By NICK MCCANN
(CN) - The government took down Megaupload, one of the largest online file-hosting services, and accused seven people with running a $500 million worldwide piracy ring that trafficked in copyrighted movies, books and music, the Justice Department announced.
By NICK MCCANN
PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) - A jury's defamation award against a blogger who wrote articles criticizing a financial company should be overturned because it threatens free speech, the Electronic Frontier Foundation claimed in a brief in federal court.
By BARBARA LEONARD
(CN) - A Camille Pissarro masterpiece is on its way back to France more than 30 years after it was stolen from a museum there, prosecutors said at a repatriation ceremony Wednesday with the French ambassador in Washington.
By RYAN ABBOTT
WASHINGTON (CN) - Cops who broke up a bachelor party featuring "scantily clad" strippers "with money in their garters" and the smell of marijuana are liable for false arrest, a federal judge ruled.
By BARBARA LEONARD
(CN) - Foreign artists deserve copyright protection from the profitable use of their works by performers and publishers in the United States, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
By JEFF D. GORMAN
(CN) - A New Hampshire man was enjoying his free-speech rights when made a movie on a mountain while dressed as Bigfoot, the state supreme court ruled, finding the state's special permit requirements unconstitutional.
By JEFF D. GORMAN
(CN) - One-time pop star Toni Basil is too late to sue her attorneys for malpractice, a New York appeals court ruled. Best known for her 1982 hit "Mickey," the California-based singer retained Gibbons Del Deo attorney Oren Warshavsky in New York to seek compensation for the alleged unauthorized use of her song in a commercial for the Subway sandwich restaurant.
By BARBARA LEONARD
(CN) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to weigh in on a pair of rulings that found Pennsylvania school officials violated the First Amendment rights of students when they suspended them for posting raunchy faux profiles of their principals on the social-networking site MySpace.
By JOE CELENTINO
CHICAGO (CN) - A black deputy sheriff who was fired for not taking his job seriously cannot sue the department for racial discrimination, the 7th Circuit ruled, rejecting claims that detectives harassed him by watching clips from "Blazing Saddles" in front of him and calling him Urkel.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
MANHATTAN (CN) - Inverness Distribution, formerly known as Morgan Creek International, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan, listing more than $50 million in debts, eight months after first filing for bankrupcy in Bermuda.
By CHRIS MARSHALL
SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge has again refused to dismiss copyright claims over a YouTube video of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."
By KEVIN KOENINGER
CINCINNATI (CN) - Larry Flynt can seize funds from a bank account belonging to his brother under the terms of a permanent injunction in a long-running trademark dispute over the Hustler name.
By TIM HULL
PHOENIX (CN) - An Arizona jazz singer owes $12 million to a husband-wife plastic surgery team she defamed with online complaints, as part of a campaign to damage the doctors' business, a jury ruled.
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - Comic book writer Gary Friedrich repeatedly signed away to Marvel Enterprises his rights to "Ghost Rider," and cannot sue Marvel for copyright infringement, a federal judge ruled.
By NICK MCCANN
(CN)- The actress who played Elly Mae Clampett on "The Beverly Hillbillies" settled her lawsuit against Mattel over a Barbie doll in the likeness of her character.
By ADAM KLASFELD
BROOKLYN (CN) - Jimmy Kimmel will not have to face a lawsuit from a Brooklyn man who claimed one of the talk show host's sketches doctored a video to turn him into a "laughingstock," a judge ruled in Kings County Court.
By JOE CELENTINO
(CN) - A federal judge has scrapped a misleading court stipulation from Al Jazeera in a suit that claims the international news network owes a construction company $1.4 million for a state-of-the-art television studio and office space built in Washington, D.C.
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - Three women claim a cookbook writer from upstate New York hired them as au pairs, then sexually enslaved them.
By IULIA FILIP
MANHATTAN (CN) - In a federal class action, an author claims McGraw-Hill "systematically violates its contracts" by self-dealing transactions with its subsidiaries to cheat authors on royalties from foreign sales.
By ROBERT KAHN
LOS ANGELES (CN) - A Sikh man claims Jay Leno defamed him and his religious group by telling a joke on his show: that Mitt Romney's summer vacation home is the Golden Temple of Amritsar in India, a statement that "hurt the sentiments of all Sikh people".
By MARIMER MATOS
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CN) - A co-CEO of Archie Comics claims her co-CEO plotted to take over the company by defaming her, falsely telling a New York Post reporter that she "had pointed at several Archie employees and shouted 'penis, penis, penis,' ... shouted that 'you penises think you can run me out,'" and told a worker to "stand up and pull down your pants."
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) - "Jersey Shore" star Michael Sorrentino, also known as "The Situation," took $25,000 from clothing company Serious Pimp, but refused to wear the company's clothes on the TV show under a "co-branding" agreement, Serious Pimp claims in Orange County Court.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - A New York man says ABC News accidentally used his photo to identify him as Kenneth Minor, the man who was convicted of murdering motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker.
By NICK MCCANN
(CN)- Atlanta rapper Yung Joc, Atlantic Records and Bad Boy Records made a ton of money off recordings that they don't own the rights to, according to a complaint in federal court in Georgia.
By MATT REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES (CN) - The Akin, Gump law firm claims the executive producer of the Kevin Spacey comedy "The Father of Invention" owes it millions of dollars.
By DIONNE CORDELL-WHITNEY
MINNEAPOLIS (CN) - A woman who runs an online magazine claims Minneapolis harassed her and her son, and searched her home without a warrant, because of her news magazine, which has been critical of police.
By NICK MCCANN
PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) - A longtime police officer claims Portland forced him to retire because he talked to Dan Rather and "America's Most Wanted" about sex trafficking, child prostitution and the city's inadequate resources to handle the problems.
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - An elderly woman sued the Gagosian Gallery, claiming it allowed her son to sell a major work by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, without her permission, for far less than its true value.
By MATT REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES (CN) - A woman who attended a live taping of the Disney show "Good Luck Charlie" claims a comedian gave her an "unwarranted and unconsented" spanking in front of the audience and her two children, who looked on in "confusion and sadness."
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - Producers of the Broadway musical "Spider-Man" countersued the play's original director Julie Taymor, claiming she is trying to enforce an illegal price-fixing agreement that the company did not sign.
By RYAN ABBOTT
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Pentagon and CIA refuse to give details of their alleged communications with the director of a forthcoming movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden, a government watchdog claims in Federal Court.
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Concern over the potential chilling effect on fair use led Google to intervene in the 9th Circuit showdown between an Oregon nonprofit and the beleaguered copyright enforcer, Righthaven.
LOS ANGELES - Brian Green claims his former "Beverly Hills 90210" co-star and girlfriend Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo owes him more than $130,000 in loans; both are now married to other people.
LOS ANGELES - The Canadian rock band Default sued their late manager's estate, claiming the late Richard Donaleshen took them for more than $250,000 before he died in 2010.
By MATT REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES (CN) - Fox does not want to let Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson look at broadcasting agreements with the NCAA, in a fight over video games.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
(CN) - The trust that owns the rights to the "Darkover" science fiction series claims author Mary Battle violated its copyright by publishing two "inferior" spinoff novels that take place "in the Darkover universe."
By DAVID LEE
(CN) - A formerly anonymous actress who sued Amazon.com and its Internet Movie Database last year for revealing her age has identified herself, and her age, in an amended federal complaint.
By ROBERT KAHN
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) - A founder of a seized and shuttered website that let millions of users illegally download movies and TV shows was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison.
By NICK MCCANN
(CN)- Rapper Lupe Fiasco says an education non-profit cancelled a benefit concert he was supposed to headline less than 24 hours before the show, and he is owed $66,000 from the group.
By NICK DIVITO
LAS VEGAS (CN) - Redbox e-mails customers telling them they can keep rented movies an extra day for free, then charges them for the extra day, a class action claims in federal court.
By ROSE BOUBOUSHIAN
(CN) - An Illinois man can sue his online adversary who allegedly took their role-playing game on Battlecam.com too far with a series of prank calls for pizza deliveries, male prostitutes and police intervention, a federal judge ruled.
By NICK MCCANN
(CN) - A Pennsylvania man says Wiz Khalifa's smash hit, "Black and Yellow," directly rips off his song "Pink N Yellow," and claims the rap star owes him more than a million dollars. Click the song titles to compare.
By MATT REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES (CN) - A British woman who won a United Arab Emirates-set version of "The Apprentice," claims her co-contestant refused to hand over her share of the $1 million prize.
By MATT REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES (CN) - Two producers have restated five-year old claims that NBC Universal made millions by stealing their idea for a show about a team of paranormal investigators and repackaged it as the hit reality show "Ghost Hunters."
By KEVIN KOENINGER
CHICAGO (CN) - A public school teacher whose book was published by the University of Chicago Press claims he was fired because a "student's mother took issue with 'Gabriel's Fire,' a memoir about plaintiff growing up as a Mexican immigrant youth, and particularly, with a section of the book describing a relationship plaintiff had twenty years earlier."
From SPORTSBUSINESS DAILY
MLB Advanced Media will be pressured to adopt TV Everywhere principles this year when MLB negotiates its next media-rights deal. That's because TV Everywhere - the concept that allows cable and satellite TV customers to watch channels on several different platforms - has emerged as the standard in cable circles and is backed by the industry's biggest companies. Read more from SportsBusiness Daily.
From MULTICHANNEL NEWS
YouTube, continuing its push to add 96 professionally produced channels in the next year, added two entertainment "networks" to its website Monday: PMC and ION Television's Entertainment News Television and the Young Hollywood Network. Read more from Multichannel News.
From LOS ANGELES TIMES
Hollywood's two main actors unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, early Monday morning took a historic step toward combining their two unions. Read more.
From LOS ANGELES TIMES
Combining Hollywood's two biggest independent film studios and the blockbuster young adult franchises "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games" into one powerful entity, Lions Gate Entertainment has agreed to acquire Summit Entertainment for $412.5 million in cash and stock. Read more from Los Angeles Times
From THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
Did the Obama administration release classified information to Hollywood notables for a film about the operation that killed Osama bin Laden? That's a question Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) wants answered. And in response, the Pentagon's inspector general has launched an investigation, King disclosed Thursday. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
From BUSINESSWEEK
Adele's "21" was the biggest album of 2011, hitting the top spot in dozens of countries and garnering six Grammy nominations in November. Her latest single, "Someone Like You," is playing everywhere. Everywhere except Spotify. Read more from Businessweek.
From CNNMONEY
For the first time in history, digital music sales topped the physical sale of music. According to a Nielsen and Billboard report, digital music purchases accounted for 50.3 percent of music sales in 2011. Digital sales were up 8.4 percent from the previous year, while physical album sales declined 5 percent. Read more from CNNMoney.
From GIGAOM
Kickstarter, the powerhouse crowdsourced fund-raising engine for an increasing number of creative projects, is poised to have a breakout winter as a film funder, with three of its projects on documentary short lists for the Academy Awards and more than a dozen films headed to the Sundance Film Festival. Read more from Gigaom.
From THE NEW YORK TIMES
Grooveshark, a popular digital music service that is being sued for copyright infringement by three of the four major record companies, now has problems with the one big label that it has a licensing deal with. Read more from The New York Times.
From THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
A new anti-piracy law is hailed by supporters for bringing Spain in line with international standards, but pirates say it will be easy to work around by using intermediaries or foreign hosts. Read more from The Hollywood Reporter.
From PAIDCONTENT
Netflix is facing changes to its DVD business with two Time Warner programmers after months of CEO back-and-forth about the competition perceived and real between the subscription service and HBO. Read more from paidContent.
From PAIDCONTENT
A U.K. newspaper caused a stir on Thursday when it reported that Apple had threatened legal action against a Chinese company that plans to sell an eerie replica of its late founder starting next month. The Daily Telegraph said Apple claims to own rights to Jobs' likeness. Read more from paidContent.
From THE WRAP
Over 560 people have signed an online petition calling for an independent investigation into allegations that Bruce Dow, CEO of the Screen Actors Guild's health and pension plans, covered up a $5 million - $10 million embezzlement scheme and raided the fund for personal use. Read more from The Wrap.
From FOLIOMAG
The Atlantic has some milestones to celebrate as it heads into the holiday season. The brand is reporting gains across all of its platforms-print, digital and live events-for the fourth quarter and full year, carrying it into its second profitable year in a row. Read more from FolioMag.
From THE WRAP
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is getting the corporate equivalent of coal in his Christmas stocking - a pay cut. Read more from The Wrap.
From THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
The Russian association of television and movie producers is demanding that the country's biggest social networking website, Vkontakte, a local analogue of Facebook, remove more than 500 movies and television shows uploaded by users. Read more from The Hollywood Reporter.