such a lack of natural lifespans and families, yet copyright protections for the former “is simply not controversial” while a panel rejected such protections for the later, a man says in a petition for en banc review of a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appealsruling requiring a human author for copyright purposes.