Entertainment and Sports Law

There are two key federally created entities whose mission it is to issue licenses and collect royalties on behalf of rights holders for digital transmissions of music: SoundExchange and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). This article reports on recent court rulings over whether the plaintiffs had viable causes of action related to SoundExchange and MLC royalty payments.

Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal revived a defamation lawsuit of a Palm Beach County woman after finding the trial judge had improperly dismissed her case, which accuses a Peacock TV docuseries of falsely depicting her as the “madam” of a prostitution ring, among other crimes.

Notable recent court filings in entertainment law.

A look at moves among attorneys, law firms, companies and other players in entertainment law.

In 23XI Racing LLC v. National Association of Stock Car Racing LLC (NASCAR), racing teams 23XI and Front Row Motorsports Inc. sued NASCAR, including over the latter’s inclusion of a waiver clause in agreements that permit teams to compete in NASCAR’s pinnacle Cup Series.

Early in Van Halen’s career, Neil Zlozower shot photos of the music group at Sunset Sound Studios with Eddie holding his famous "Frankenstein" guitar. Years later, Zlozower sued the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum, alleging copyright infringement after the institution included two of his Van Halen photos, unlicensed from and uncredited to Zlozower, in exhibits at the museum.

When can an artist using AI tools copyright their work? Earlier this year, the Copyright Office addressed the issue and rejected the proposition that only prompting an AI model can create a copyrightable work. But Copyright Office’s analysis missed that “randomness” for a computer means something entirely different than we generally think, ultimately underselling the amount of control someone can have over a model’s output.

As a global streaming giant, Spotify is a big litigation target. As proof, the company is currently caught between new proposed class-action lawsuits filed by artists and filed by consumers.