Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Ai Can't Adlib: Theorizing An Improvisation Carveout In The Work For Hire Doctrine, Audrey Pope

IP Theory

AI-generated actors and digital replicas are an increasingly pressing concern in the filmmaking industry. While this technology is only one of the myriad ways that generative AI is set to change Hollywood, debates about its use reflect a throughline in debates about AI generally: Can this technology do a convincing, much less desirable, job of what humans have done before? This Article argues that, at least in one particular context, the answer is no. It focuses on the art of adlibbing. It explains the unique position of improvisation within copyright law and proposes one mechanism—a carveout in the work for …

Should I Have Held Your Hand Or Can You Hold Your Own?: The Growing Confusion Over The Copyright Powers Songwriters Maintain Over Their Works, Mark Galinovsky

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

As online streaming and digital downloads continue to dominate the music business, songwriters are increasingly left to fight each other for tiny cuts of the profits. Additionally, a lack of consistent judicial rules and standards when adjudicating copyright infringement claims make litigation results uncertain, causing even potentially victorious defendants to agree to expensive settlements and frivolous grants of songwriting credits. This Note argues that in order to protect the future creative output of the music industry, judges and legislators should prioritize the dwindling power songwriters have over control of their original works of authorship.

Dancing On The Edge Of Copyright: Why Copyright Law Should Protect Short Dance Routines, Tianai Song

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that the Copyright Act should be amended to extend legal protection to short dance routines, regardless of their complexity or duration. This expansion aims to prevent the unauthorized appropriation of distinctive movements and ensure that creators, particularly those from Black and marginalized communities, are fairly recognized and compensated.

Designed Lands©Apes—Ar©Hitecture, Sculpture, Visual Art, Shape, Pi©Torial Work, Or . . . Nothing At All?, Richard H. Chused

Articles & Chapters

This article arises from the saga of the construction and eventual destruction of a landmark landscape architectural work by the well-known artist Mary Miss that was constructed adjacent to the Des Moines Art Center called Greenwood Pond: Double Site. The project’s demise is emblematic of the remarkably ambiguous copyright problems that surround such artistic creations. They do not neatly fit into any category of copyrightable works. Though they may contain sculptural works, their overall designs are rarely totally sculptural. While architects typically draw plans and “sculpt” a landscaped space, the results usually are not “buildings,’ as required by the definition …

Virtual Influencers, Real Liability: Strategies For Companies To Ensure Consumer Protection When Using Ai Influencers, Sherri Hufstedler

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

When You Wish Upon A Clause, Hannah Lee

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Fair Use Or Foul Play? Copyright Law’S Battle Over Using Sound Recordings In Ai Training, Matthew Schurz

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

How Slow Legislative Reform Allows For Fake News, The Remedies And Solutions To Modernize The Law, Christopher Kidwell

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Did Anderson V. Tiktok Get It Right? Holding Social Media Providers Accountable For Harm To Adolescents, Allison Mitton

BYU Law Review

When dangerous social media challenges go viral and cause harm to adolescents and young children, should the platform be held liable for pushing that content? As it currently stands, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1934 prevents this from happening. However, Anderson v. TikTok—a recent suit brought on behalf of a ten-year-old girl who died after asphyxiating herself while participating in the viral “Blackout Challenge”—seeks to change that.

The Third Circuit court in Anderson held that social media algorithms should be considered first-party speech, or the platform’s own expressive activity, rather than third-party speech, displaying its users’ expressive …

These Boots Were Made For Copyrighting: A Comparative Analysis Of Copyright Protection For The Shoe Industry In The European Union And United States And How It Is Impacting The “Dupe” Market, Annalee Gunderson

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

Copyright protection for fashion designs has always been slim, especially when it comes to shoes. Times seem to be changing as calls for increased protection in the industry have generated a new focus on changing the nature of copyright laws to better protect designs and designers. Two of the world’s fashion meccas, the United States and European Union, have their own different approaches to this issue. In the last decade, each territory’s most influential court, the United States Supreme Court in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands and the Court of Justice in the European Union in Cofemel v. G–Star Raw, …

Iconic Voices And Ai: The Legal Battle Against Voice Cloning, Ezra Ashkenazi

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) Blog

In a recent interview with The Guardian, the legendary Hollywood actor, Morgan Freeman, expressed his distaste with AI’s use of his voice. Freeman went on to say, “I get paid for doing stuff like that, so if you’re gonna do it without me, you’re robbing me.” Freeman went further and said that his lawyers “[A]re already ‘very, very busy’ tackling unauthorized artificial intelligence uses of his voice.” While that is the last we have heard from Freeman and his legal team on the matter, this article will analyze the potential legal arguments one can bring to enjoin a company’s …

Did Copyright Fail Music Artists?, Rachel Landy

Articles

Music soundtracks our lives, supports over two million domestic jobs annually, and is listened to more than ever before. The record industry is thriving, having made over $17 billion in 2024. Yet, many professional artists are barely surviving. Artists signed to record deals lament royalty payments that amount to a fraction of a penny for each stream of their songs. So where is all the money going, and who, or what, is to blame? Public rhetoric and existing legislative proposals implicate copyright as a guilty party. But are those concerns justified?

This Article unpacks the music supply chain. It builds …

Balancing A Circular Economy With Brand Protection: How Luxury Fashion Houses Can Regulate Upcycling Through Trademark Licensing, Olivia Dinkins

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The growing demand for sustainable fashion, particularly among younger consumers, has led to a surge in upcycling practices that repurpose pre-existing materials, often featuring luxury brand trademarks. While upcycling may support a circular economy and artistic innovation, it poses complex legal challenges for trademark owners, especially concerning consumer confusion, dilution, and the use of counterfeit materials. This Note explores the intersection of trademark law and sustainability in the luxury fashion sector, highlighting the tension between environmental responsibility and intellectual property protection. This Note first analyzes the way various courts have confronted these issues and the limitations of doctrines like first …

Copyright, Incentives, And Popular Music Composition, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of file sharing and the subsequent collapse in sales of recorded music offer a rare glimpse into a counterfactual world where copyright, for a time, was weakened. Comparing creative output before and after this exogenous shock allows us to test empirically whether incentives to copyright owners were correlated with creative output. In this article, I extend previous work on this issue from recording artists to songwriters and search for a correlation between incentives and popular music composition. In particular, I test three hypotheses. First, I test whether more incentives were associated with more or better popular musical compositions. …

More Than Medals: Protecting The Olympic Brand, Olivia M. Zykoff

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The enforcement of intellectual property rights is critical for brand protection. When a country is given the power to host an event as grand as the Olympic Games, it takes on immense responsibility to protect all aspects of the Games ahead. Importantly, as an international event that travels to a new host country every two years, the Olympic brand requires centralized protection, to be overseen by a leading body, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This Note reviews the foundational protections given to the Olympic brand by the IOC and examines the country-specific treatment and protections granted to Olympic properties at …

Frankenstein Sinatra: The Argument For A Federal Postmortem Right Of Publicity In The Ai-Era, Ian Samide

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Artificial Intelligence has fundamentally revolutionized the way media is generated and presents new and unique threats to the right of publicity. By enabling users to create high-quality, realistic deep fakes of individuals’ voices, images, or likenesses, Artificial Intelligence has created novel risks to the right of publicity. Additionally, right of publicity is currently governed by state law. This system is proving to be flawed in the internet age, as content is rarely confined to a single jurisdiction, resulting in unpredictability and juridical disputes. This note argues that a federal right of publicity is necessary to regulate Artificial Intelligence effectively and …

Did The Dodgers Ruin Baseball? Why Mlb’S Antitrust Exemption Stands In The Way Of A More Competitive League, Jack Ross

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) Blog

After the Los Angeles Dodgers’ series win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, remembered that, “[b]efore the season started, they said, ‘The Dodgers are ruining baseball … Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball. Let’s go!’” Because of this win, Roberts and the Dodgers made good on their promise by going on to win their second straight World Series. No, the Dodgers did not ruin baseball, but their dominance is representative of the growing disparity in competition between large and small-market teams.

Trademarks And M&A: Acquiring Brands In Blockbuster Deals, Cardozo Fame Center, Heyman Center On Corporate Governance, Intellectual Property Law Society, Business Law Society

2025–2026 Flyers

Join us for a dynamic conversation on how top attorney safeguard and structure the value of iconic fashion brands in major M&A transactions. The panel will explore trademark due diligence, deal strategy, and how brand identity shapes negotiations in the luxury market.

Control As A Constitutional Threshold: Moody V. Netchoice And The Case For Human Authorship, Giselle Goad

Northwestern University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC left a critical question unanswered: when do algorithmic outputs on social media platforms, such as recommended posts and videos, constitute the platform’s protected speech under the First Amendment? This Note contends that courts and litigants should borrow from the First Amendment’s speech-promoting partner, copyright law, and its authorship framework when answering that question. Copyright doctrine has already begun to grapple with how much human control is required over expressive outputs generated with the aid of technology, including AI, in order for an author to receive copyright protection over those outputs. …

Torts And Pesticide Drift: Amending Right-To-Farm Acts In The Wake Of Widespread Dicamba Drift By Nicholas Brown** And Matt Roessing*

Journal of Legal Studies in Business

When crops die in a field prior to harvest, a farmer loses a portion of his salary for that year. When the cause of the crop loss is natural, farmers can usually seek compensation through crop insurance and government commodity support programs. When the crops were lost as a result of pesticide drift, these forms of compensation are not usually available to farmers.1 In order to make up for their losses, farmers can seek damages through judicial redress. For many decades, various state and federal laws have combined to complicate and at times prevent farmers adversely affected by pesticide drift …

Cover Page & Table Of Contents - Volume 23

Journal of Legal Studies in Business

JLSB vol. 23 Title Page & Table of Contents

Incorporating Tax Law Into Legal And Regulatory Environment Of Business Courses

Journal of Legal Studies in Business

No abstract provided.

Too Much, Too Little, Or Just Right? Beyond The Perception (Or Reality) Of Law School Rigor In Teaching Undergraduate Copyright Law

Journal of Legal Studies in Business

No abstract provided.

Cardozo’S Sports Law Society And Antitrust Society Host House Settlement Lecture And Panel, Bradley Rosen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) Blog

Panelists for the event: Professor Marc Edelman, Bob Boland (Partner, Shumaker LLP), Michael Hsu (Co-founder, College Basketball Players Association), Adam Dale (Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP), Neha Vyas (Associate, Winston & Strawn LLP), Paul McDonald (Managing Partner, PL McDonald Law LLC), and Chris Brolley (Associate, Troutman Pepper Locke LLP).

On Wednesday, November 12, 2025, Cardozo’s Sports Law Society and Antitrust Society hosted a lecture and panel discussion regarding the implications of the House v. NCAA lawsuit and settlement. This included the potential for future antitrust liability as a result of the settlement, Title IX implications, the employment status of college …

Is The Game Rigged? Why Sports Betting Is Becoming A Legal Time Bomb, Lawrence Kirzhner

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) Blog

The International Olympic Committee defines “competition manipulation” as “when the result of a tournament or competition is partially or completely decided in advance and the match is played to ensure the pre-determined outcome.” Considering the Olympics hosts 43 sports, this definition can probably be applied to many, if not all, sports around the globe. While it is against the rules of sportsmanship as well as against the law, athletes “who bet on their sport might be tempted to fully or partially manipulate their competition in order to receive financial gain.” The sports world has experienced many scandals of manipulated competition …

Copyright And Ai, Cardozo Intellectual Property Law Society (Ipls), Cardozo Fame Center, Cece Cole, Hon. Saliann Scarpulla

2025–2026 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Living Property, Joseph William Singer

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court has increasingly defined property rights that are per se exempt from regulation in the absence of compensation, most recently in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) and Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023). The Court claims that it can identify property rights that are categorically protected from regulation by reference to history, tradition, and precedent. Yet this approach is oddly ahistorical; it is inconsistent with the fact that property law changed dramatically over U.S. history, as well as varying tremendously among the states. It is also inconsistent with the historical context of the Founding era. At that time, …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Redefining Section 230 Immunity, Lucas Dini

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet's growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform's …