In
a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court has brought to a close an 83-year quest by the family of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to recover a stolen painting.
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Yo Ho Ho And a Bottle of . . . Oh No! Court Deep-Sixes Disney’s Motion for Summary Judgment
Appropriate for the pirate genre, citing the parties’ “dueling experts,” a District Court recently denied Disney’s motion for summary judgment in a copyright lawsuit in which the plaintiffs claimed the
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Gaffers, Grips Going, Gone as IATSE Threatens Walkout
We are not out of the woods yet.
Just as Hollywood was coping with the early effects of the pandemic, it barely avoided a Writers Guild strike. After a
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Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney over “Black Widow” Streaming Release
The lawsuit brought by Scarlett Johansson against The Walt Disney Co. has struck Hollywood like a thunderclap. The litigation arises out of Disney’s decision to release Black Widow concurrently in
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TV Station Consolidation OK, Say Supremes
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court voted to uphold a decision by the FCC to deregulate ownership of television broadcast stations. The Commission proposed the rule change in 2017
Broadcast Deregulation Reaches Supreme Court
In light of the ubiquity of cable and satellite, a controversy over the ownership of terrestrial broadcast stations may seem like a sideshow. The reality is, however, that an increasing
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Follow up: Faizon Love, Universal Make Nice
We recently reported on a lawsuit that the actor Faizon Love brought in November against Universal Pictures. Love was one of the stars of the 2009 movie Couples Retreat,
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ViacomCBS Sues Insurer Over COVID Claims
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread postponement and cancellation of film and TV production in 2020, it brought a corresponding explosion of insurance claims by producers. This led inevitably to
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DOJ Keeps the Music Playing for ASCAP and BMI
On January 15th, the Department of Justice announced it has ended its two-year review of the 80-year old consent decrees that govern the operation of the largest music
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“Stranger Things”: Copyright Challenge to Popular Series Survives Motion to Dismiss
In response to a copyright claim that the Netflix series “Stranger Things” infringed the plaintiff’s unpublished screenplays, Netflix and the other defendants filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, arguing
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