Articles Posted in Appeals

The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of photographer Lynn Goldsmith in her copyright lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts concerning Andy Warhol's Prince Series prints. The lawsuit settles a split among appeals courts concerning the fair use defense in copyright cases.

A disbarred Tennessee personal injury lawyer was not entitled to assert that head injuries from his college football career, including possible CTE, negated the intent element necessary to convict him of federal bank fraud, the Sixth Circuit ruled.

The United States government filed an amicus brief on Monday, August 15, 2022, supporting photographer Lynn Goldsmith in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Lynn Goldsmith, a United States Supreme Court case concerning the fair use defense in copyright cases. 

On Monday, March 28, 2022, the United States Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Lynn Goldsmith and Lynn Goldsmith, Ltd. The case seeks to clarify a split between the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals concerning the fair use defense in copyright cases.

On Thursday, March 10, 2022, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a verdict favoring Google in a lawsuit brought by song lyrics website Genius. The lawsuit claimed that Google was displaying transcribed lyrics scraped by Google from Genius in search results in violation of Genius's copyright.

On Friday, January 28, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a district court's ruling dismissing a lawyer's lawsuit concerning negative online reviews. The appeals court ruled that the negative reviews were expressions of opinion that could not support a libel claim.

On October 8, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld summary judgment entered in favor of singer Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye. The summary judgment entered in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, concerned a copyright infringement claim alleging that The Weeknd's song A Lonely Night copied Brian Clover and Scott McCulloch's song I Need to Love.

On Thursday, August 26, 2021, the Supreme Court of California issued a ruling in People v. McDaniel, establishing precedent that jury unanimity and reasonable doubt do not apply to the sentencing phase in California criminal law cases where the death penalty is warranted.

Derek Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday after three weeks of trial and approximately one day of deliberation.

On Monday, December 21, 2020, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Github, LinkedIn, VMWare, and Internet Association filed a joint amici curiae brief in support of Facebook in NSO Group Technologies Limited, et al v. WhatsApp Inc., et al. The case is on appeal from the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, concerning a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, alleging that NSO Group's spyware was used to hack multiple devices through a vulnerability in WhatsApp's messaging service. NSO Group previously argued that it should enjoy sovereign immunity since its tools are sold to foreign governments.