Tag: Davis v. Electronic Arts

Supreme Court Denies Review of Davis v. Electronic Arts

This morning the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Davis v. Electronic Arts, Inc.  This case from the Ninth Circuit rejected a First Amendment defense to right of publicity claims when the videogame Madden NFL depicted professional football players without their permission. I and many other intellectual property and constitutional law scholars had called on the...

Ninth Circuit Tosses Hurt Locker Case

Today the Ninth Circuit finally decided Sarver v. Chartier. The court affirmed the district court’s holding that the alleged use of Sergeant Jeffrey Sarver’s identity in the Academy-Award winning film The Hurt Locker is protected by the First Amendment. The ultimate holding that the use of a real person’s identity in an expressive work, like...

Article in Virginia Law Review Documents Expansive Reach of the Right of Publicity

My latest article, Commercial Speech, Commercial Use and the Intellectual Property Quagmire, is in print this week in the Virginia Law Review. The article considers the role in intellectual property laws of commercial speech doctrine and considerations of commerciality more generally (usually in the sense of a use that is for profit). In terms of right...

Constitutional Law and Intellectual Property Law Professors Call on Supreme Court to Review Davis

Professor Eugene Volokh (UCLA) and I filed a brief today in support of granting certiorari in Davis v. Electronic Arts. The brief was signed on to by many leading constitutional law and IP law scholars. We call on the Supreme Court to address the disarray among lower courts about how to analyze the First Amendment...

Yale Brainstorming Workshop on How to Fix the Right of Publicity

This weekend I took part in an all-day workshop at Yale Law School, sponsored by the Information Society Project and the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression. Some of the leading right of publicity and First Amendment litigators and scholars in the country were present. The workshop operated under Chatham House rules which means I...