By Christine Coleman
Edited by Elissa D. Hecker
Entertainment
Sean Combs Fights Lawsuit by Music Producer Alleging Sexual Misconduct
Lawyers for Sean Combs filed court papers seeking the dismissal of a civil suit by music producer Rodney Jones Jr., who accused Combs of making unwanted sexual contact, arguing that the lawsuit was baseless and “replete with far-fetched tales of misconduct.” The filing, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, is the latest effort by the Combs’s legal team to dismiss a series of recent lawsuits that accuse him of sexual assault and misconduct. The suit accuses Combs of groping Jones, forcing him to solicit prostitutes, and threatening him with violence.
Spotify For Dismissal of Mechanical Licensing Collective Lawsuit
Spotify filed a motion with the Southern District of New York to dismiss a lawsuit brought by The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) over the streaming service’s decision this spring to reclassify its Premium paid subscription as a “bundle” that includes both music and audiobooks. This move was previously rejected by the MLC in a letter to Judge Analisa Torres and it is due to file a formal response with the court in the coming weeks.
Another Plodding Infringement Battle? Concord v. X Copyright Showdown Could Run Into 2026
The copyright complaint filed by Concord and other music publishers against X might plod well past 2025, based on the court’s initial case management order for the high-stakes dispute, which kicked off in June of 2023. While the court dismissed part of the suit in March, the case is still proceeding on contributory grounds. The current proposed timetable would keep the showdown alive into 2026, which could bring trials and major developments in several especially significant industry cases.
Man Charged With Tupac Shakur’s Murder Loses Bid for Release
Judge Carli Kierny of the Eighth Judicial District Court in Nevada declined to release Duane Keith Davis, a man who was charged with the murder of the rapper Tupac Shakur, after expressing concern that the money provided to bail him out from jail could be connected to a possible deal to tell his story in a TV series. Prosecutors pointed to an interview on YouTube in which the man who posted the bail bond premium of about $112,000, rap manager Cash Jones, said he would help out only if Davis agreed to do a TV series with him. Jones denied that there were real plans for a series featuring Davis, saying in court that it was just “a thought” that he had shared with the YouTube interviewer DJ Vlad for entertainment. Judge Kierny had asked for proof that the bail money was legitimate, but she was not persuaded.
Dueling Ramones Heirs Fight Over the Punk Band’s Legacy
Mickey Leigh, the brother of Joey Ramone, and Linda Cummings-Ramone, the widow of Johnny Ramone, who each control half of the Ramone’s intellectual property rights, have filed lawsuits against each other. Leigh is accusing Cummings-Ramone of trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and breach of contract, while Cummings-Ramone is accusing Leigh of wrongfully developing a Ramones biopic without her approval.
C.I.A. Warning Helped Thwart ISIS Attack at Taylor Swift Concert in Vienna
The C.I.A. provided intelligence to Austrian authorities that allowed them to disrupt a plot that could have killed thousands of people at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, according to David S. Cohen, the agency’s deputy director. Cohen said that the agency had provided information about four people connected to the Islamic State who were planning an attack. On August 7, Austrian authorities arrested two people accused of plotting a terror attack; others were arrested in subsequent days. Swift had been planning to hold three concerts in Vienna beginning Aug. 8 and 200,000 people had been expected to attend.
Arts
‘Should Art Be Regulated by the SEC?’: NFT Artists’ New Lawsuit Seeks Answers
At issue is whether digital collectibles can be considered a security. In the summer of 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced settlements with Impact Theory and Stoner Cats, two media companies that sold nonfungible tokens (NFTs). According to the SEC, both projects had conducted “an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities in the form of purported nonfungible tokens.” In other words, the SEC, which had never provided clear rules surrounding art or NFT sales, had in short order designated some NFT-connected digital art pieces as securities, meaning that they would have to be registered with the commission. Jonathan Mann (aka “Song a Day Mann”) argues that the SEC’s decisions could shake up how the centuries-old art business operates. On July 29th, Mann and conceptual artist and lawyer Brian Frye filed a lawsuit in a Louisiana federal district court against the SEC. Mann and Frye, represented by attorney Jason Gottlieb, are seeking a “declaratory judgment” from the SEC that, by releasing two specific NFT art projects, they “do not violate US securities laws,” per the lawsuit.
Florida Family Spent $6 Million on Fake Warhols, Lawsuit Claims
The Perlmans, a family of art collectors, sued art dealer Leslie Roberts and Miami Fine Art Gallery, accusing him of going to elaborate lengths to pass off forged artworks as authentic Andy Warhols. Roberts has denied the allegations.
Major Publishers Sue Florida Over Banned School Library Books
Several large American publishers, including Penguin Random House, sued Florida education officials over a state law that prohibits sexual content in school libraries. They argue that the law has ignited a wave of book removals in violation of the First Amendment. The Florida law requires school districts to allow parents and other residents to limit children’s access to library materials. The suit, filed in federal court in Orlando, is the latest dispute over whether schools should let children read books that touch on themes of race, gender or sexual orientation.
Museum to Part With Cranach Portrait Sold as Owner Fled the Nazis
The Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania is relinquishing “Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony,” a valuable 16th-century portrait attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, after reaching a settlement with descendants of Henry and Hertha Bromberg, a German Jewish couple who fled the Nazis before World War II. As part of the settlement, the work, an oil on panel dated to around 1534, is to be sold at the Christie’s Old Master sale in New York in January. The proceeds are to be divided between the museum and the Bromberg heirs, but the parties have not disclosed details of the arrangement.
Sports
National College Players’ Association Announces Opposition to House v. NCAA Settlement
The National College Players’ Association (NCPA) announced its opposition to the preliminary settlement agreement in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit. The settlement would allow the NCAA, conferences, and colleges to ban colleges from sharing their revenue with athletes, ban all NIL money from collectives that would pay athletes based on their status on their team, and more. The NCPA points out that the settlement for this lawsuit was filed in 2020 (before college athlete NIL) and is completely out of touch with college athletes’ NIL freedoms and economic realities in 2024. It argues that the court should not allow parties to use a settlement to stifle these existing, valuable athlete NIL marketplaces.
A Roller Derby Team Becomes a Bastion of Resistance to a Transgender Ban
In Nassau County, the Roller Rebels have joined with New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) to face down Republican county executive Bruce Blakeman. In July, the county enacted a ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports at county-owned sites. Since March, the NYCLU has filed two lawsuits opposing the ban and the Roller Rebels have emerged as an unanticipated foil to Blakeman.
The National Football League May Soon Welcome a New Kind of Owner
At an upcoming meeting in Eagan, Minnesota, National Football League team owners are expected to approve rules that would allow certain private equity firms to buy as much as 10% of a team. Previously, rules placed tough restrictions on who is allowed to buy teams and how those purchases can be financed, with only those who were extremely wealthy being able to afford to join. The approval of the new rules would help owners solve a liquidity problem, as team valuations have soared, while the number of potential buyers has fallen.
Paris Is Utopia for Paralympians Until They Leave the Athletes’ Village
Paris built highly accessible accommodations for competitors in the 2024 Paralympic Games, but the rest of the city remains difficult to navigate. Though the city made extensive improvements in the years leading up to the Games, it will be decades before its cobbled streets, narrow sidewalks, and small parks achieve even a semblance of the Village’s accessibility.
‘Disgrace’ That Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson Had to ‘Crawl Off’ Train
ParalympicsGB chef de mission Penny Briscoe said that it is an “absolute disgrace” that 11-time Paralympic gold medalist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was forced to “crawl off” a train. Grey-Thompson arrived at London’s King’s Cross on a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train, but there was no one there to assist her. Grey-Thompson had booked assistance to help her off the 19:15 train from Leeds but missed it and took the 19:45 train instead. She says she “had a contract” and should have been assisted off the train, but after 20 minutes, no one came, so she decided that she would crawl off the train. An LNER spokesperson told the BBC it was investigating the incident and was “sorry to understand there was an issue”.
Technology/Media
Google’s Antitrust Defeat Opens the Door to Lawsuit From Yelp
Yelp sued Google in federal court in San Francisco after a federal judge declared Google to be an illegal monopoly in a landmark ruling earlier this month, opening the door to more lawsuits. Yelp claims that Google used its dominance as a general search engine to gain an unfair advantage in local search services. Yelp is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an order for Google to stop its anticompetitive practices in a jury trial.
Shein is Copying Temu’s Copyright Lawsuit
In the latest legal battle between two bargain retailers, Shein has accused Temu of being an unlawful enterprise built on counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights, and fraud. Shein claims Temu “controls every aspect of its seller’s activity. It directs what products they can list and the prices for which they can sell; encourages them to infringe the intellectual property rights of others; and even prevents them from removing their products from Temu’s website after they have admitted to infringement.” Like Temu, Shein has a reputation for ripping off independent designers.
Telegram Founder’s Arrest Part of Broad Investigation, French Prosecutors Say
Last month, a case was opened to investigate child pornography, drug sales, fraud, and other criminal activities on the Telegram messaging platform. Prosecutors in France said that Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, had been arrested in connection with the investigation.
Can Tech Executives Be Held Responsible for What Happens on Their Platforms?
Regulators and lawmakers are increasingly considering when to hold tech leaders directly responsible for the activities on their services, a shift punctuated by the arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov. Historically, companies have been held responsible for a platform’s transgressions, rather than individuals, but the threshold for holding executives liable for what takes place on their sites is lowering in specific areas, particularly child safety.
Telegram Founder’s Indictment Thrusts Encryption Into the Spotlight
The criminal charges against Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, have raised concerns in Silicon Valley about encryption and the app’s approach to privacy and security. While Telegram is often described as an encrypted messaging app, it tackles encryption differently than other tech companies, like WhatsApp and Signal. If Durov’s indictment turned Telegram into a public example of encryption technology, some Silicon Valley companies believe that could damage the credibility of encrypted messaging apps. Encryption has been a long-running point of friction between governments and tech companies around the world. Tech companies have argued that encrypted messaging is crucial to maintain people’s digital privacy, while law enforcement and governments have said that the technology enables illicit behaviors by hiding illegal activity.
Pirate Streaming Giants Fboxz, AniWave, Zoroxtv, and Others Dead in Major Collapse
After the recent shutdown of Fmovies, it appears that an entire streaming empire is collapsing. Big name streaming sites that have called it quits include Fboxz.to, Aniwave.to, Anix.to, AnimeSuge, and Zoroxtv. In a message displayed on their homepages, visitors have been advised to use legal options from now on. This exact same message appeared on another major streaming site’s, 123movies, homepage when it shut down a few years ago.
Google Says It Fixed Image Generator That Failed to Depict White People
In February, Google faced a backlash from users who realized its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini was unable to reliably create images of white people. To quell the controversy, the company shut down Gemini’s ability to depict any human. Google recently began turning the feature back on for users who pay to use Gemini Advance. The company also said that it would incorporate the latest version of its image generator, Imagen 3, into the chatbot.
Major Sites Are Saying No to Apple’s AI Scraping
This summer, Apple gave websites more control over whether the company could train its AI models on their data, through the debut of Applebot-Extended. Applebot-Extended is an extension to Apple’s web-crawling bot that specifically lets website owners tell Apple not to use their data for AI training. Major publishers and platforms like The New York Times and Facebook have already opted out. The cold reception reflects a significant shift in both the perception and use of the robotic crawlers that have trawled the web for decades. Now that these bots play a key role in collecting AI training data, they have become a conflict zone over intellectual property and the future of the web.
Sarah Palin Is Granted New Libel Trial Against The New York Times
Afederal appeals court ordered a new trial in a libel lawsuit that Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential nominee, brought against The New York Times. The court found that Palin’s original trial, which she lost in 2022, had been tainted by problematic rulings by the presiding judge, Jed S. Rakoff. The court said that Judge Rakoff had wrongly excluded evidence and might have swayed jurors as they were deliberating.
Former Las Vegas Official Convicted in Journalist’s Murder
Robert Telles, a former Clark County official, was found guilty of murdering Jeff German, a longtime Las Vegas reporter who wrote articles critical of Telles. The highly unusual case had raised fears about press freedom in the United States and in particular the risks facing local journalists. In September 2022, German was stabbed to death outside his home by Telles. A few months before his death, German wrote an article for The Las Vegas Review-Journal describing employees’ complaints that Telles had created a toxic work environment, demonstrated favoritism, and had an improper relationship with a staff member. Telles denied the allegations. He lost his re-election bid a month after the article came out, and German kept reporting. Prosecutors suggested that was why Telles killed German. The jury convicted Telles of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Trump Reposts Crude Sexual Remark About Harris on Truth Social
Former President Donald J. Trump used his social-media website, Truth Social, to amplify a crude remark about Vice President Kamala Harris that suggested Harris traded sexual favors to help her political career. The post, by another user on Truth Social, was an image of Harris and Hillary Clinton. The remark in the post was a reference to former President Bill Clinton, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and a right-wing contention that Harris’s romantic relationship with Willie Brown, whom she dated in the mid-1990s while he was speaker of the California State Assembly, fueled her political rise. Trump’s repost was the second time in 10 days that he shared content from his personal account making sexually oriented attacks on Harris. Though he has a history of making crass insults about his opponents, the reposts signal Trump’s willingness to continue to shatter longstanding norms of political speech.
Hong Kong Editors Convicted of Sedition in Blow to Press Freedom
A Hong Kong judge convicted two journalists, the former editor in chief of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, and his successor, Patrick Lam, of conspiring to publish seditious materials on the now-defunct liberal news outlet. Both face potential prison sentences. This ruling highlights how far press freedom has shrunk in the city, where local news outlets already self-censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny from the authorities.
Brazil Blocks X After Musk Ignores Court Orders
X shut down in Brazil after the nation’s Supreme Court blocked the social network because Elon Musk refused to comply with court orders to suspend certain accounts. The moment posed one of the biggest tests yet of Musk’s efforts to transform the site into a digital town square where just about anything goes. Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Brazil’s telecom agency to block access to X across the nation because the company lacked a physical presence in Brazil. Musk closed X’s office in Brazil last week, after Justice Moraes threatened arrests for ignoring his orders to remove X accounts that he said broke Brazilian law. Musk and Justice Moraes have been sparring for months, with Musk saying Justice Moraes is illegally censoring conservative voices, while Justice Moraes says Musk is illegally obstructing his work to clean up the Brazilian internet.
After X went dark, thousands of online commentators moved to new digital town squares similar to the platform, such as Bluesky and Threads, in order to continue interacting with their followers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/technology/x-blocked-brazil-reactions.html?searchResultPosition=1
Russia Bars Numerous U.S. Journalists From the Country
Russia barred a number of journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as dozens of other Americans, from entering the country. In a statement posted online, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it had permanently barred 92 U.S. citizens in response to the Biden administration’s “Russophobic course,” including its sweeping sanctions. The announcement escalates President Vladimir V. Putin’s attacks against press freedoms and his crackdown on Western journalists.
General News
Supreme Court, for Now, Keeps Block on Revamped Biden Student Debt Plan
The Supreme Court maintained a temporary pause on a new effort by President Biden to wipe out tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt. The plan was part of the president’s piecemeal approach to forgiving student debt after the Supreme Court rejected a more ambitious proposal last year that would have canceled more than $400 billion in loans. Biden has instead pursued more limited measures directed at certain types of borrowers, including people on disability and public service workers, and refined existing programs.
The Supreme Court’s order leaves in limbo millions of borrowers enrolled in the Biden administration’s SAVE program, which ties monthly payments to household size and earnings. The plan was upended by an appeals court decision last month. The justices’ order, in response to an emergency application by the Biden administration, was one of two related to the program. The decision is the latest blow to the Biden administration’s debt-relief efforts, which Republican-led states have repeatedly challenged.
Judge Pauses Biden Administration Program That Aids Undocumented Spouses
A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked a Biden administration program, Keeping Families Together, that could offer a path to citizenship for up to half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens, ruling in favor of 16 Republican-led states that sued the administration. Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued an administrative stay that stops the administration from approving applications, which it started accepting last week, while the court considers the merits of the case. Judge Barker said that the filing by the coalition of states, led by Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, raised legitimate questions about the authority of the executive branch to bypass Congress and set immigration policy. The administration can continue to accept applications for the program, but can no longer approve them, according to the order. The suspension initially remains in place for 14 days while the parties submit arguments in the case, but it could be extended. This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions that Texas has spearheaded challenging federal immigration policies.
Whistle-Blower Groups Push to End Secret Seizure of Congressional Communications
During the Trump administration, the Justice Department subpoenaed congressional aides’ communications without their knowledge while hunting for leakers. Some of the aides learned only recently that their communications were collected. Now, whistle-blower advocacy groups are trying to pry more information out of the Justice Department, through court filings and public records requests, in the hopes of shaming the agency into ending the practice of secretly collecting congressional communications records.
Latino Civil Rights Group Demands Inquiry Into Texas Voter Fraud Raids
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights group, is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a series of raids conducted on Latino voting activists and political operatives as part of a sprawling voter fraud inquiry by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton. LULAC said that many of those targeted were Democratic leaders and election volunteers, and that some were older residents in their 70s and 80s. Paxton, a Republican, said the raids were part of an “ongoing election integrity investigation” that began two years ago to look into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. The actions by Paxton come as state Republican leaders push for greater scrutiny of election administration, particularly in Democratic-led cities. Audits have turned up administrative failures in places like Houston, but no widespread fraud.
Democrats Sue Georgia Election Board, Warning of ‘Chaos’
Democrats sued the Georgia state election board, arguing that measures approved by the board this month seeking to alter the election certification process in the state were illegal and could create chaos on Election Day. The lawsuit claims that the board intended to give local election officials a broad license to “hunt for purported election irregularities of any kind, potentially delaying certification and displacing longstanding (and court-supervised) processes for addressing fraud.” The lawsuit was filed in state court by local election officials, political candidates, the DNC, and the Democratic Party of Georgia, with support from Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. The move comes weeks after the state election board voted 3-2 to pass rules to give election officials authority to conduct “reasonable inquiry” into elections before certification and to require that county election officials be given “all election related documentation” before certification. Both rules, the lawsuit argues, create the impression that local election officials have discretionary power over certifying election results.
Prosecutors Appeal Dismissal of Trump Documents Case
Federal prosecutors began their bid to resurrect the classified documents case against Trump, telling an appeals court in Atlanta that the trial judge, Aileen M. Cannon, had improperly thrown out the charges. In a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the prosecutors argued that Judge Cannon erred last month when she handed down a bombshell ruling that dismissed the case on the grounds that Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought it, had been appointed to his job illegally.
Prosecutors Seek Simpler Path in Federal Election Case, as Trump Seeks Delays
Federal prosecutors and lawyers for Trump filed dueling proposals about how to move forward in the case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity and other legal issues. The proposals gave starkly different views of the case. Prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, suggested they believed their revised charges would allow them to steer clear of the Supreme Court ruling, while Trump’s lawyers made clear they would continue attacks on the case that could push it far into next year.
Trump Tries to Move Hush-Money Case to Federal Court Before Sentencing
Trump sought to move his Manhattan criminal case into federal court, filing the unusual request three months after he was convicted in state court. The long-shot bid marks Trump’s latest effort to stave off his sentencing in state court in his hush-money trial. He is scheduled to receive his punishment on September 18th, just seven weeks before Election Day.
How a Federal Court in New Orleans Is Driving the Conservative Agenda
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has turned its corner of the federal judiciary into a proving ground for some of the most aggressive conservative arguments in American law. In a few of the biggest Supreme Court decisions of the last few years, it was the Fifth Circuit that first ruled on the cases, teeing them up for Supreme Court review and a seismic moment in American law and politics. The court’s jurisprudence has been so audacious that in numerous cases its rulings have received a skeptical, or even hostile response from the Supreme Court, which overruled the Fifth Circuit seven times just in this past term, on an array of disputes ranging from gun rights for domestic abusers, government regulation of social media, and the F.D.A.’s approval of an abortion drug. However, what appears to be overreaching by the Fifth Circuit today could look more like setting the pace for the conservative movement’s judicial agenda, should Trump win in November.
At Two Elite Colleges, Shifts in Racial Makeup After Affirmative Action Ban
A drop in the share of Black first-year students at two elite colleges this school year, Amherst College and Tufts University, has provided an early sign that the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action could have an impact on racial diversity, at least at some of the nation’s more selective schools. At Amherst, the share of Black students decreased sharply by eight percentage points for this year’s entering class. It decreased more moderately at Tufts. This data contributes to an emerging, if still murky, picture about how last year’s Supreme Court decision barring race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities across the country could change higher education.
Maryland Supreme Court Orders Redo of Hearing That Freed Adnan Syed
The Maryland Supreme Court ordered a lower court to redo a hearing that had freed Adnan Syed, whose conviction for the murder of his former high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, gained widespread attention when the case was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.” In 2022, the state’s attorney for Baltimore City moved to vacate Syed’s 2000 conviction for Lee’s murder, for which he had been serving a life sentence, and the conviction was overturned. In 2023, the Appellate Court of Maryland reinstated it, ruling that a lower court had violated the right of Lee’s brother, Young Lee, to have been notified of and attend the hearing. The Maryland Supreme Court upheld the appellate court’s decision to reinstate Syed’s conviction. In the recent opinion, the court agreed that the rights of Lee’s brother had been violated. Syed has maintained his innocence throughout the long-running legal saga.
In Some States, Having a Guardian Means Not Having a Vote
More than one million Americans live under a court-approved guardianship. At least seven states block them from voting unless a judge decides otherwise. Many of the state laws regarding guardianship are decades or even centuries old, and presume that anyone under guardianship is mentally incompetent. Some people under guardianship have gone to court to get their rights restored, while others have challenged or sought changes in state laws.
Adams’s Pick for Top Lawyer Is Grilled by Skeptical Council Members
Members of the City Council questioned the record of Randy Mastro, a former federal prosecutor and aide to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, at a Council nomination hearing. The council members’ prime objection seemed rooted in why Mayor Eric Adams had settled on Mastro as his choice for corporation counsel, who would provide legal representation to the city and its agencies and would also represent Adams in civil litigation.
Columbia’s Antisemitism Task Force Finds ‘Urgent Need’ for Change
A Columbia University task force set up to combat antisemitism on campus released its latest report, detailing numerous instances of harassment and even physical violence directed at Jewish students in the wake of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel. The task force found “an urgent need to reshape everyday social norms” at Columbia and recommended changes in how the university prevents and responds to bias incidents.
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