Welcome back to my new column, which is still untitled. (Please keep the name suggestions pouring in to me at [email protected].) This week, I’m focusing on how Biden’s pick for the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, could have an impact on the entertainment industry. And I’m also interested in how some underappreciated activity in the California state legislature may have powerful activity in film and television. But, in the meantime, here’s some stuff on my docket…
- The U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that an artwork entitled A Recent Entrance to Paradise, generated by algorithm, is ineligible for copyright registration for two reasons. First, human authorship is required. And second, artificial intelligence lacks legal personhood and thus can’t enter into binding work-for-hire contracts with human overlords. Read the decision here. It’ll be interesting to watch whether this determination is challenged in court.
- The Institute of Free Speech is about to publish a report card for all 50 states on their anti-SLAPP laws, and I’ve gotten an advance look. For those unfamiliar, these statutes are designed to stop litigious people from using courts to bully someone else’s First Amendment rights. California gets an A+ from the think tank for the way the state allows judges to review a case’s merits quickly and shift legal fees to the winner. Nineteen states with no anti-SLAPP law get F’s. The states making strides to protect free speech by recently enacting new procedures to curb frivolous 1A-chilling suits, according to the Institute, are Tennessee (A), New York and Washington (both A-), and Colorado (B).
- I’m hardly a crypto expert, but I can spot a bad copyright idea, such as the guy who created an NFT of a video of his daughter’s murder. He did so, according to The Washington Post, to “give him legal standing to sue the social media companies to remove the videos from circulation.” I empathize with him, of course, but unfortunately the NFT doesn’t give him copyright on the video, and if he’s claiming such in a takedown notice, he’s possibly committing an illegal misrepresentation.
- I can also spot a potentially good idea, such as The BuyTheBroncos DAO, from former Cisco lawyer Sean O’Brien. For those not familiar with the term DAO—or “decentralized autonomous organization”—they’re basically the “Delaware C-corp of the crypto economy,” as Coinbase C.E.O. Brian Armstrong recently put it. Own a digital token, get a vote. Now imagine raising $4 billion from crypto enthusiasts where the hive then controls an NFL franchise. Fascinating, but there’s a hitch: “The NFL has a quirky ownership rule that the other major sports leagues don’t have,” reports one crypto site. “That is, the NFL requires a controlling owner to hold a minimum of a 30% stake in a team.” Oh well. Maybe Chelsea instead?
- For those who missed my column last week on possible government intervention in a MLB lockout, I reported that the National Labor Relations Board was investigating an illegal lockout. I filed a public records request to obtain the charge that was sent to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. Here it is. The letter identifies the NLRB field attorney investigating the matter, gives MLB the opportunity to present evidence, and also commands the league to preserve potential evidence, too.
How Will Brown Jackson Impact Hollywood?
It will be a rollicking few weeks for Supreme Court watchers as Joe Biden’s nominee to fill Stephen Breyer’s soon-to-be vacant seat, Ketanji Brown Jackson, faces down a Senate confirmation committee. Her background and career will be scrutinized to a degree that very few individuals experience. Half the members of the committee will be desperate to trip her up with probing, uncomfortable questions about her judicial philosophy. And yet, we’ll likely hear very little about the areas in which she’ll probably make the biggest impact in the coming years.
