Copyright
May 26, 2026
By Emily Poler
In an era where a lot of people have a problem taking responsibility — or, as is more weirdly said nowadays, “accountability” — for their actions and mistakes, institutions and large corporations are no different. Witness Samsung’s shrug of a response to a complaint filed against it earlier this month by pop star Dua Lipa, which essentially boils down to “someone told us what we were doing was OK.”
It’s a pretty simple suit. The Seoul-based electronics manufacturer and its US subsidiary has been selling televisions in boxes adorned with this image of the English entertainer:
According to Ms. Lipa’s complaint, filed in California this month, the photo was taken backstage at the 2024 Austin City Limits Festival and shared in this post on her official Instagram account. The complaint further says that Dua Lipa has a registered copyright in the image, and thus asserts copyright and trademark infringement claims against Samsung, along with violation of Dua Lipa’s right of publicity.
The copyright claims are based on Samsung’s use of a copyrighted image without permission. The trademark claims are based on assertions that, by using her image to market televisions, Samsung is implying that she is endorsing its products. The right of publicity claims are based on Samsung’s use of her extremely valuable image in a commercial setting without permission.
Does this really matter? Well, according to Lipa’s team, shortly after the box appeared her fans began calling it the “Dua Lipa TV Box” on their socials, and the lawsuit cites specific Instagram comments like one user saying they would “get that TV just because Dua is on it,” and “if you need anything selling just put a picture of Dua Lipa on it.”
So yeah, it matters. Naturally, as with any modern celebrity, Ms. Lipa has legitimate sponsorship agreements with brands like Puma, Versace, and Yves Saint Laurent. She does not work with Samsung, and it seems obvious that someone in Dua Lipa’s organization would be aware of whether she gave anyone permission to use her photo on their product packaging.
The complaint goes on to say that Dua Lipa’s lawyers approached Samsung about trying to resolve this matter and Samsung refused, ignoring “repeated demands” to “cease and desist from infringing on her rights.” In other words, shrug, because hey, sue me.
Samsung did eventually issue a statement, saying the photo was “originally provided by a content partner for our free streaming service Samsung TV Plus. The image was used only after receiving explicit assurance from the content partner that permission had been secured, including for the retail boxes. Given this assurance, we deny any allegations of intentional misuse.” So far Samsung has not named that third-party “content partner.”
In my view this is not a great defense. Notably, Samsung doesn’t say “oh, hey, we have this written agreement that lets us use this image.” Nor does it say, “once we found out there was an issue we immediately took steps to correct this problem.” Rather, this sounds an awful lot like a teenager saying, “gosh, my friend’s parents told me I could!” when caught doing something they weren’t supposed to do. (Also, I have a teenager at home, so maybe I’m just seeing everything in terms of how a modern kid might see the world.)
Samsung’s statement goes on: “We have actively sought and remain open to a constructive resolution with Ms. Lipa’s team.” Here’s a suggestion for a constructive resolution: take the darn picture off the boxes when asked instead of (allegedly) ignoring her requests to do so and then claiming you have been assured you have the rights to use the image. Seems simple, no?
All that said, Samsung hasn’t formally answered the complaint yet, so it will be interesting to see what it says when they do. Unless it can explain exactly how it has rights to use the photo at issue, I don’t see this getting a whole lot better for the company, especially because at least some of Dua Lipa’s claims allow her to shift her attorneys’ fees onto Samsung if she prevails, on top of the $15 million her suit is seeking.
But hey, I guess a multinational giant like Samsung can just shrug that off, too.
April 29, 2026
By Emily Poler
About a month ago, the Supreme Court in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment reversed a $1 billion verdict against Cox, an Internet service provider. That verdict stemmed from Cox’s failure to prevent subscribers from infringing Sony’s copyrighted works by sharing pirated copies over Cox’s network. The Supreme Court held that a service provider can only be liable for what is called “contributory infringement” by a third-party (in this case, a user) if the service either induced the infringement or sold a service specifically tailored for infringement. In its decision, the Court held Cox was not liable for contributory infringement because it failed to do anything to affirmatively prevent it. Put another way, Cox’s inaction was not enough to incur liability.
One AI company quickly jumped on this decision to argue that it shouldn’t be liable for what users do with its own platform. In Disney Enterprises, Inc. et al v. MiniMax et al, Disney and other large studios are suing China-based MiniMax and its Singaporean owner Nanonoble Pte. Ltd., which offers an app called Hailuo AI. This app allows users to create short videos in response to prompts and is marketed with the tagline, “A Hollywood studio in your pocket.” In theory, this is cool, except that what Hailuo also does is let users make little videos starring Star Wars and Marvel characters, among other well-known properties.
Since Hailuo is AI, naturally the Plaintiffs claim it was created using unauthorized copies of the studios’ works. And, of course, Plaintiffs say any user output that publicly reproduces Darth Vader, Spiderman et al. are unauthorized copies or derivative works of the studios’ copyrighted properties.
MiniMax makes a bunch of arguments as to why the complaint should be dismissed, some of which have enough teeth to maybe lead to dismissal or partial dismissal. For example, MiniMax argues that much of its conduct took place outside of the United States and, therefore, cannot serve as the basis for a claim under U.S. copyright law. In fact, the Plaintiffs spent months after their initial filing unsuccessfully attempting to serve the Defendants in Singapore and China, and the federal judge in the case had threatened to toss the lawsuit in December as a result of these issues.
Other of the Defendants’ arguments are more, shall we say, creative. MiniMax asserts that while the studios complain that Hailuo’s outputs depict characters from their movies and TV shows, the studios can’t point to specific copyright registrations covering those characters. That argument is a bit much because it seems impossible to obtain an image of, say, the Mandalorian or Iron Man, without reproducing a portion of the copyrighted work they appear in. It seems equally hard to claim that a user can make a Shrek short without intruding on the copyright owners’ rights to make derivative works based on their copyrighted materials.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Cox decision, MiniMax also argues it shouldn’t be held liable merely because it didn’t prevent Hailuo from outputting infringing content, despite having that ability. (The company did put guardrails in place to prevent Hailuo from creating pornographic or violent content.) According to MiniMax, the failure to include these guardrails is, at most, inaction and not an affirmative act, and within the framework of Cox there’s no contributory liability for mere inaction. However, the line between inaction and action is pretty blurry here. Creating and marketing a platform that is appealing because it lets users make fan films of their favorite characters seems pretty active to me.
On top of that, MiniMax is claiming it’s not responsible for user infringement because it didn’t actively encourage that infringement. Really? Hailuo’s tagline of “A Hollywood studio in your pocket” sounds pretty encouraging to me. MiniMax says the slogan describes “the quality and creative capability” of Hailuo,” but I think it could be interpreted as urging users to create works based on those of Hollywood studios. My view is buttressed by the claim, according to the complaint, that MiniMax allegedly used Spiderman in Hailuo’s marketing materials. This type of question — a fact question — is going to make it hard for the judge to dismiss the complaint.
And that means that despite miniMax’s assertions, there should be plenty of action ahead in this case.
April 14, 2026
By Emily Poler
I do not play mahjong. I do, however, have a whole bunch of friends who are very into the game. I sit with them and knit while they play — it’s a low-key, social way to spend a weekend afternoon.
Now, you might be wondering: what is mahjong? Well, mahjong (or mah jongg or mahjongg; they’re all correct) originated in China in the 19th century and is similar to a card game but played with tiles that look a little bit like dominoes. Players draw these tiles and, relying on skill, strategy and luck, try to arrange them into particular combinations to win. In the United States, those combinations are determined each year by the National Mah Jongg League, which publishes an annual card listing the winning hands.
By now, I bet you’re thinking there’s literally no way she’s going to be able to connect this to IP law or litigation. Wrong!
The first time I ever sat to the side of my friends’ mahjong game, I picked up one of the cards sold by the National Mah Jongg League card and was rather surprised to see this:
I was, of course, immediately curious and went to the Copyright Office’s website to look up whether the National Mah Jongg League does, in fact, have a copyright for the card. Yes, it does, and has for many years. And if you’re going to (legitimately) play mahjong in the US, you need to buy that card every year from the League.
Seems weird, right? After all, if you buy Monopoly or a deck of cards, you’re done spending on it. The rules of Monopoly or poker don’t change every year. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1996, 2016 or 2066: a flush always beats two pairs. Most of all, the rules of a game can’t be copyrighted; nobody owns the rules for chess, checkers, or blackjack. However, a book or pamphlet that describes how to play any of those games is absolutely copyrightable. Such is the case with the yearly mahjong card, which expresses the rules for playing mahjong by listing the winning combinations the League has established for that year.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen anything suggesting that the National Mah Jongg League has sued anyone who copies a card from a friend, although, if I had to guess, I bet they send plenty of cease-and-desist letters to people offering copycat cards on Amazon or Etsy. (Maybe not, because, according to Reddit, the group isn’t exactly super tech savvy, and their website is pretty 2003.)
Again, I’m an observer, not a player, but one of the fascinating things to me is that players seem really conscientious about actually buying the cards each year. The mahjong group text I’m on was recently awash with people touting they had acquired the 2026 card, even though any of them could just buy one and pass around copies.
In a world awash in so much digital piracy, I find this astoundingly honorable. That said, I suppose it’s not that surprising: for one thing, the card is an awkward shape and folds into several pages, and it would be a pain to copy it or play off a copy. Also, at $15, it’s not terribly expensive. Most of all, I imagine that for those who love the game, buying the card each year is something of a ritual, and it just wouldn’t feel right to use a copy on flimsy printer paper. All this seems like a pretty marked contrast from lots of today’s aggressively online culture, which prioritizes virtual sharing and remixing of non-physical media, and, unfortunately, not paying for stuff. Exhaustion with such probably explains why more and more people are shunning such soulless activity to get together in person and play a game with physical pieces and rules.
In any event, I’m looking forward to a spring and summer of sitting to the side, knitting needles in hand, listening to the murmur of my friends and the clicks of tiles being drawn and discarded.
March 19, 2026
By Emily Poler
The last few weeks have been crazy over here (and, obviously, everywhere), so this post will be relatively brief, but interesting nonetheless. It’s about a proposed class action lawsuit initiated by New York Times writer Julia Angwin against Superhuman Platform, the parent company of writing-assistant software Grammarly. While I haven’t had a lot of time to delve into the complaint, the basics are that beginning last August, Grammarly launched its “Expert Review” tool that offered users the ability to revise text according to recommendations from well-known authors like Ms. Angwin, Stephen King, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Did Grammarly ask permission of these scribes to use their names and writing styles? Of course not!
As you might imagine, Grammarly’s tool is entirely AI-based, having digested the publicly available work of the writers so as to then spit out editing suggestions from what it determines are “relevant experts,” based on the subject matter of uploaded user text. For example, you submit an essay on technology (one of Ms. Angwin’s core subjects) and Expert Review offers improvements it says are “inspired by Julia Angwin.” Pretty amazing stuff, especially considering Grammarly didn’t involve Ms. Angwin in the process.
Even worse than the theft of her style and the use of her name, according to Ms. Angwin, is that the AI advice might (ha! “might”) be crappy. “[A] Grammarly user could become displeased with Ms. Angwin if they…received a negative result after taking that advice (such as a bad grade in school or a negative performance evaluation at work), even though Ms. Angwin had absolutely nothing to do with the advice that she purportedly gave,” the complaint says. Having tested Expert Review herself, Ms. Angwin was appalled by the edits peddled under her name. “Its editing suggestions were so bad that they could destroy my reputation,” wrote Ms. Angwin in a Times opinion piece.
Luckily for Ms. Angwin, even though current laws are, shall we say, in flux regarding the use of AI to digest, learn from, and replicate copyrighted material, her suit rests on far more solid and clearly defined right of publicity laws. These laws, which are on the books in more than two dozen states, bar the commercial use of another’s name or likeness. The authors here have a pretty strong case as Grammarly was using their names without permission. Moreover, it certainly is not crazy for the authors to argue that the use of their names implied that they endorsed Grammarly, which is exactly what the right of publicity is supposed to protect.
How will Grammarly respond? Well, it has already taken down the Expert Review tool “for a redesign,” claiming it had “very little usage.” As for defending itself against the suit, a Superhuman statement says the company “believes the legal claims are without merit.” If you ask me that’s rather optimistic, since it would be quite a stretch to deny that their use of these authors’ names implied endorsement. Grammarly could also try to argue that the authors haven’t been harmed by its use of their names, which might have some legs because reputational damages can be hard to establish. However, such arguments aren’t going to get rid of this case any time soon, nor will the mothballing of the review application which, as Ms. Angwin wrote, “doesn’t make up for the eight months that service was in operation, making money from all of our names without ever seeking our consent.”
February 17, 2026
By Emily Poler
Last week, of course, many of us watched or were at least in the presence of the Big Game (aka the Superb Owl), so I thought it would be appropriate to post today about something related to it. Alas, the only part I really paid attention to was the halftime show (who won the game? Who even played?), and as much as I’d like to unpack Bad Bunny’s many messages here, there’s no angle that’s really appropriate for a legal blog. (I’ll just say that as someone who grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily Puerto Rican, I loved his culturally celebratory performance.) But looking deeper, I did find something relevant to a very popular aspect of America’s favorite Sunday: the commercials! So, let’s talk about the dumpster fire that is Michael Bay’s lawsuit against Cadillac’s Formula 1 team and Translation, the creative agency it worked with to create an ad for the Super Bowl.
In case you’ve forgotten (or are a thinking adult), Michael Bay is a film director. Since the late-1990s he’s directed a slew of big budget action movies where lots of things go bang and boom, including “Bad Boys” I and II, “Armageddon,” and, yes FIVE Transformers films.
Formula 1, or F1, racing is the long-standing international auto racing league whose single-seat, open-wheel cars look like rockets with big fat tires on the outside of the futuristic bodies. F1 races are held on road and street tracks; if you’re not an aficionado, the most famous event you may have heard of is the Monaco Grand Prix. (By contrast with F1, NASCAR races the same cars you and I drive, just heavily modified and covered with logos, and mostly on oval tracks).
F1 teams belong to either automotive companies or very rich people like Dan Towriss, CEO of the group that owns the Cadillac F1 team. In late 2025, Towriss approached Michael Bay about developing a multi-million dollar commercial that would introduce Cadillac F1’s debut on the F1 circuit in an “American” way during the “most American” of events (the Super Bowl), with Towriss declaring he wanted to hire “the most American director [he] could find.” (Minor digression, but how exactly does making CGI-heavy movies based on kid’s toys where alien robots turn into cars make Bay “most American director”? I have some serious suspicions about the foundation for this claim, but that’s a story for another day.) Bay has made Super Bowl ads before and has also previously worked with General Motors (Cadillac’s parent company).
According to Bay’s complaint, he and his team of more than a dozen people spent time developing ideas for the commercial and presented them to Towriss who, at that point, allegedly told Bay to “get to work, with Bay’s producer documenting in writing that Towriss “hired Bay to conceptualize, produce, and direct the commercial.”
With the schedule super tight if they were going to finish in the mere two months before the Big Game, Bay and team immediately started creating mockups and schedules and identifying filming locations. But a week later, according to Bay, he was abruptly informed that the Cadillac F1 team wanted to “go in a different direction” and use someone else to complete the commercial — with no compensation for the time and work Bay put in. The reason, according to Cadillac F1, is that “after two meetings, it became clear he couldn’t meet our timeline, and there ultimately wasn’t a path forward.”
In his suit, which was filed hours before the commercial aired, Bay claims there was a verbal agreement between him and the Cadillac team pursuant to which the Cadillac team would pay Bay for his work, as well as the costs he and his team incurred. He also claims that the Cadillac team stole his ideas and engaged in fraud because they promised Bay to pay for certain goods and services even though they didn’t intend to abide by those promises. In response, Cadillac F1 says the concept and creative were already in place and they had only discussed hiring Bay as the commercial’s director.
Before I get into the merits (or lack thereof) of Bay’s case, let me point out the obvious: Don’t ever start work on a project without getting a written contract! Everyone involved here was a sophisticated actor with tons of experience; why did no one bother to say, hang on a sec, let’s sign an agreement? This applies not just to Bay but also to everyone on the Cadillac side as well, which apparently didn’t consider the possibility that halfway through the project Bay might abandon it or suddenly demand more money to finish it. The explanation for both sides’ mistakes, I suspect, is that Towriss was a loose cannon acting on his own in his discussions with Bay, instead of leaving things to the pros at the Translation agency who deal with this sort of thing every day, while for Bay’s part, he was aware of the time crunch and figured Towriss’ word was bond.
All that aside, Bay’s lawsuit is pretty flimsy. First, generally speaking, ideas are not protectable. Here, Bay’s idea for the commercial centered around an “overall, impressionistic, ‘dream’ theme, which would show the Cadillac F1 car as the engineers’ dream brought to reality.” This concept in and of itself can’t be protected, and neither Bay nor anyone else can own this idea. Once it’s produced as an actual commercial, that’s another story, of course: The actual commercial is protectable, but the underlying idea is not.
Meanwhile, Bay’s claim for fraud, based on his accusation that the Cadillac F1 team didn’t intend to honor its promise, is a waste of time. Fraud requires the plaintiff to allege and ultimately prove that the statement at issue was false at the time it was said. In other words, this means that Bay will have to show that the Cadillac team had a secret intention to not follow through on its promise to pay Bay for his services while intending not to ultimately work with him. Is it possible Cadillac F1 acted in such a manner? Sure. Can Bay prove it? Highly unlikely. Saying someone didn’t intend to abide by a contract is almost never fraud and such claims are almost always dismissed. In my view, they tend to make the party asserting them look silly and if I was Bay’s attorney, I would strongly urge him to avoid such an embarrassing claim.
Bay is seeking $1.5 million for his director’s and producer’s fees and the costs incurred by him and his team, as well as punitive damages. And if that doesn’t succeed, I’m sure he can take his revenge someday by crushing a Cadillac in “Transformers VIII.” On Mars. By a giant robot’s foot, most likely.
