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Last week, Senator Josh Hawley proposed a new copyright bill in the Senate that would have the effect of eviscerating existing copyrights for certain parties. The bill is known as the Copyright Clause Restoration Act. The bill would only affect entities with market caps exceeding $150 billion, which for practical purposes demonstrates that it is unambiguously intended to punish the Walt Disney Company for Disney’s recent stance against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida. As if the legislation itself didn’t make its vindictive intent clear, Senator Hawley’s office released a statement saying that, “Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists.” This isn’t just absurd, but its patently false. Disney doesn’t receive special copyright protections. Those protections exist for all copyright holders that choose to take full advantage of the Copyright Act. After reviewing the legislation, it’s clear that this is nothing more than the Senator pandering to his base, and not a serious attempt to reform copyright law.
Continue Reading Senator Hawley’s Sham Copyright Reform Bill Takes Aim at The Walt Disney Company

The Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari filed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts that arises from a copyright infringement action filed by photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who took the photos of Prince that were subsequently the subject of Warhol’s allegedly infringing works. In short, Warhol painted multiple works of art utilizing Goldsmith’s photographs as source material. Warhol and now his foundation believed that the work was transformative in nature and therefore not infringing. Goldsmith disagreed and filed suit in federal court.
Continue Reading The Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Copyright Infringement Action Involving Warhol, Prince, and Goldsmith

In what could be one of the biggest NFT cases to arise so far, Nike has sued resale marketplace StockX for trademark infringement in the Southern District of New York, claiming that StockX is selling NFTs that display Nike’s trademarks without Nike’s permission. In the Complaint, Nike alleges that StockX has infringed nine of its sneaker designs to create a line of NFTs that are part of its collection that StockX has branded the “Vault.” The collection consists entirely of allegedly unauthorized images of Nike sneakers. According to Nike, that’s because StockX is using Nike’s reputation and popularity to increase its sales. Specifically, Nike alleges that “Recognizing firsthand the immense value of Nike’s brands, StockX has chosen to compete in the NFT market not by taking the time to develop its own intellectual property rights, but rather by blatantly freeriding, almost exclusively, on the back of Nike’s famous trademarks and associated goodwill.”
Continue Reading Nike Tries to Stomp Out StockX’s Attempt to Sell NFTs of Nike Sneakers

In this episode of The Briefing from the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss a trademark infringement lawsuit that was filed against a beauty influencer for a sponsored post she shared on social media.
Continue Reading The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: Sponsored Post Lands Beauty Influencer in Trademark Infringement Lawsuit