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Adidas, which manufactures and sells the wildly popular “Yeezy” line of shoes in partnership with rapper Kanye West, recently terminated the relationship after anti-Semitic statements by the star. In this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss the trademark and contract issues that Adidas is navigating with shoe designs and related designs in the future.
Continue Reading The Briefing by the IP Law Blog: The Sneakerhead Breakup of the Century – Yeezy and Adidas

A recent case filed by famous choreographer Kyle Hanagami is set to test the boundaries of copyright law in video games and on social media.

Mr. Hanagami is a popular choreographer with a large YouTube presence.  He won the 2020 iHeart Music Award for Favorite Music Video Choreography for BlackPink’s “Kill This Love” and holds the title for YouTube’s most viewed choreography video of all time. Crucially, he also holds the copyright to the dance to the Charlie Puth song “How Long.”…
Continue Reading Choreographer Challenges Fortnite’s Use of His Copyrighted Dance Moves

The IP Law Blog has been tracking the progress of the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Taylor Swift by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the writers of “Playas Gon’ Play” by the girl group 3LW (released in 2001).  (See “Taylor Swift Keeps Fighting the ‘Players’ and the ‘Haters’” and “Hall v. Swift: Nothing Original About a Player Hater”.) Hall and Butler allege that Swift’s lyrics in “Shake It Off” (“Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”) infringe on their song (“Playa, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate”).
Continue Reading Taylor Swift to Face Trial in “Shake it Off” Copyright Infringement Case Filed by Writers of 3LW’s “Playas Gon’ Play”