Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC is an ongoing case in the Northern District of California that is of interest because it contains a small win for creators, at least in the context of this case. In another Anthropic case from the same district, a different judge dealt a more definitive blow to plaintiffs suing…
Martineau v. Bungie is a case from the Eastern District of Louisiana that pits a blogging David against a gaming Goliath that allegedly had to create a plot for one of its video games in a hurry. Matthew Kelsey Martineau filed a complaint against Bungie Inc. for infringement within the extremely popular, multiplayer game Destiny…
A children’s book author came to me about a demand letter she had received from another author’s lawyer. The letter alleged that there were “too many” similarities between our client’s book and the other author’s book, and that our client had infringed the other author’s copyright. The letter was accompanied by a chart like the…
Raw Story Media v. Open AI, Inc. was a case filed in the Southern District of New York involving the generative artificial intelligence app ChatGPT. The court dismissed the case before the parties even started discovery. A group of news media companies sued the collection of companies that make up ChatGPT. The organizations suing Open…
The Second Circuit reversed a district court opinion that cited the plaintiff’s history as an active litigant as a reason to side step the Second Circuit’s discovery rule in Michael Grecco Productions v. RADesign et al. Grecco is an accomplished photographer who has enforced his rights prolifically in federal courts. In copyright infringement cases, the…
George Santos v. James C. Kimmel et al was a case in the Southern District of New York that pitted a cultural pariah against a popular late-night host. At issue was Jimmy Kimmel tricking Santos into making ridiculous videos Santos posted on the website “Cameo,” which Kimmel then posted on his show. Former Congressman George…
Kelly Toys Holdings v. Build-A-Bear Workshop is an ongoing case involving a smaller toy company suing the legendary Build-A-Bear. Kelly Toys manufactures and distributes its own plush toys called SQUISHMALLOWS, and Build-A-Bear sells things called SKOOSHERZ. But this wasn’t a trademark infringement case. Rather, the plaintiff alleged that it has a protectable trade dress and that it…
In X Corp v. Bright Data LTD, X Corp, formerly known as Twitter, sought to put an end to the practice of “scraping” by a company called Bright Data. (A scraper requests and retrieves information without manually browsing pages, often for tailored reasons.) The Northern District of California dismissed the case, finding that X failed…
The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision in Warner Chappell v. Nealy that some practitioners view as disappointing. We wrote about the underlying 11th Circuit case a year ago. Nealy was incarcerated during the time period when some of the songs he had co-produced were infringed. He claimed that because he was deprived of access…
Sepi v. Netflix et al. was a case in the Western District of Oklahoma that brought the much reviled/loved reality show star Joe Exotic into the national spotlight. The suit against the “Tiger King” was brought by a videographer challenging his work-made-for-hire agreement with Exotic. (Really, the judges refer to him by that name). Sepi…