October 10, 2023
In 1989, five Black and Latinx teenagers were prosecuted for and ultimately convicted of assaulting and raping a jogger in New York’s Central Park. The case brought the word “wilding” into the lexicon and drew national attention.
This attention stemmed, in part, from the defendants’ youth, race, the lack of DNA evidence tying any of them to the assault, and inconsistencies in the defendant’s confessions — confessions eventually proved to be false. Because of these issues and the eventual confession of a serial rapist who took sole responsibility for the crime, the convictions of the youths — who became known as the “Central Park Five” — were vacated.
For many, both in New York and beyond, this case symbolized New York at its worst and the wrongful use of the criminal justice system to target Black and Latinx men.
This case is now in the news once again. This time it is because of a defamation case brought by Linda Fairstein, the former head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, who was involved in the prosecution of the Central Park Five. Fairstein, who is now a successful mystery writer, is suing Netflix, writer/director Ava DuVernay, and writer Attica Locke for defamation over how she was portrayed in the miniseries When They See Us.
When They See Us, is a four-part series dramatizing the Central Park Five’s experiences from their arrests through their release from prison. It portrays the criminal justice system as the villain and Fairstein’s character (played by Felicity Huffman) as the primary representative of the criminal justice system. Fairstein is shown as determined to see the five teenagers convicted regardless of inconsistencies pointing to their innocence. According to a recent decision in the Southern District of New York, which denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, “the character is portrayed as personally responsible for orchestrating nearly every aspect of the investigation of the [Central Park] Five.”
Because of the judge’s recent decision, unless the case settles, it will go to trial over five allegedly defamatory scenes. (In 2021, the judge ruled that seven of the scenes Fairstein claimed were defamatory were not actionable.) Fairstein alleges each of these scenes portrays her as responsible for far more of the arrest and prosecution of the Central Park Five than she actually was. For example, one of the allegedly defamatory scenes could be understood to imply that Fairstein improperly delayed providing DNA evidence to the defense, while another shows her instructing the police to round up suspects in Harlem and harshly interrogate them. Fairstein maintains that she didn’t do those things and there’s nothing in the historical record to support the series’ claim that she did have that authority.
It’s pretty clear that there were some very, very serious problems with the prosecution of the Central Park Five, that innocent men lost years of their lives in prison, that Fairstein played a role in their fate and, that to this day, she seems to be unrepentant, even continuing to indicate skepticism as to their innocence.
Nonetheless, the judge said there was evidence that “by opting to portray Fairstein as the series villain who was intended to embody the perceived injustices of a broader system,” When They See Us “reverse-engineered plot points to attribute actions, responsibilities and viewpoints to Fairstein that were not hers” and were not reflected in “the substantial body of research materials” assembled in preparing the series. Netflix and its co-defendants, for their part, argue that the filmmakers are allowed to use some dramatic license in creating a portrayal of Fairstein that was substantially true.
Some important things to keep in mind about this case and fictional stories based on real events:
- Even in dramatizations, you can’t ascribe things to real people that aren’t supported by the facts. Here, there will be an issue over whether the series’ portrayal of Fairstein is at least somewhat supported by the factual record. There will be a particular focus on the dissent of and comments by a judge on New York’s highest court who stated that Fairstein “deliberately engineered” a confession from one of the Central Park Five by not allowing a parent to be present.
- Fairstein is a public figure and, as such, to prevail at trial she will have to prove not only that certain statements in When They See Us were false, but that the statements were made with “actual malice.” The phrase “actual malice” is confusing because, for the most part, ill will is only a small part of the analysis. As used in the context of defamation, actual malice means that Fairstein will have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the producers, writers, and director had subjective doubts about whether the statements at issue were false or probably false or that they created them with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not.
- The inclusion of a disclaimer is not a free pass. Here, Defendants did include a disclaimer stating that various elements had “been fictionalized for purposes of dramatization.” However, that disclaimer appeared only briefly at the end of each episode. This has to be contested against promotions for the series which included the statements “The story you know is the lie they told you” and “Based on the true story of The Central Park Five.”
However the case is resolved, it is clear that really, there are no winners here.
September 26, 2023
Our last post was about who owns a social media account: the company whose products are featured or the individual in the role associated with that account. This week we have another case at the intersection of social media and intellectual property. At issue here is who owns a trademark: the user who first created it or the social media platform (in this case, Reddit) where the mark is first used?
In early-2012, Jamie Rogozinski launched a subreddit on Reddit called “r/WallStreetBets,” where users could share stock tips and other financial advice. Rogozinski was its first moderator. By early-2020, r/WallStreetBets had grown to more than a million subscribers and Rogozinski published a book titled WallStreetBets: How Boomers Made the World’s Biggest Casino for Millennials. Then, the pandemic happened and the subreddit exploded in popularity. Suddenly, WallStreetBets was a very valuable property.
On March 24, 2020, Rogozinski filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to register the mark WallStreetBets. Two weeks later Reddit notified Rogozinski that it had temporarily suspended his account because, in violation of Reddit’s terms of service, he had “attempted to monetize the community.” Subsequently, Reddit filed its own application to trademark WallStreetBets and sought to have the USPTO block Rogozinski from asserting a trademark in WallStreetBets.
Rogozinski sued Reddit. He claimed, among other things, ownership of the trademark and that Reddit was infringing on his mark. The heart of his argument was that he owns WallStreetBets because he created the phrase and it is associated with him. Reddit moved to dismiss the complaint and, on July 11, 2023, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted Reddit’s motion.
The court’s decision was based on the fact that the test for trademark ownership is “priority of use.” However, use alone isn’t enough. Rather, the party claiming ownership has to show that it was the first to use the mark in connection with the sale of goods or services.
Here, while Rogozinski created WallStreetBets, the Court found that Reddit, not Rogozinski, had been using the mark in commerce starting with its inception on January 31, 2012, because any content created on the site becomes a product against which Reddit sells ads. According to Judge Chesney, to own a trademark, you must be “the first to actually use the mark in the sale of goods or services,” and none of the things Rogozinkski did to grow his subreddit “constitutes a use in commerce.”
One big problem with the court’s conclusion here is it could mean that because social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and the like have become so integral to marketing products, these companies could be seen as the owners of trademarks in products offered through their platforms. I suspect future cases will need to draw a line between products or services that are part of the social media platform (i.e. the subreddit at issue here) and the products or services that are entirely separate from the social media platform.
September 12, 2023
Almost a year ago, we wrote about a dispute between bridal designer Hayley Paige Gutman and her former employer over who owned social media accounts bearing her name. With the prevalence of social media and its importance for marketing, it seemed like it was only a matter of time until this issue came up again. And here it is.
Vital Pharmaceutical, which makes an energy drink called Bang (we’ve written about Bang before), filed for bankruptcy in 2022. As part of the bankruptcy, Vital sought a declaration that it, not its former CEO John Owoc, owned the social media accounts @bangenergy.ceo (TikTok and Instagram) and @BangEnergyCEO (Twitter/X). In response, Owoc claimed that he had used these accounts to cultivate a personality and the accounts belonged to him, not Vital.
The bankruptcy court granted Vital’s motion for summary judgment against Owoc. In reaching this conclusion, the Court created its own, new test for determining ownership of social media accounts because, in its view, the law had failed to keep up with the times.
Specifically, the court examined: (1) the existence of a documented property interest, i.e. an employment agreement or similar stating that certain social media accounts belong to the company; (2) who controls access to the social media accounts; and (3) the use of the account, for example, whether the account is used to promote the company’s products or to create a persona that goes beyond the company’s products.
Based on these factors, the bankruptcy court determined that despite the social media account names referring to Vital’s CEO, they belonged to the company and not its former chief executive. While there was no agreement documenting that the accounts belonged to the company (one point to Owoc), the court noted that Vital employees had access to and created and posted content for the accounts. This included posting things without Owoc’s approval. In addition, a large majority of posts featured Bang-branded products rather than Owoc’s personal content, indicating that the accounts should be the property of Vital, and not Owoc. Two points to Vital.
The court declined to follow the test used by another bankruptcy court in an earlier, similar case because that case predated “the emergence of the social media influencer, among other changes” in the use of social media. Specifically, the prior decision did not consider the existence of agreements that may establish the ownership of social media accounts (factor #1 in the Vital Pharmaceutical case).
The big takeaway from all this is that brands need to be very careful about establishing and using social media accounts and, in a dispute over who owns an account, it’s important to establish how social media accounts are used.
(Epilogue: On July 31 Vital was purchased by Monster Beverage, so we can all hope someone other than Owoc will carry on as @BangEnergyCEO.)
August 15, 2023
Earlier this summer, an attorney for the company once known as Twitter and now called X (more on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of this rebranding can be found here), sent a cease and desist letter to Meta (formerly known as Facebook). The letter accused Meta of engaging “in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.” According to Twitter/X, Meta did this by hiring “dozens of former Twitter employees” that Meta knew “previously worked at Twitter; that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices.” Twitter/X claimed that Meta relied on these former employees in developing Threads (a rival app to Twitter/X that Meta introduced in July).
Trade secrets can be an important source of value, but they generally get less attention than their more well-known intellectual property cousins — trademarks, copyrights, and patents. This probably has something to do with the fact that there wasn’t a federal trade secret law until Congress enacted the Defend Trade Secrets Act in 2016 and, in order to exist (or be the subject of litigation) trade secrets have to be, well, secret. Meaning that if a company thinks someone has stolen theirs, management may be leery of litigation that could provide details about the secrets in public court filings.
Does Elon Musk have a case against Meta? Maybe.
While there is no one definition of a trade secret, it is described in California’s version of the 1979 Uniform Trade Secrets Act as “information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process” that provides economic value to its owner and is not generally known outside of the business. In this Twitter/X vs. Meta affair, the letter to Meta fails to specify anything about the nature of the supposed trade secrets or “other intellectual property” that the former Twitter employees had access to. And while Twitter’s lawyer asserts that Meta “deliberately” assigned the former Twitter employees to work on Threads, the letter doesn’t actually identify any such employees. As a result, it seems pretty unlikely that there’s much basis for Twitter/X’s claim. (In its response to Twitter’s letter, Meta states that no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.)
Twiter/X may also have a problem because, to qualify for protection, it has to have made “efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.” In the event of litigation, this would require it to show the time, effort, resources, and processes used to develop the secrets, as well as the value of the trade secrets and whether Twitter/X limited access to any secrets to those who need to know. This could be hard for Twitter/X if, numerous Twitter/X employees left the company with its trade secrets as the letter from Twitter/X’s lawyer indicates.
Moreover, if there are any trade secrets, Twitter/X needs to act quickly because, in determining the existence of a trade secret, courts may consider how vigilant it was in protecting its purported trade secrets. This means that if Twitter/X really believes its former employees are using its trade secrets to benefit Meta, it needs to quickly bring litigation (or arbitration) to enforce its rights. However, the fact that more than a month has passed since the letter to Meta from Twitter/X’s attorney without any legal action suggests that there’s not really a basis for a trade secret claim, and this is all just bluster from the world’s richest man.
Which no one would consider a secret at all.
August 1, 2023
The Rogers test is something we’ve talked about before (here and here).
This test comes from Rogers v. Grimaldi. In that case, the actress Ginger Rogers sued the studio that released a film titled Ginger and Fred, claiming the film’s use of her name implied that she sponsored the movie. Rogers lost in the lower court and appealed to the Second Circuit, which affirmed the lower court’s decision dismissing Roger’s case.
In its decision, the Second Circuit held that where the title of an artistic work includes a celebrity’s name “suppressing an artistically relevant though ambiguous[ly] title[d] film” on trademark grounds would “unduly restrict expression.” Thus, the Second Circuit concluded that trademark law does not apply unless the “title has no artistic relevance to the underlying work whatsoever, or, if it has some artistic relevance, unless the title explicitly misleads as to the source or content of the work.”
This test was meant to allow artists to use trademarks without permission when the use has artistic relevance to their work and does not explicitly mislead consumers into thinking the celebrity endorsed the work. Put another way, it aimed to avoid conflicts between the First Amendment and federal trademark law (a/k/a Lanham Act), at least when it comes to the name of a film. Legally speaking, this isn’t crazy.
However, there’s a problem. The Rogers test is made up. The Second Circuit’s opinion in Rogers doesn’t provide any citations for this test or explain where it comes from. This has become a problem especially because courts have expanded the Rogers test far beyond its original confines.
Notably, in 2020 the Ninth Circuit in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC dismissed a case brought by the bourbon manufacturer on grounds that it could not satisfy Rogers in a case against the manufacturer of a squeaky dog toy shaped like a bottle of Jack Daniels. The Ninth Circuit found that the dog toy at issue was “expressive” because it “communicates a ‘humorous message.’” This is pretty far from where we started — a film directed by Federico Fellini that told the story of fictional performers named Ginger and Fred.
In early June the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. The Supreme Court held that where a trademark is being used as a trademark — that is, to indicate the source of goods or services — the trademark owner does not have to satisfy Rogers. It further concluded that the dog toy shape and label parodying Jack Daniels branding was just that: a trademark being used to indicate the source of the dog toy.
In its main opinion, which was unanimous, the Supreme Court went out of its way to say that it was not explicitly overruling Rogers and took no view as to its ongoing viability. However, five Justices filed concurring opinions to make certain points. Notably, three justices — Gorsuch, Thomas, and Barrett — wrote a one-paragraph opinion “to underscore that lower courts should handle Rogers v. Grimaldi… with care.”
Since then, the Supreme Court sent another case that involved the application of Rogers back to the Ninth Circuit for reconsideration in light of its Jack Daniels ruling. In that case — Diece-Lisa Industries, Inc. v. Disney Store USA, LLC — toymaker Diece-Lisa sued a bunch of Disney-affiliated companies for trademark infringement, claiming that the “Lots-O’-Huggin’” (aka “Lotso”) character in the 2010 film Toy Story 3 too closely resembles Diece-Lisa’s “Lots of Hugs” bear. (The Ninth Circuit had previously declined requests that Rogers should not apply or should be limited and had instead ruled that Diece-Lisa’s case had to be dismissed under the Rogers test.)
It will be interesting to see what the Ninth Circuit does here particularly as not only was Lotso a character in an expressive work, but Disney also sold dolls based on the movie character. If the case does make its way back to the Supreme Court, that court may have to confront the continuing viability of Rogers as well as what happens when there is both an expressive use (i.e. Lotso the movie character) and a more purely commercial use (i.e. the toy sold by Disney).
This case will serve as an interesting test of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Jack Daniels and may help to clarify the reach of that case.
