Justia Entertainment & Sports Law Opinion Summaries

Sunbeam is one of Nielsen's customers in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and uses Nielsen's ratings in operating a FOX-affiliated broadcast television channel in Miami. Sunbeam filed an antitrust suit, the claims principally stemmed from Nielsen's alleged improper and defective implementation of new ratings technology. The court concluded that the district court correctly held that Sunbeam lacked antitrust standing to pursue this lawsuit as it failed to establish that it was an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws. Without antitrust standing, the court did not reach the other issues on appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sunbeam Television Corp. v. Nielsen Media Research, Inc." on Justia Law

Eastland is the proprietor of the rap duo Phifty-50, which, according to its web site, has to its credit one album (2003) and a T-shirt. Eastland has registered “PHIFTY-50” as a trademark. It also claims a trademark in “50/50” and contends that Lionsgate and Summit infringed its rights by using “50/50” as the title of a motion picture that opened in 2011. The district court dismissed, finding the movie’s title descriptive because the film concerns a 50% chance of the main character surviving cancer. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, stating that the complaint fails at the threshold: it does not allege that the use of “50/50” as a title has caused any confusion about the film’s source, and any such allegation would be too implausible to support costly litigation. The phrase 50/50 or a sound-alike variant has been in use as the title of intellectual property for a long time. If there is any prospect of intellectual property in the phrase 50/50, Eastland is a very junior user and in no position to complain about the 2011 film. View "Eastland Music Grp. LLC v. Lionsgate Entm't Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed an order and judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to Hofstra and dismissing her suit claiming harassment and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2000e-17; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681-88; and corresponding provisions of the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), N.Y. Exec. Law 290-301. Plaintiff claimed that she experienced harassment and retaliation while employed by Hofstra as a team manager for the university's football program. Because defendants took the needed remedial action in this case, the harassment carried out by some players on the football team could not be imputed to the university or its personnel. The district court erred, however, in its analysis of the McDonnell Douglas factors by holding that plaintiff could not prevail on any of her three retaliation claims based on her supposed failure to demonstrate that she had engaged in protected activity and the requisite causation. Therefore, the court held that plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to withstand a grant of summary judgment with respect to her retaliation claims, but not as to her sexual harassment claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Summa v. Hofstra University" on Justia Law

This litigation was the latest chapter in the efforts of Plaintiffs, including the commissioner of environmental protection, to close and remediate an area known as the "tire pond," a solid waste disposal area on land owned by Defendants, an individual and various corporate entities he owned or controlled. The nonparty plaintiff in error, Corporation, which conducted its business on land leased from an industrial park that contained a portion of the tire pond, brought this writ of error from the judgment of the trial court ordering it to vacate that land in order to effectuate the environmental remediation that the trial court had ordered in the action underlying this writ of error. The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of error, holding that the trial court properly ordered Corporation to vacate where (1) the trial court had the authority to enforce the injunctions ordered in the underlying action against Corporation; (2) such an order was necessary to effectuate the remediation; and (3) the trial court's enforcement of the injunctive orders rendered in the underlying action against Corporation did not violate Corporation's due process rights. View "Comm'r of Envtl. Prot. v. Farricielli" on Justia Law

The Memphis nightclub is located in a zoning district where adult entertainment has been prohibited since 1993. Although already allowed to present most forms of adult entertainment under a grandfather clause, the club desires to present adult entertainment in the form of compensated nude dancers and claims that an ordinance requiring a permit to present nude dancers is unconstitutional as an improper prior restraint and as vague. The club claims that a city official’s actions violated its procedural due process rights. Following a remand, the district court rejected its suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the club had forfeited its prior restraint argument, had not established vagueness, and had not established that it was deprived of a protected property or liberty interest when its dance permit was revoked and not reissued. View "600 Marshall Entm't Concepts, LLC v. City of Memphis" on Justia Law

Mattel filed suit against MGA, claiming that MGA infringed Mattel's copyrights by producing Bratz dolls. On appeal, Mattel challenged the jury's verdict that Mattel misappropriated MGA's trade secrets and the district court's award of attorneys fees and costs to MGA under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 505. The court held that MGA's claim of trade-secret misappropriation was not logically related to Mattel's counterclaim and therefore, the court reversed the district court's holding that MGA's counterclaim-in-reply was compulsory. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs under the Act, the court affirmed that award. View "Mattel, Inc., et al v. MGA Entertainment, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

Bogie attended a comedy show featuring Joan Rivers, who told a joke about Helen Keller, offending an audience member who had a deaf son. The audience member heckled Rivers; their brief exchange was filmed and was part of the documentary. When Rivers exited to a backstage area, closed to the public, Bogie gained entry and expressed frustration with the heckler and sympathy for Rivers. Rivers responded with an expression of sympathy for the heckler. The film shows at least three others present. The interaction was filmed and included in the documentary entitled Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Bogie’s conversation lasted 16 seconds in the film’s 82 minutes, 0.3 percent of the entire film. The documentary was distributed nationwide. Bogie alleges that she was portrayed in the film as having approved of condescending and disparaging remarks by Rivers toward Wisconsin, its citizens, and the heckler. Bogie’s complaint alleged that her privacy was invaded by the distribution of the film and that the film misappropriated her image for commercial purposes without her consent. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the footage was “incidental,” newsworthy, and not used for advertising. View "Bogie v. Rosenberg" on Justia Law

GameFly filed a complaint under 39 U.S.C. 3662(a) with the Commission accusing the Postal Service of providing preferential rates and terms of service to Netflix in violation of 39 U.S.C. 403(c). When the Commission properly finds that discrimination has occurred, it is obligated to remedy that discrimination, even if it concludes that none of the parties' proposed remedies is appropriate. The court held that, in this case, even if the Commission's rejection of GameFly's proposed remedies was reasonable, its order was still arbitrary and capricious because it left discrimination in place without reasonable explanation. Therefore, the court vacated the Commission's order and remanded the case for an adequate remedy. Accordingly, the court granted GameFly's petition for review. View "GameFly, Inc. v. PRC" on Justia Law

This case arose from a dispute over the character Superman that Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster jointly created and thereafter gave rights to DC Comic's predecessor. Defendants appealed the district court's denial of defendants' motion, pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16, to strike certain of DC Comics' state law claims. At issue was whether the court's decision in Batzel v. Smith remained good law after the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter. In Batzel, the court held that the collateral order doctrine permitted a party to take an interlocutory appeal of an order denying motions to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. The court held that such motions remained among the class of orders for which an immediate appeal was available. Thus, the holding in Batzel remained good law and the order denying the motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute remained immediately appealable pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. Therefore, the court had jurisdiction and decided the merits in a memorandum disposition filed concurrently. View "DC Comics v. Pacific Pictures Corp., et al" on Justia Law

In 1930, A.A. Milne transferred to Slesinger exclusive merchandising and other rights to Winnie-the-Pooh works in the U.S. and Canada. In 1961, Slesinger exclusively “assigned, granted, and set over to” Disney the rights in the 1930 agreement. A 1983 agreement sought to resolve the parties’ disputes, but Slesinger contends it retained rights in the works, while Disney maintains Slesinger assigned all rights. In 1991, before the present litigation, Slesinger sued in state court, alleging breach of the 1983 agreement. Slesinger acknowledged that the 1983 agreement “regranted, licensed and assigned all rights” to Disney. The action was ultimately dismissed. The dispute continued in federal court. The district court dismissed, noting that the parties’ actions indicated the rights were transferred to Disney in the 1983 agreement. Between 1983 and 2006, Disney registered at least 15 trademarks. In 2004, Disney registered copyrights in 45 works and renewed copyright registrations for another 14. Slesinger did not attempt to perfect or register trademarks or copyrights before asserting its federal claims and never objected to Disney’s registrations until 2006, when the state court dismissed its claims and Slesinger attempted to cancel Disney’s applications and marks. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s dismissal, citing estoppel. View "Stephen Slesinger, Inc. v. Disney Enters., Inc." on Justia Law