Media & Entertainment Law360

TOP NEWS

Justices To Review If Officials Can Block Social Media Critics

By Tiffany Hu

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up two separate appeals in the Ninth and Sixth circuits over when public officials can block individuals from their Facebook pages.

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9th Circ. Upholds Trial Rulings In Epic-Apple Antitrust Suit

By Matthew Perlman

A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday upheld a lower court’s finding that Apple’s App Store policies don’t violate federal antitrust law but do violate California’s unfair competition law.

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Analysis

Trump’s Legal Pressures Mount As Rape Trial Opens In NY

By Stewart Bishop

Jury selection begins Tuesday in writer E. Jean Carroll’s civil suit accusing former President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s, the first of several trials Trump may face as he tries to recapture the White House.

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CBS-Viacom Derivative Merger Suit Settles For $167.5M In Del.

By Jeff Montgomery

Paramount Global has agreed to settle for $167.5 million remaining claims in a Delaware Chancery Court suit filed by stockholders more than three years ago challenging the terms and fairness of CBS Corp.’s $30 billion acquisition of Viacom Inc. in late 2019.

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Ed Sheeran IP Trial To Open After Musical Jury Selection

By Rachel Scharf

A trial over whether Ed Sheeran’s pop hit “Thinking Out Loud” copied Marvin Gaye’s iconic “Let’s Get It On” is set to begin Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, following a voir dire process that eliminated music professionals and Sheeran fans from the jury panel.

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Cohen Seeks Damages At 2nd Circ. For Retaliatory Jail Time

By Lauren Berg

Former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on Monday asked the Second Circuit to revive his lawsuit alleging he was thrown in prison as revenge for his plan to publish a book critical of his former boss, saying he is owed damages for the former president’s attempt to silence him.

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Attys Want Up To $26M For Madison Square Garden Suit Deal

By Rose Krebs

Attorneys representing stockholders who have struck an $85 million deal to end one of two suits in Delaware Chancery Court over Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s 2021 merger with MSG Networks intend to seek up to roughly $26 million for their work on the case.

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DEALS

Trillium Capital Announces $3.95B Bid To Buy Getty Images

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Activist investor Trillium Capital LLC on Monday announced a proposal to purchase Getty Images for roughly $3.95 billion, marking the investor’s latest move as it has been putting increasing pressure on the multimedia content giant.

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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

TikTok Seeks $8M In Fees For Gibson Dunn Team After TM Win

By Henrik Nilsson

TikTok and its counsel from Gibson Dunn are seeking more than $8 million in attorney fees after a California federal jury cleared the company in a trademark suit, saying plaintiff Stitch Editing’s “bad faith” approach warrants the sum.

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PRIVACY & CONSUMER PROTECTION

Clearview Fights Sanctions Bid In Photo Privacy MDL

By Lauraann Wood

Clearview AI has urged an Illinois federal judge not to impose sanctions over its allegedly belated document turnover in multidistrict litigation targeting the company’s photo-scraping practices, saying the plaintiffs are complaining about “ordinary discovery disputes.”

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COMPETITION

Consumers, States Want $3M From Google For Chat Deletion

By Lauren Berg

Consumers, state enforcers and Match Group, who allege Google monopolizes the market for distributing apps on Android devices, asked a California federal judge Friday to order the tech giant to pay $3 million to cover their costs associated with bringing a sanctions motion over Google’s automatic deletion of internal chats.

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EMPLOYMENT

Meta Tells 9th Circ. Citizens Not Protected By Civil Rights Law

By Rae Ann Varona

Facebook’s parent company urged the Ninth Circuit not to revive a class action accusing it of unlawfully hiring visa holders over U.S. citizens, saying a California court rightly ruled that citizens weren’t a protected class under a civil rights law.

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Ga. Must Redo COVID Unemployment Benefits Case

By Rosie Manins

The Georgia Department of Labor must reconsider a sales representative’s application for unemployment insurance benefits after the agency decided she quit her job by leaving a 2020 work meeting over concerns that her employer wasn’t following COVID-19 protocols, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

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SECURITIES & WHITE COLLAR

Crypto Influencer Says He Never Harassed FTX Investors’ Atty

By Carolina Bolado

A cryptocurrency influencer told a Florida magistrate judge Monday that he never threatened an attorney representing investors in collapsed cryptocurrency platform FTX with anything but litigation and loss of his law license, and he denied the allegations of harassment leveled against him.

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Changes To $3.5B Pandora-Sirius Merger Suit Spiked In Del.

By Jeff Montgomery

Attorneys for Pandora Media Inc. stockholders on Monday dropped a pretrial bid to re-amend their complaint accusing Sirius XM Radio and Pandora directors of wrongly lining up an unfair, $3.5 billion buyout, after Delaware’s chancellor warned that the changes would delay a May 19 trial start.

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Ex-Fox Exec Seeks Acquittal Following FIFA Bribery Trial

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

The former CEO of Fox International Channels urged a New York federal judge to erase his money laundering and wire fraud convictions in the latest FIFA corruption trial, arguing that federal prosecutors failed to show that anyone at South American soccer confederation CONMEBOL was unaware of the bribery of its executives.

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Prickett Jones Atty Tapped To Be Special Master For AMC Suit

By Leslie A. Pappas

The Delaware Chancery judge overseeing a stockholder challenge to AMC Entertainment’s controversial stock conversion proposal said Monday she will appoint Corinne Elise Amato of Prickett Jones & Elliott PA as special master to help to review the flood of comments, letters, requests to intervene and objections the court has received to a proposed settlement of the case.

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Catching Up With Delaware’s Chancery Court 

By Leslie A. Pappas

Chancery Court watchers saw signs of a small Delaware exodus last week, as evidence emerged of a number of blank-check companies moving offshore and TripAdvisor put a journey to Nevada on its itinerary. More than a billion dollars’ worth of settlements involving Dell, Sears, Bioverativ, Madison Square Garden, and possibly AMC moved ahead, while elsewhere boards split and shareholders sued.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

‘Scrum For 6G’ Already Underway, FCC Chair Says

By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

The head of the Federal Communications Commission has told high-tech experts that the wave of sixth-generation cellphones will soon be upon the U.S. and the rest of the world, and American policymakers should prepare now.

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NAB Asks DC Circ. To Force FCC Media Ownership Review

By Christopher Cole

The National Association of Broadcasters late Monday asked the D.C. Circuit to require the Federal Communications Commission to “expeditiously conclude” its four-year review of broadcast ownership rules pending since 2018.

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FCC Faces Hill Pressure To Expand Rural Deployment Funds

By Christopher Cole

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has assured lawmakers from states with large rural areas that her agency plans to reform two cost-sharing models used to set funding levels for high-speed connectivity in hard-to-reach regions.

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Rural Broadband Rules Leave Vt. Short, USDA Told

By Nadia Dreid

Vermont’s junior senator wants to know what the U.S. Department of Agriculture needs in order to increase the access to two broadband programs that he says are being underused in the state because of Vermont’s unique characteristics.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Utah Social Media Law May Set Tone For Child Safety Regs

Utah’s recently passed Social Media Regulation Act demonstrates growing trends in state laws that aim to protect children and teens online, and offers compliance considerations for social media companies as other states follow suit, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

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Lawyer Discernment Is Critical In The World Of AI

In light of growing practical concerns about risks and challenges posed by artificial intelligence, lawyers’ experience with the skill of discernment will position them to help address new ethical and moral dilemmas and ensure that AI is developed and deployed in a way that benefits society as a whole, says Jennifer Gibbs at Zelle.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Titans Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Pointer & Buelna’s Name Partners

By Ben Kochman

Adanté Pointer lived through what he calls countless moments of police misconduct growing up in West Oakland, California.

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Paul Hastings Hires Kirkland Veteran To Lead Funds Practice

By Xiumei Dong

Paul Hastings LLP is expanding its investment funds and private capital practice with the addition of five current and former Kirkland & Ellis partners, led by veteran partner John Budetti, who has been named the new global chair of the practice, the firm announced Monday.

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BCLP To Open Seattle Office This Summer With 2 Litigators 

By Tracey Read

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP announced Monday it will establish a presence in the Pacific Northwest this summer by opening a Seattle office with two litigators from Portland-based Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt PC.

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Women See Gains In Sports Business From GC Jobs To Deals

By Sue Reisinger

When Shameeka Quallo was named general counsel last week of the National Women’s Soccer League’s Washington Spirit, she became the latest example of the growing presence and acceptance of women in the business of American sports.

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Justices Appear To Back Appeals For ‘Purely Legal’ Issues

By Jess Krochtengel

U.S. Supreme Court justices appear poised to reverse a minority of circuits that require legal arguments raised at the summary judgment stage to be reasserted after trial to be preserved for appeal, after oral arguments Monday that delved into nuances of trial practice.

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3 Justices Protest Court’s Snub Of Death Row Inmate’s Appeal

By Marco Poggio

Three U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday called “disheartening” their colleagues’ decision not to hear the case of a Tennessee death row inmate whose murder sentence has been clouded by claims of ineffective counsel.

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Sen. Wants Justice Thomas’ Billionaire Friend To Detail Gifts

By Jack Karp

A leading U.S. senator on Monday asked for information from the billionaire Republican donor alleged to have unreported financial dealings with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, just as other senators’ requests for an investigation into those dealings were referred to a federal judiciary committee.

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‘Charging Decisions’ To Come In Ga. DA’s 2020 Election Probe

By Hailey Konnath

Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis said Monday that she plans to announce “charging decisions” in the “near future” stemming from her investigation into former President Donald Trump’s possible criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 election, according to a letter sent to law enforcement agencies.

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Deutsche Bank Hires New General Counsel From Merck

By Adrian Cruz

Deutsche Bank AG has appointed pharmaceutical giant Merck Group’s longtime general counsel as its new legal chief, starting in the first week of September, the company announced Monday.

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NY Atty Coaching Co. Says Rival Pressing It Over Contract, IP

By Emily Sawicki

A New York attorney coaching company has sued a Colorado competitor in New York federal court, requesting declarations that it has not violated a contract signed by its CEO when she took a course from the competitor in 2017, nor has it violated the competitor’s pending trademark.

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