Moore & Bertuzzi Reach Settlement; NHL Violence Avoids Spotlight, For Now

After over ten years of trial preparation, Steve Moore has agreed to settlement terms with the Vancouver Canucks and Todd Bertuzzi. The terms of the settlement remain private, and come less than a month before the scheduled trial start date of September 8.

Moore’s lawsuit arose from a career-ending sucker punch he received on ice from Todd Bertuzzi, a member of the Canucks, back in March of 2004. A few weeks prior, Moore landed a questionable body-check on Vancouver’s Captain, Markus Naslund, giving him a …

August 19, 2014 NCAA

O’Bannon Plaintiffs & NCAA Ask Judge to Set Timetable for Athlete Pay

On Thursday, August 14, the O’Bannon plaintiffs and the NCAA filed a joint submission to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California seeking clarification of Judge Claudia Wilken’s injunction on the NCAA’s ban of player compensation.

The two parties to the lawsuit have come to an agreement over when the injunction should take place. Judge Wilken’s original ruling left the results somewhat ambiguous, and the current joint submission was submitted to clarify. The parties’ submitted a proposed order designating the injunction …

August 18, 2014 MLB

Rooftop Clubs Outside Wrigley Field Attempt To Block Expansion Plan

Claiming that Chicago’s plan to expand Wrigley Field violates the city ordinance, the owners of eight Wrigley Field rooftop clubs filed a suit to ask the court to block the plan.

The city’s Landmarks Commission recently approved the $375 million project to improve the aging ballpark. The expansion plan includes adding more seats and erecting seven outfield signs. When the plan was announced a month ago, the business owners strongly opposed to the plan because the signs would block the view from their rooftops.

The …

August 16, 2014 Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark

Washington Redskins Claim Trademark Cancellation Unconstitutional

On Thursday, August 14, The Washington Redskins football team filed a complaint in the united states district court for the eastern district of Virginia against the five petitioners who sought the cancellation of their six federal trademark registrations protecting the term “Redskins.” The complaint seeks to have the petitioners’ victory overturned, reinstating the trademarks.

In June, a three judge panel, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelled the team’s six federal trademarks protecting their name, “Redskins.” The judges …

August 15, 2014 Copyright / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark

Court Says Kanye West Didn’t Steal Pryor’s “get down”

A California federal court dismissed most of the claims in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against Kanye West. The court reasoned that an average listener would not recognize the saying “get down” because of the short length of the samples.

While it is well known that West’s big hit “Gold Digger” is buildt around “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles, the lawsuit claimed it also contains samples of another song written by David Pryor and Thunder & Lightening. Last year two children of Pryor …

August 14, 2014 Litigation / MLB / NHL

Major League Broadcasting Challenged by Blacked-Out Fans

The National Hockey League and Major League Baseball broadcasting policies are headed for trial after the dismissal of their motions for summary judgment in an antitrust lawsuit last week.

The plaintiffs are a class of frustrated NHL and MLB sports fans who filed a lawsuit against the organizations two years ago, claiming the restrictions on local television broadcasting (including blackouts) violate sections of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The lawsuit alleges that broadcasting territory restrictions and collusion between the leagues and the broadcasting companies unfairly increases …

August 14, 2014 NCAA

O’Bannon Case: NCAA Urges For Court’s Clarification

In the wake of last week’s O’Bannon ruling, the NCAA has requested for clarification of the court’s injunction. Judge Claudia Wilken wrote that the injunction would not be applicable to student-athletes enrolled in college before July 1, 2016 or after the next recruiting cycle.

The next recruiting cycle, however, focuses on student-athletes first entering in Fall 2016. Further, new recruits may receive offer letters as early as August 1, 2015, the first day colleges can offer scholarships to their recruits in the 2016-17 class …

August 13, 2014 Contract / NFL

NY Islanders Sale Put on Ice, Would-Be Buyer Seeks $10 Million in Damages

On Monday, August 11, New York Islanders owner Charles Wang was served with a lawsuit demanding $10 million in damages for allegedly backing out of a deal to sell the team.

Philadelphia based hedge-fund manager Andrew Barroway’s company NY ICE claims that on March 10, Wang and Barroway reached a sale agreement, culminating in a handshake. NY ICE was to receive 100% equity in the Islanders in exchange for $420 million. The papers filed in New York County Supreme Court state that the negotiations began …

Copyright Conundrum: Photographer Accuses Wikimedia of Monkey Business

British Photographer, David Slater is irate over Wikimedia’s inclusion of his photograph in Wikimedia Commons, an online archive of royalty-free images. Slater submitted a request for its removal but Wikimedia has adamantly refused to take it down, stating that Slater has no claim on the image as he did not take it; a monkey did.

In 2011, Slater traveled to Indonesia with his photography equipment to capture the crested black macaques in their natural habitat. After he left his camera unattended, some of the monkeys …

August 12, 2014 Music

ASCAP and BMI: Music Publishers’ Digital Rights Should be Separable

Both American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (“ASCAP”) and Broadcast Music Inc. (“BMI”) have made submissions to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to support the arguments of Sony/ATV and Universal that music publishers should be allowed to choose which services to license through performing right collecting services like ASCAP or BMI.

Their submissions came as the DOJ engages in a review of the collective licensing system triggered by the recent court decision prohibiting music publishers from separately negotiating their digital rights given the consent …

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