Intellectual Property

Latest Blog Post

Does Taylor Swift Own Her Music?

Taylor Swift now owns her master recordings after buying back the rights to her first six albums in 2025. Her battle over music ownership highlighted the difference between masters and publishing and reshaped industry conversations about artist control.

March 12, 2026

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New Hope For Your Scandalous, Immoral, or Vulgar Trademark

The prohibition against approving immoral or scandalous trademarks has long been controversial, and led to legal disputes over everything from “Madonna”-branded wine in the 1930s to “Bubby Trap”-branded bras in the 1970s to quite a lot of things branded as “MILF” in more recent decades.

September 17, 2018

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Supreme Court to Decide Whether Copyright Registration or Application is Needed to Bring Suit

The US Supreme Court will soon resolve a split among federal circuit courts regarding when a person claiming copyright infringement can bring an action to defend their property against alleged infringers.

September 07, 2018

A person painting a cannabis plant image on paper

Don’t Let Your Cannabis Brand IP Go Up in Smoke

By protecting your branding, you avoid copycats from taking your profits by stealing your intellectual property, and we all enjoy the benefits of a marketplace where innovators and entrepreneurs are encouraged to create the best cannabis-themed lollipop on the market by awarding them their due profits.

June 26, 2018

Beatles album

Paul McCartney and Sony/ATV Settle Over Rights to Beatles Music

Paul McCartney sued Sony/ATV, seeking a declaratory judgment on whether he would be able to regain his copyright ownership share to the music he helped create.

July 25, 2017

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Instagram Introduces New Feature for Labeling Sponsored Ads

Under FTC “truth-in-advertising” rules, spokespeople are required to make disclosures about payments. In an effort to make things more transparent, Instagram introduced a feature in June that will make it easier to label posts that are paid promotions.

July 19, 2017

Stickers of multiple corporate logos

Supreme Court Rules Ban on Disparaging Trademarks is Unconstitutional

In one of the most anticipated trademark cases in years, the Supreme Court has ruled that prohibiting the registration of disparaging marks violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

July 05, 2017

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Advocates for the Creative Mind