Insights on Media & Entertainment

OpenAI finds itself embroiled in another major copyright infringement lawsuit — this time in Canada. Similar to cases filed by major news organizations in the United States, a group of Canada’s biggest news and media companies has filed a lawsuit alleging that OpenAI is illegally using the publishers’ copyrighted material to train its GPT large language models (LLMs). Plaintiffs in the case include the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and parent companies representing the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, and dozens of national, provincial, and local newspapers.

Partner Marylee Jenkins will attend the Brand Strategy Summit USA on October 8, where she will lead an interview titled “Advancing the Trademark System: A Behind-the-Scenes Look.”

On September 29, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1047, one of the most ambitious efforts yet to establish a comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) regulatory framework in the United States.

ArentFox Schiff is representing Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, five award-winning authors, The Authors Guild, and two high school students in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Florida law.

ArentFox Schiff is pleased to announce that 135 attorneys have been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America 2025, with two attorneys highlighted as “Lawyers of the Year” and 70 attorneys listed as “Ones to Watch.”

The rise and widespread use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) continues to have major implications in the entertainment and music industries, particularly in relation to intellectual property.

ArentFox Schiff is pleased to announce that 70 attorneys were recognized as leaders in their field and 23 practices spanning the firm’s litigation, regulatory, and transactional capabilities were ranked among the best in the country in the 2024 edition of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.

For copyright infringement lawsuits timely filed by plaintiffs availing themselves of the “discovery rule” — to determine when their infringement claims accrued — the US Supreme Court has issued a decision concerning the extent to which damages are recoverable.

Donald Trump’s motion for a new trial and to set aside the jury’s verdict in his defamation case lacks merit, a New York judge recently ruled.

Disney fired Carano after she posted a series of controversial political social media posts. The multinational entertainment conglomerate’s motion raises an issue of interest for many media and entertainment companies and their talent.

The original frontman of The Guess Who, Burton Cummings, terminated his public performance license agreements in the hope of preventing what he calls a The Guess Who “cover band” from performing the works he penned for the 1970’s band.

ArentFox Schiff is pleased to announce that Partners Ross Charap and Matt Finkelstein were again named Top Music Lawyers by Billboard magazine.

The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned a federal district court’s determination that Netflix made fair use of the plaintiff’s video in the 2020 Netflix show “Tiger King.”

After enjoying several decades of acceptance across many circuit courts, the future of the so-called “Rogers test” is uncertain.

With 2024 underway, our team highlights 10 of the most pressing legal issues facing the media and entertainment industry this year.

Allegations of defamation and conspiracy to defame alone are insufficient to establish the crime-fraud exception and defeat the attorney-client privilege, the Illinois Appellate Court recently held.

The world of music often sees as much drama in the courtroom as on the stage. One fight that frequently results in protracted, expensive, and bitter legal disputes is over ownership of a band or group name.

A recent $83.3 million verdict against Donald Trump for continued defamatory statements underscores what would seem to be an intuitive best practice to minimize defamation liability.

On February 21, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, the outcome of which could determine whether copyright holders can recover damages for acts occurring more than three years before the filing of a copyright infringement lawsuit.

ArentFox Schiff LLP is proud to announce that the firm’s Trademark practice group and nine attorneys have been ranked in 2024 WTR 1000 – the World’s Leading Trademark Professionals, the definitive guide for Trademark practitioners around the globe.

A New York court once again declined to dismiss Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation over Fox News’s coverage of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.”

Proposed bills at the federal and state level were announced January 10, both intended to protect recording artists and the music industry from unauthorized “soundalike” vocals created using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

On December 29, an ArentFox Schiff team of Fred Sperling, Adam Diederich, Kirstie Brenson, and Meera Gorjala obtained a preliminary injunction in federal court in Iowa preventing the enforcement of an Iowa law providing for the removal of books from school and classroom libraries.

ArentFox Schiff is representing Penguin Random House (the world’s largest trade publisher), four award-winning authors (Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo, and Jodi Picoult), the Iowa State Education Association, teachers, a librarian, and a student in a lawsuit challenging Iowa’s book banning law.

AI, Metaverse & Blockchain Industry Group Co-Leader Dan Jasnow discussed the new tentative agreement between the SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP that safeguards protections for actors surrounding the use of artificial intelligence and the replication of their voice and likeness using tools like CGI.