Blog Posts
Do Not Compete: How Trade Secret Protections in the Northeast Paved the Way for Silicon Valley’s Tech Boom
Jan. 17, 2021—By Sherif Robert Hesni Before the emergence of Silicon Valley as a hotspot for innovative technology, Boston’s Route 128 Technology Corridor was the largest tech hub in the United States. Throughout the last three decades of the twentieth century, Route 128 was surrounded by businesses working on cutting-edge minicomputers and household appliances. By the 1990s,...
How Warner Bros. Managed to Piss Off All of Hollywood in One Fell Swoop
Dec. 18, 2020—By Chandler Gerard-Reimer Unsurprisingly, movie theater box offices have been devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic, down over 70% from 2019. Theaters across the country have been forced to shut their doors, many permanently, and blockbuster releases such as Black Widow and the new Bond film have been pushed back repeatedly. In response, this week WarnerMedia,...
The Robots Have Arrived…to Judge Gymnastics
Nov. 8, 2020—By Jacqueline Chan The 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships marked a significant milestone in the gymnastics world, as it was the first time that artificial intelligence technology was used to help calculate gymnasts’ scores. An artificial intelligence system from the Japanese company Fujitsu used “a set of three-dimensional laser sensors” to collect movement data from...
Is Social Media Immunity at Risk of Being Revoked?
Nov. 1, 2020—By Steven Heinrich Section 230 has been one of the most influential pieces of legislation in shaping the internet as we know it today, but it has recently come under intense scrutiny. First, to describe what § 230 is, § 230 was enacted in 1996, and it protects companies from facing liability for user generated...
Minor Leaguers’ Major Lawsuit
Oct. 25, 2020—By Michael Carlisi Major League Baseball prepares to celebrate the end of a season and the crowning of a champion. It also prepares to enter a new stage of litigation against minor league baseball players. Minor league baseball players play for teams that are contractually affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams to develop their...
Stairway to Heaven, but Not to the Supreme Court: Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin
Oct. 25, 2020—By Brandon Evans Whether you realize it or not, nearly everyone has the opening riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” The iconic arpeggiated riff has become one of the recognizable pieces of American music. But, was it stolen? That’s what the Ninth Circuit had to determine in Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin. In Skidmore, Michael...
Bad Blood: A Look at Taylor Swift and Artists’ Rights
Oct. 18, 2020—By Sara Norton Barely a quarter-mile from Vanderbilt University sat Big Machine Label Group LLC, an independent Nashville-based music company, home to artists like Sheryl Crow and Rascal Flatts. In June of 2019, however, the label was acquired by Ithaca Holdings LLC, Scooter Braun’s closely held corporation. Braun already possessed Schoolboy Records label, a music...
Bansky’s Battle: The Dispute over the Artist’s Intellectual Property Rights
Oct. 18, 2020—By Olivia Arboneaux The pseudonymous street artist Banksy has a decision to make. Either Banksy will have to fundamentally change the way they practice art or risk saying goodbye to their intellectual property rights. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has invalidated Bansky’s trademark for Rage, the Flower Thrower, which questions the validity of...
Fake It ‘Til You Make It: Promoting Authenticity in Social Media via the Legal System
Oct. 11, 2020—By Katherine Denney As discussed in Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma,” social media now has, intentionally or unintentionally, transformed the structures of our society. In no more than a single year, a teenage girl’s life was completely changed by her presence and posting on the social media platform TikTok. The platform has allowed Charli D’Amelio to...
Should We Break Up Big Tech and How Could We Do it?
Oct. 11, 2020—By Bruce Johnson It is no secret that “Big Tech” companies, including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook, compose a staggeringly large part of the market and have influence over an equal, if not more generous, share of our day-to-day lives. Facebook has over 2.4 billion active users, Amazon accounts for nearly 40 percent of all...