Gibson Succeeds in Protecting The Look of Its Guitars

Gibson Succeeds in Protecting The Look of Its Guitars

By PPLAdmin / December 14, 2022

In 2019, Gibson, the guitar company, brought a lawsuit against Armadillo Distribution and others for trademark infringement by virtue of Armadillo’s copying of the look of Gibson’s guitars. The case went to trial on May 16, 2022. Armadillo tried to use a “laches” defense to defend the case. This defense is used where there has…

Read More

Court Finds Coach of the Miami Dolphins Use of a Powerful Passage From Self-Help Book is Probably Not “Fair Use”

By PPLAdmin / November 30, 2022

On May 13, 2021, Gerald Alexander, coach of the Miami Dolphins football team, posted a passage on Twitter from a book by Dr. Keith Bell called Winning Isn’t Normal. The passage used was in essence: “Winning isn’t normal… Winning is unusual – as such it requires unusual action. In order to win you must do…

Read More

Student Who Accosted Native Americans Outside of Lincoln Memorial Loses His Defamation Suit

By PPLAdmin / November 22, 2022

On January 18, 2019, Nathan Phillips and a few Native Americans took to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Kentucky, where they encountered a crowd of students, including the Plaintiff, Nicholas Sandmann. Phillips felt that Sandmann was “blocking [him] from exiting the situation” and “intentionally stood in [Phillips’] way in order to stop [him]…

Read More

Kanye West Sued for Copyright Infringement, Again

By PPLAdmin / November 17, 2022

Kanye West released his album titled “Donda 2” in February 2022 exclusively on the Stem Player MP3 platform. The album was very successful, bringing in over $2.2 million in sales in just one day. On June 29, 2022, Ultra International Music Publishing LLC (UIMP) filed a lawsuit against Kanye West for the unauthorized use of…

Read More

Meta Hit with Copyright Infringement Suit by Epidemic Sounds

By PPLAdmin / November 17, 2022

On July 20th, 2022, a Swedish company known as Epidemic Sound filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that in creating its “Reels Remix” feature, Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) has infringed on Epidemic’s copyrighted music.  Here is what the case is about: Meta…

Read More

Popular Netflix Series, Bridgerton, Inspires Imitation, But Netflix Loses Its Patience with Fan Flattery

By PPLAdmin / November 9, 2022

Netflix released the wildly popular television series named Bridgerton in December of 2020, produced by the successful Shonda Rhimes. The show is set in the Regency era (1811 -1820) in the city of London and explores the romantic life of Daphne Bridgerton.  By 2021, the series was watched by 82 million households worldwide. Netflix owns…

Read More

Judge Roy Moore Loses Appeal of His Claims Against Sacha Baron Cohen

By PPLAdmin / November 1, 2022

As part of his television show on Showtime called “Who Is America,” Sacha Baron Cohen convinced former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Judge Roy Moore, to fly out to Washington D.C for an interview. Although Judge Moore was told that the interview was for an “Israeli Television program,” he was actually to be…

Read More

Lil Yachty Hauls UK Music Company into Court in California Over Use of His Name and Image in NFT

By PPLAdmin / October 25, 2022

On August 3, 2022, U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California, Michael W. Fitzgerald, denied a motion to dismiss a case filed by Miles Park McCollum, professionally known as “Lil Yachty,” against two crypto companies called Opulous and Ditto. Opulous sells “non-fungible tokens” (“NFTs”). An NFT is essentially a digital certificate or token…

Read More

Editor’s Claim of “Fair Use” of Photos of Picasso Artwork Fails

By PPLAdmin / October 20, 2022

Art editor Alan Wofsy (Wofsy) and French citizen Yves Sicre De Fontbrune (YSF) have been fighting in courts in both the United States and France for 26 years over the use of photographs of artwork by Picasso. A catalog of 16,000 works by Picasso was obtained by YSF in 1979. In 1991, YSF brought a…

Read More

Bang Energy Liable for Infringing Music On TikTok

By PPLAdmin / October 18, 2022

In order to promote its energy drink, Bang’s promotional team drives to different areas and hands out samples of its energy drink to people walking by. Bang also hires “social media influencers” to promote their drink on social media platforms such as TikTok. Bang’s social media team monitors these videos and takes consensual ownership of…

Read More