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In an Order last week, Judge McMahon asked the lawyers in a copyright infringement case over the young adult book series Crave (see the operative complaint here) how they planned to conduct a forthcoming jury trial, given the massive volume of evidence—both the book series itself and, separately, the plaintiff’s unpublished manuscripts from which the series was allegedly stolen.

The case was filed by family law attorney and aspiring novelist Lynn Freeman who for years sought to publish her book Blue Moon Rising. After having failed to find a publisher, she came across a book, Crave by Tracy Wolff, with striking similarities. Wolff, it turned out, had the same literary agent as Freeman. Freeman would later sue for copyright infringement. (For more case background, see the New Yorker’s feature on the case).

Judge Stanton denied summary judgment, agreeing with Magistrate Judge Netburn’s report and recommendation that there were fact issues about whether Wolff had access to Freeman’s manuscripts (via their common agent) and whether Wolff “copied parts, large or small.”

The case was assigned to Judge McMahon, who initially suggested that the parties agree to a bench trial because, among other things, it would make it easier to manage the volume of evidence: “I promise I will read everything that either side wants to submit to a trier of fact — all the books, all the notes and all the drafts.”

The parties’ decision to proceed with a jury trial is what gave rise to last week’s Order, and Judge McMahon’s query on how to present the evidence. As Judge McMahon explained, it would not suffice for the manuscripts by Freeman or the Crave series itself to be admitted into evidence merely by way of summaries:Continue Reading In Case Over Allegedly Infringing Teen Romance Book Series, Judge McMahon Asks Counsel: How To Efficiently Try A Case With 10,000-Plus Pages Of Allegedly Infringing Material?

In an MDL brought by private plaintiffs challenging Google’s allegedly monopolistic digital advertising practices, Judge Castel ruled on Monday that Google was precluded from relitigating issues decided in an April bench trial ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia. The Virginia case involved similar monopolization allegations, but was brought by DOJ and state attorneys general.

Judge Castel found that the elements for issue preclusion were met — that is, that the Virginia case involved the same issues, that Google had a fair chance to litigate the issues, and that they were necessary to a final judgment — but noted that issue preclusion, as an equitable doctrine, required him to also consider the overall fairness of binding a litigant to adverse findings from another case.

On that point, Judge Castel found “no unfairness to Google” in applying issue preclusion, especially given the “massively high stakes” of the Virginia case:Continue Reading Judge Castel: Google Barred From Relitigating Issues Decided In DOJ Digital Ad Monopoly Case

On Wednesday, Reddit Inc. sued Perplexity AI and three “data scrapers,” alleging the companies are circumventing its technological safeguards to unlawfully acquire Reddit’s copyrighted data to “feed” Perplexity’s artificial intelligence model.

Reddit is one of the largest online discussion platforms in the world and “comprises nearly two decades of human conversational data organized across interest-based, user-created communities (referred to as “subreddits”) spanning subjects on virtually every topic imaginable.” According to Reddit, this human-generated content is “widely seen as invaluable to AI companies,” who require a consistent source of new data to “train and operate their AI products.” Reddit “does not permit unauthorized commercialization of Reddit content absent an express agreement with guardrails in place to ensure that Reddit and its users’ rights are protected.”Continue Reading Reddit Sues Perplexity AI and Data Scrapers for “Industrial-Scale” Theft of “Valuable Copyrighted Content”

On Tuesday, Judge Kaplan awarded approximately $500,000 attorneys’ fees, under a contractual fee-shifting provision, to a defendant that won a motion to dismiss and defended the win on appeal. The plaintiff had sought to rescind certain transactions as inconsistent with the securities laws, but the defendant successfully moved to dismiss the complaint back in February 2024. The Court declined to rule on defendant’s motion for contractually-mandated attorneys’ fees until the appeal was finalized. After the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal in August, the defendant renewed its motion, based on agreements between the parties that provided for “reasonable attorney’s fees and costs” in any litigation.Continue Reading Judge Kaplan Gives 20% Haircut To Attorneys’ Fees For Appeal, Finding 100 Hours For Argument Prep “Lavish” 

Earlier today, Judge Vargas dismissed Drake’s defamation suit against his recording company of 20 years, UMG Recordings, Inc., stemming from “perhaps the most infamous rap battle in the genre’s history, the vitriolic war of words that erupted between superstar recording artists Aubrey Drake Graham (‘Drake’) and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (‘Lamar’ or ‘Kendrick Lamar’) in the spring of 2024.” Drake alleged that UMG intentionally published and promoted Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us,” which accused Drake of being a pedophile, while knowing the accusations were false and defamatory.

The court held that “Not Like Us” was “nonactionable opinion” and therefore not defamatory. The deciding factor of the analysis was “the overall context in which the assertions were made”:Continue Reading Judge Vargas: Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” is Nonactionable Opinion

On Thursday, Judge Ho largely denied the motions for summary judgment of three fertility-services-related defendants against negligence claims stemming from the failed freezing of unfertilized eggs (oocytes). In 2014, Plaintiff Larisa Lev-Ary underwent a medical procedure to extract and store her oocytes. Sixteen of these oocytes were deemed viable and subsequently frozen until 2021, when…

Last week, Judge Analisa Torres issued a temporary restraining order, seizure order, and order to show cause against unidentified sellers of counterfeit tour merchandise ahead of a Benson Boone concert at Madison Square Garden. Plaintiff Ceremony of Roses Acquisition LLC (“Ceremony of Roses”) alleges that it possesses the exclusive right to sell merchandise bearing Benson Boone’s federally registered trademarks, and highlighted in its moving papers that similar seizure orders had issued ahead of tours from other artists, including Harry Styles, Nicky Manaj and the Jonas Brothers.Continue Reading Judge Torres Issues TRO Against Sellers of Infringing Concert Merchandise

On Monday, Judge McMahon denied a series of outstanding post-trial motions in the long-running Omnicare litigation, in which the Government alleged under the False Claims Act (FCA) that Omnicare filed over 11.5 million false claims with government programs for prescription medication dispensed without a proper prescription. In April, the jury found for the Government, awarding…

In an opinion Friday, Judge Cronan quashed subpoenas issued by the country of Türkiye to various U.S. banks for information relating to Cevdet Turkyolu, a U.S. resident and member of the faith-based Gülen movement that has fallen into disfavor with the Turkish government. The subpoenas were issued under 28 U.S.C. § 1782, which authorizes U.S. courts to issue discovery in aid of foreign proceedings.

Türkiye claimed the information was relevant to criminal cases in Türkiye against Turkyolu, but Judge Cronin found insufficient evidence that the criminal cases would actually go forward or that the requested evidence could be used. In addition, as a matter of discretion, Judge Cronan found that the suspicious circumstances of the subpoenas “weigh[ed] heavily” against enforcement of the subpoenas. In essence, there was reason to think the subpoenas were issued as political retaliation:Continue Reading Judge Cronan Quashes “Troubling” Turkish Government Subpoenas Seemingly Intended As Political Retaliation