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 […]
Streaming companies and major film studios have joined forces to sue TickBox, the company behind TickBox TV, a device that offers its users easy access to free online content. The complaint filed on Friday, October 13 by companies such as Universal, Disney, Hulu and Netflix, has alleged that TickBox sells “illegal access to Plaintiff’s copyrighted
The Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law recently sat down with Associate Professor Steve McKelvey, the Associate Chair for External Relations and Graduate Program Director in the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to joining the UMass Amherst faculty in 2002,
Tourists hoping to visit the Mushroom Kingdom may have to make other plans, after Nintendo filed a lawsuit against a Japanese company offering real-life Mario Kart inspired tours of Tokyo. According to the New York Times, Nintendo is claiming that the rental company, which operates under the name of MariCar in English, violates Nintendo’s intellectual
On February 22, Hamilton: An American Musical producer Jeffrey Seller announced that Hamilton Uptown, the musical’s production company, settled a trademark and copyright infringement suit with online retail platforms SunFrog and GearLaunch. Hamilton Uptown and Creative Goods Merchandise filed the complaint against SunFrog, GearLaunch, and several John Doe defendants in October in the U.S. District
As reported by Complete Music, in early March 2017, relatives of the late Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi filed new papers in their ongoing appeal of a moral rights claim against music icons Jay-Z and Timbaland. The case began in 2007, when Hamdi’s family alleged that Jay-Z and Timbaland’s sampling of Hamdi’s music in their 2000 smash
According to the The Fashion Law, Coach filed an action in a Manhattan federal court in February 2017 against various defendants for creating and distributing products that allegedly infringe upon its intellectual property. Interestingly, and rather unusually, Coach is not only seeking trademark protection, but also protection of trade dress of its hangtag design. Trade dress refers
Wet Seal is the latest retailer to close its doors. In late January, news outlets reported that the retail chain planned to close all locations. Wet Seal, which targets the 18-24 demographic, proceeded to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in early February. As reported by Fortune, the company listed assets between $10 million and $50
Oculus, the Facebook-owned virtual reality (VR) company, was ordered by a jury to pay $500 million in damages to ZeniMax last week, concluding a multi-year lawsuit. As reported by Business Insider, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg testified that Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014 for nearly $3 billion as a way to be a pioneer in the
As reported by Law360, the estate of deceased YouTube performer, Anthony Barré, has filed a suit against Beyoncé and Sony Music Entertainment seeking $20 million in damages as well as declaratory and injunctive relief for copyright infringement. The complaint alleges that the pop star sampled phrases from Barré’s YouTube videos in her 2016 chart-topping hit
In the post-“Blurred Lines” music industry, where an artist even casually admitting that their work was influenced by another may expose them to potential copyright infringement lawsuits, music labels are taking no chances when commissioning official remixes. In what appears to be a direct response to the surprising verdict in which a jury awarded $5.3
