Image Courtesy of Foodie Factor/Pixabay By Alec Winshel In Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not protect use of another’s trademark as a signifier of one’s own product. Trademarks are words or symbols that identify a seller’s goods and distinguish them from others in […]
By: Alec Winshel Last month, Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for infringement of their works. The complaint is another in a series of cases filed by Matthew Butterick and the Joseph Saveri Law Firm that mount legal challenges against companies developing AI-powered large language models. These models, often referred to as LLMs, are algorithms that
By: Alec Winshel Fans of radio personality Howard Stern and legendary rapper 50 Cent had reason to rejoice in 2013 when the two sat down for an interview on The Howard Stern Show. After discussing rap feuds and the joys of meeting Oprah, the celebrities parted ways for nearly a decade. However, last month brought
By: Alec Winshel On October 12th, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc v. Goldsmith. Litigants traded arguments scrutinizing the boundaries of artistic license while Justices lobbed hypotheticals that probed the nature of book-to-film adaptations and the boundless creative implications of color. The
JSEL recently sat down with Patrick Ragen, an Associate at Ziffren Brittenham in Los Angeles, which specializes in negotiating, structuring, and executing transactions in the entertainment and media industries. Patrick is an attorney in the firm’s film and television group, representing writers, actors, athletes, directors, producers, production companies, and rights holders in the film, television,
This post is one article in a two-part series on NFTs. This article covers in depth the legal implications of the proliferation of NFTs. Read our other installment to learn more about how NFTs work and where they’re leaving a mark in the arts, entertainment, and sports industries. If you’ve logged on to any social
This post is one article in a two-part series on NFTs. Read along to learn more about how NFTs work and where they’re leaving a mark in the arts, entertainment, and sports industries. Then, read our next installment, which covers in more depth the legal implications of the proliferation of NFTs. Trading cards are in
As the social media site TikTok has exploded over the past year, thousands of recognizable influencers and celebrities have joined in on the fun—including some who may not know it. Most notably, one user, deeptomcruise, has built a following of over 777k with videos of the Mission Impossible star golfing, doing magic tricks, and telling
Twenty-five years ago tomorrow, the storied Pokémon franchise began with the Japan release of Pocket Monsters Red and Green on the Game Boy. Many of us recall playing classics like Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal, and others through the years. When I initially went home at the start of the pandemic, I found my old Game Boy and
Loren Cheri Shokes received her J.D. from Harvard Law School (2017), her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles (2013), and is the author of Life After Death: How to Protect Artists’ Post-Mortem Rights, 9 Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. 27 and Note, Financing Music Labels in the Digital Era
Disney has unleashed a wave of takedown notices targeting vendors who are selling merchandise featuring “Baby Yoda,” the viral breakout character from its new streaming series, The Mandalorian, on DIY sales site, Etsy. The studio becomes the latest company to struggle to protect its intellectual property on the site, despite its formidable legal resources and
