Sports & Entertainment Beat

This post was originally published on GSB's website as a GSB client update on April 2, 2019.

On March 4^th, the Supreme Court ruled that copyright owners must wait to file an infringement suit until the Copyright Office has registered the work. The unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.Com, LLC, affirmed the Eleventh Circuit and resolved a split among the circuit courts of appeal. The decision has significant implications for copyright holders and contract or legislation drafters, and comes at a time of change.

This post was originally published on GSB's website as a GSB Client Update on August 13, 2018.

Is Sports Betting Legal?

Until a recent Supreme Court decision addressed the question, the answer was fairly straightforward: sports betting was allowed in only four states. All other states were prohibited from legalizing sports betting.

On May 14, 2018, in Murphy v. NCAA, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”) on grounds that the Constitution prevents Congress from “commandeering” the legislative decision of states.        

Kristyn Fields is a former Garvey Schubert Barer legal extern who worked out of the firm's New York office. She was a law student at Brooklyn Law School.

Since the Aereo case, the debate over whether online television services should be regulated in the same way that cable providers are rages on in California federal court, with the recent case against the streaming service FilmOn X (“FilmOn”). FilmOn is facing copyright infringement claims from television networks and countering those claims by asserting that it is eligible for the same compulsory license as other broadcast providers. On July 16, 2015, Judge George Wu agreed with FilmOn’s defense, ruling that the company should be treated as a traditional cable provider and is entitled to a Section 111 compulsory license.