You read that correctly. Not to sound like a famous insurance commercial, but spending $65 up front could afford you much more in copyright infringement damages. Most photographers do not consider copyright registration until someone has already copied their work. By then, it may be too late for any significant recovery. Filing a copyright registration may feel like one more admin [ ... ]
The beloved Super Mario character began as Nintendo’s commercial property, with merchandise following only after consumers associated the character with a commercial source. Tung Tung Sahur, a bat-wielding wooden drum that became one of the Internet’s best-known “Italian brainrot” memes, took the opposite path, going viral as an AI-generated meme without a firmly establish [ ... ]
The Fifth Circuit ruled on August 27, 2026 that it will not follow the “server test,” the longstanding Ninth Circuit approach to determining copyright liability based on where content is stored, even as it left intact a lower court's dismissal of infringement claims against news aggregator NewsBreak.
Under the server test, established in Perfect 10 Inc. v. Amazon.com [ ... ]
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Before You Launch is a series exploring the legal considerations that arise before a project debuts. It covers the steps that writers, filmmakers, musicians, businesses and others can take to release their work with confidence.
Clearing rights and protecting material before release costs far less than dealing with a takedown, recall or lawsuit after publication. Although e [ ... ]
Welcome to the first installment of Before You Launch, our series on the legal considerations that arise before a project debuts. In this piece, we focus on film.
Before the premiere, festival submission or upload button, every filmmaker should be asking, “Do we actually have the rights to everything on screen?” Whether you are making a feature film, documentary, short [ ... ]
This is part of a continuing effort to alert copyright and trademark owners to sophisticated scams targeting their IP and suggest effective legal strategies for responding.
Strategic use of trademark and copyright tools can combat increasingly sophisticated and egregious scams targeting event websites.
The Lutzker & Lutzker team recently shut down a fake webs [ ... ]