Team

We obtained a preliminary injunction and declaratory judgment for the U.S. publishing industry against the Maryland Attorney General, preventing enforcement of a state-level compulsory license for copyrighted works. The court agreed with our argument that a state statute mandating that publishers license their literary works in digital format to public libraries, and under terms mandated by the state, is invalid, unconstitutional, and federally preempted. The ruling serves as a critical reminder that the nation’s copyright laws are a single federal system, within the exclusive domain of Congress rather than states. (District of Maryland)

We are representing several news publishers including Condé Nast, The Atlantic, and Vox in a copyright and trademark infringement action against Cohere, an artificial intelligence company, for its unauthorized use and copying of the publishers’ news and magazine articles and brand names. (Southern District of New York)

We represented two leading journal publishers, American Chemical Society and Elsevier, in a large-scale, high-profile copyright infringement litigation against ResearchGate, an online social network and file sharing/download service operated from Europe, based on ResearchGate’s unauthorized copying and distribution of peer-reviewed published journal articles. After discovery, the matter was resolved via a settlement and entry of an injunction that requires ResearchGate to take specified steps to prevent unauthorized use of our clients’ copyrighted works. (District of Maryland)

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 a group of major and independent music publishers in a copyright infringement litigation against X Corp. for its unauthorized use, including streaming, of musical compositions in videos on the Twitter platform. (Middle District of Tennessee)

We prevailed at summary judgment, and on appeal, on behalf of four major book publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley) in a copyright infringement litigation against Internet Archive over Internet Archive’s mass scanning of print books and online distribution of the resulting digital copies. In a powerful opinion, the district court rejected Internet Archive’s attempt to justify its conduct, something Internet Archive called “controlled digital lending,” as fair use. (Southern District of New York; Second Circuit)

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 Pearson, Cengage, and Macmillan Learning in a copyright and trademark infringement case against an online business for developing and marketing versions of our clients’ leading products. The resolution included a judgment and injunctive relief with damages payments, destruction of offending items, and additional copyright and brand protection. (Southern District of New York)

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 are representing SoundExchange in an action against Sirius XM to recover royalties Sirius XM owes to artists and copyright owners for digitally performing sounding recordings under statutory licenses. (Southern District of New York)

We successfully litigated copyright infringement and anti-circumvention claims against the owners and operators of two of the most popular “stream-ripping” services in the world, www.FLVTO.biz and www.2conv.com. On behalf of our clients Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music, we obtained terminating sanctions, injunctive relief, and an $83 million damages award. (Eastern District of Virginia)