A-Rod Sues Yankees Doc For Malpractice

In the midst of his appeal of a 211-game suspension arising from the alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, Alex Rodriguez just filed the anticipated malpractice suit against a Yankees’ team physician. Professional Liability Matters posted of the rumblings of a malpractice suit in August. Now, the other shoe dropped. Although the allegations are serious, many speculate that A-Rod’s real goal of this lawsuit is to distract from A-Rod’s steroid controversy and to deflect blame.

To read the rest of this article, please visit Professional …

October 4, 2013 Advertising / Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Rights / Trademark / TV

FX facing mark’s F-X-Xtinction?

The name seemed silly from the moment those commercials started to run. You know them — the ones with the cast members of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia speaking to each other in what sounds, to the naked ear, like Swedish. The ad spots changed as the summer season rolled out on FX, but the punchline of each promo was always the same, with one cast member saying the name of the channel that the great comedy show was moving to. Repeat after Danny DeVito: …

September 30, 2013 Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Rights

Disney Suing Musical Company for Infringement

Last week, entertainment giant Disney file suit against a Pennsylvania based Entertainment Theatre Group, doing business as American Music Theatre (AMT). In its complaint, Disney alleges that AMT’s production, Broadway: Now and Forever, infringes its rights and is seeking damages.

AMT is staging Broadway: Now and Forever, a show that billed as a “larger-than-life theatrical compilation of unforgettable music from the hottest new blockbusters to all-time favorite classics.” “Broadway: Now and Forever recreates the greatest moments ever on stage.”

The show …

September 27, 2013 Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Music / Rights

SiriusXM: “It Ain’t Me Babe”

Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, the principal songwriters and vocalists of 60’s pop group The Turtles, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of New York, against SiriusXM Radio, Inc., the satellite radio giant, captioned Flo & Eddie Inc., et al. v. SiriusXM Radio, Inc.; and Does 1 through 10, No. 13 CIV 5784, in mid-August. Perhaps signaling the urgency and seriousness of the situation, this past week attorneys from the New York-based law firms Weil, Gotschal and Manges LLP …

September 26, 2013 Doping / Litigation

Armstrong Faces Uphill Battle Against US Justice Department’s Lawsuit

In the wake of Lance Armstrong’s doping confession, the tide is still not settled. On Monday, September 23, 2013, the US Department of Justice, on behalf of the US Postal Service, urged a federal judge to allow the government’s fraud lawsuit against Armstrong to continue.

In January 2013, the Toure de France “winner” confessed to using performing enhancing drugs in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey. The confession was “arguably the greatest fraud in the history of professional sports,” according to a government filing.

In …

September 24, 2013 Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Music / Rights

Run DMC(A): No Safe Harbor for Vimeo against EMI?

It started with a simple equation: “Vimeo is video + you.” Yet this formula and model for the new “user-generated content”-fueled Internet has morphed into a case that could very well test the limits of the protection afforded to “service providers” under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This past week, a federal judge found that a particular “safe harbor provision” of the DMCA, which has been invoked successfully by user-generated content providers like YouTube and Veoh in their respective quests to protect and insulate …

September 13, 2013 Advertising / Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Trademark / TV

Godzilla vs. Mechahopzilla

Beer Advocate, the Godzilla of beer reviewers, gave Mechahopzilla, the newest IPA entry from the New Orleans Lager & Ale Brewing Company (NOLA) a score of 89 percent and an overall rating of “very good.” But there was at least one company that was not overjoyed with the summer success of a beer known as Mechahopzilla and, as a result, NOLA appears to have gotten itself in some hop-filled, boiling water. This week, the popular brewer was dragged into federal court, in the Eastern …

September 6, 2013 Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Music

Marvin Gaye Estate to Robin Thicke: Let’s Get It On

Robin Thicke was back in the news this past week. No, we’re not talking about his provocative appearance with Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards, which garnered him — and his performance partner — attention the world over. A recent development regarding the undisputed song of the summer, “Blurred Lines,” has Thicke wondering whether he’s “Got To Give It Up.” It was reported that the Estate of Marvin Gaye rejected a “six-figure” offer to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against Thicke.

This comes …

August 30, 2013 Copyright / Intellectual Property / Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / TV

Advantage, Williams Sisters?

As Serena Williams effortlessly marched on to the third round of the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadow yesterday, it was a recent victory for the Open’s number-one seed on (or in) another court that caught the Sports Law Insiders attention in the last couple of weeks. On August 13, in the case entitled United States Tennis Association Incorporated v. VSW Productions LLC, M& M Films, Inc., Maiken Baird and Michelle Major, 13 CV 4124, District Judge Nelson Roman of the Southern District of New …

July 30, 2013 Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Trademark / Litigation / Music / Trademark

I.AM.INFRINGING?

Blurring the lines (via possible dilution, of course) of who has the right to a trademark incorporating the words “I AM,” early last week Judge Michael Dolinger of the Southern District ordered attorneys to agree to a discovery schedule and move forward with the case I Am Other Entertainment LLC v. William Adams and I.Am.Symbolic, LLC, 13-cv-4547 or, as everyone else knows it, the lawsuit in which Pharrell Williams (Pharrell), writer/rapper/singer/producer and the voice behind some of this summer’s biggest hits (Daft Punk’s “Get …