Media & Entertainment

Our team handles everything from mass piracy and unauthorized distribution to complex issues like copyright termination, fair use and ownership challenges tied to evolving technologies such as NFTs and user-generated content. Our experience includes:

• Walt Disney Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures in successfully defending the studios against claims for indirect profits by Rearden LLC on alleged secondary copyright infringement based on a third-party vendor’s use of Rearden’s motion capture software on seven of the biggest films of the 2010s. Rearden has settled with the studios and dismissed its complaint.
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in obtaining dismissal, now on appeal, of a lawsuit filed by Yout LLC alleging that RIAA improperly sent anti-circumvention notices to YouTube, resulting in YouTube delisting Yout’s URL, because the Yout service circumvents RIAA’s rolling cipher anti-piracy technology. The case was recently argued before a three-judge appellate panel of the Second Circuit.
• Netflix in obtaining dismissal of an international copyright infringement matter alleging the subtitling and dubbing of a South Korean film, #Saraitda, into English infringed HIG’s copyright interests in the screenplay that underlies both #Saraitda and HIG’s English-language film, Alone.
• Alliance for Creativity in Entertainment, an organization that includes Amazon Studios, Netflix and other streaming services, in litigating multiple enforcement actions to shut down pirate streaming services.

We handle a broad range of litigation matters for media and entertainment clients, including class actions, antitrust matters, contract disputes and confidential internal investigations. Our experience includes:

• Snap in ongoing multidistrict litigation and a California state court coordinated proceeding, alleging injuries to minor users from alleged “addiction” to social media. Recently, in the California state court litigation, the defendants, which include Google, a social platform and a video platform, won a dismissal without leave to amend of four test cases brought by school districts on public nuisance claims.
• Electronic Arts in nationwide products-liability cases regarding allegedly addictive video games, in which the defendants defeated a petition to consolidate the cases before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
• Netflix in:
  • defending against a claim for defamation filed by Rachel DeLoache Williams, the former friend of the infamous “fake German heiress” Anna Sorokin, in the acclaimed Netflix docudrama, Inventing Anna. The case is pending in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
  • reaching a confidential settlement in a trademark matter related to the hit series, Bridgerton and the creators of The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical after the creators expanded from fan-themed content to producing live concerts and selling merchandise.
• Hulu in obtaining a successful voluntary dismissal of claims alleging that it engaged in an illegal “automatic renewal” scheme with respect to its paid subscription plans for Hulu-branded products and services, in violation of California Automatic Renewal Laws.
• Twentieth Century Fox, with other cable programmers and distributors, in an antitrust class action alleging that content providers were improperly bundling their programming to cable and satellite distributors, in purported violation of the Sherman Act. We were successful in convincing the Ninth Circuit to affirm the dismissal.
• Universal City Studios, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, in obtaining denial of certification for a proposed class action lawsuit alleging the plaintiffs were deceived into renting the motion picture Yesterday because the trailer included an actor who did not appear in the version of the film they saw. The court granted Universal’s motion for attorneys’ fees and soon thereafter, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their case.