Team

We represented our long-time educational publishing industry clients, Cengage, Elsevier, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Pearson, in litigating claims of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and contributory trademark infringement against Shopify, an e-Commerce platform, for allegedly assisting and profiting from the sale of pirated copies of eBooks and related teaching and testing materials. The case settled after discovery but prior to trial. (Eastern District of Virginia)

We obtained a $34.2 million jury verdict, $5 million fee award, and permanent injunction for our clients Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Wiley against a U.S. commercial distributor for willful trademark and copyright infringement arising from the importation and sale of counterfeit books. (Southern District of New York)

We are representing Cengage, Macmillan Learning, Elsevier, and McGraw Hill in a copyright and trademark infringement action against Google for its advertising of unauthorized, infringing copies of the Plaintiffs’ textbooks and educational works. (Southern District of New York)

We are representing Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO Music in copyright infringement litigation against Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company, for its unauthorized use and copying of over 20,000 musical compositions via its large language model Claude. (Northern District of California)

We successfully represented a group of the nation’s leading educational publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Cengage, Elsevier, and Macmillan Learning) in numerous litigation and non-litigation enforcement matters against commercial suppliers, importers, and sellers of counterfeits. We also obtained widespread adoption of industry best practices against counterfeiting, see www.stopcounterfeitbooks.com, a best practices guide to avoid counterfeits that we developed with the support of major publishers in over a dozen federal district courts across the country.

We successfully represented a group of the nation’s leading educational publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Cengage, Elsevier, and Macmillan Learning) in numerous litigation and non-litigation enforcement matters against hundreds of pirate websites, storefronts, or other illicit online sellers. We have obtained judgments, settlements, TROs, injunctions, asset freezes, and seizures of domain names and financial accounts.

We successfully represented Universal Music Group, as a third-party defendant, in litigation over the use of Nina Simone recordings in a major advertising campaign. (Southern District of New York)

We represented several leading educational publishers (Wiley, Cengage, Pearson, and McGraw-Hill) in successfully litigating claims of copyright infringement and fraud against an international network engaged in the purchase and sale of gray market and other goods. (District of New Jersey)

We obtained a landmark $1 billion jury verdict against one of the nation’s largest internet service providers (“ISPs”), Cox Communications, on behalf of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV, and Warner Chappell. After a three-week trial, the jury found Cox liable for willful contributory and vicarious infringement, for assisting and profiting from its subscribers’ uploading and downloading of copyrighted music through peer-to-peer networks such as Bit-Torrent. The litigation involved over 10,000 copyrights and it was reported as the fifth largest jury verdict in the United States in 2019. While the Fourth Circuit reversed the vicarious liability verdict and remanded for a new trial on damages, it affirmed the jury’s verdict of willful contributory infringement. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the question of contributory liability, and reversed and remanded. (Eastern District of Virginia; Fourth Circuit; Supreme Court)

We represented Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell in a copyright infringement litigation against Bright House Networks, an ISP, alleging Bright House assisted its subscribers’ repeated uploading and downloading of copyrighted music through peer-to-peer networks such as Bit-Torrent. The case involved over 7,000 copyrights, and it settled at the start of trial. (Middle District of Florida)

We represented Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell in a copyright infringement litigation against Charter Communications, an ISP, alleging Charter assisted and profited from its subscribers’ repeated uploading and downloading of copyrighted music through peer-to-peer networks such as Bit-Torrent. The case involved over 10,000 copyrights, and it settled after discovery but prior to trial. (District of Colorado)