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NASL and USSF Take the Pitch
On Tuesday October 31, North American Soccer League asked U.S. District Judge Margo K. Brodie to issue a preliminary injunction blocking a denial of its Division II application by the U.S. Soccer Federation. The hearing arose out of NASL’s September antitrust suit against USSF and its alleged co-conspirators Major League Soccer, Soccer United Marketing, and the United Soccer League. In September, NASL filed its lawsuit after USSF denied its application for Division II status for the 2018 season. USSF is sanctioned by FIFA as the governing body for professional soccer in the United States, with the power to grant division status […]
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Travis Scott Faces the Music for Wild Concerts
Rapper Travis Scott may be facing the music for his wild, over-the-top concerts. While these crazy antics have boosted his popularity, they have had dangerous consequences. A fan who claims he is now paralyzed because of his experience at a Travis Scott concert earlier this year has filed suit against the rapper. The fan, Kyle Green, attended the artist’s concert on April 30th in Manhattan. With the encouragement of Scott, the concert became increasingly dangerous as fans began jumping from the second level down to the floor. A video posted after the concert shows Scott telling these fans “Don’t be scared. […]
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PragerU Accuses Google of Censoring Conservative Videos
Prager University (PragerU), a nonprofit digital media organization that creates conservative media content, has sued Google in California for violating its First Amendment rights on YouTube, the streaming platform owned by Google. The complaint, filed on October 25th, 2017, alleges that the Google engaged in censorship and illegally restricted PragerU’s right to free speech by filtering out some of their videos in Restricted Mode. Furthermore, the nonprofit claims that Google has removed the option for PragerU to monetize some of their videos by not sharing advertising revenue generated from certain videos. PragerU claims that Google unfairly targets their videos because they contain conservative political content […]
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Pulling Weeds out of NBA’s Banned Substances List
Former National Basketball Association (“NBA”) Commissioner David Stern has announced that he believes marijuana should be removed from the NBA’s banned substances list. In a documentary for the online sports programming network Uninterrupted, Stern speaks with former NBA player Al Harrington about the medicinal value of marijuana in the league. During the conversation, Stern tells Harrington, “I’m now at the point where, personally, I think it [marijuana] probably should be removed from the banned list. You’ve persuaded me.” Stern, who was NBA commissioner from 1984 to 2014, increased regulations on marijuana during his tenure, which he partly attributes to players abusing […]
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Notorious Markets List Sparks Debate over Stream Ripping Sites
Each year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes a report on “online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting,” called the Notorious Markets List. As part of creating the report, the USTR requests the aid of the public to identify these marketplaces through the submission of comments to the Federal Register. The deadline for comments was October 2nd and the deadline rebuttal comment was October 16th. As it also does every year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) submitted its list of “notorious” actors, which includes Cyberlockers, Chinese/Russian […]
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Songkick to Kick Ticket Selling Business
On October 12, Songkick, a tech start-up in the music industry, announced that it will stop selling tickets for good later this month. For the past decade, the company has helped music fans track live concerts in town and provided ticket services to fans directly through artists’ websites and fan clubs. Songkick peaked in 2015 when it handled ticket sales for Adele directly to her fans through its website to cut out scalpers. However, there were early signs that the company’s business has been winding down. Three months ago, Songkick, splitting in two, sold its concert recommendation segment to Warner Music […]
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Judge Blocks for Zeke
On October 17, Judge Paul Crotty of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order in favor of Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott. In his ruling, Crotty asked the NFL to address why a full preliminary injunction to hold off the suspension further should not be issued. Crotty noted that Elliott faced irreparable harm if forced to miss games and questioned the fairness of the NFL’s arbitration process. Prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, the NFL handed Elliott a 6-game suspension stemming from 2016 allegations of domestic violence. An […]
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A Federal Investigation is Nothing
According to the Washington Post, ex-head coach of the University of Louisville men’s basketball team, Rick Pitino, has filed a federal lawsuit against Adidas for deliberately damaging his reputation and causing him emotional distress. This suit comes in the midst of an ongoing federal investigation into Adidas executives allegedly conspiring with partner schools to attract top basketball recruits by offering illegal cash payments to the recruits and their families, essentially bribing the recruits. In the course of the investigation, Louisville was revealed as one of the schools involved in the conspiracy, with Rick Pitino allegedly having known and facilitating these payments. […]
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Disney, Not Pleased Knock-Off Party Characters, Sues
Disney doesn’t want you to hire “Big Hairy Guy,” a Chewbacca lookalike, for your child’s next birthday party. Disney and its corporate affiliates have filed a lawsuit against Characters For Hire, LLC (“CFH”) for copyright and trademark infringement. Though CFH changes the names of many of its characters, such as Darth Vader to “Dark Lord,” Star Wars to “Star Battles,” and Darth Maul to “Mauler,” Disney will not have it. Disney claims that CFH’s “shoddy services” have resulted in a reputation (as evidenced by CFH’s “F” rating with the BBB and poor Yelp reviews) that “is fundamentally at odds with Plaintiff’s […]
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Music Royalty Collector Kobalt Nabs Another $14M
As digital music streaming continues to explode, it calls for a platform that can track the data generated from billions of clicks and collect royalties for artists. Kobalt, the independent music services company founded in 2000, has been focusing on such a platform since Paul McCartney took his music publishing interest from EMI to Kobalt back in 2012. Earlier this month, Kobalt announced that it raised $14M from Bill Maris, the founder and former CEO of Google Ventures, through his new venture capital fund Section 32. Back in February 2015, when Bill Maris still worked at Google Ventures, the prominent venture […]