JLA Beat is a regularly-updated online resource written entirely by the Journal’s editorial staff. Launched in 2015, the Beat features recent legal developments in the topics discussed in our print edition and beyond, including the art, entertainment, sports, intellectual property, and communications industries.
Published Apr 15, 2019
As professional photographers and influencers flocked to the Vessel in Hudson yards this March, they realized something strange written on the Vessel’s website: the Vessel would own all their carefully planned-out Instagrams. The Vessel is New York’s latest soon-to-be-landmark, featuring 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs, comprised of almost 2,500 individual steps. When the structure… Read more→
Published Apr 11, 2019
Background of the Noncommercial Use Exception and Timeline of Implementation The purpose of the blog post is to summarize the recent administrative actions involving the U.S. Copyright’s implementation of the 2018 Music Modernization Act’s provisions for pre-1972 sound recordings. In addition, it is the goal of this post to facilitate understanding of the Act’s implications… Read more→
Published Apr 8, 2019
On January 17, 2019, France announced that it was creating a task force for the restitution of Nazi looted artworks in compliance with the EU Parliament Resolution to Identify and Recover Looted Art. The country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has also commissioned a study aimed to repatriate artworks stolen years ago from France’s former colonies. Neither… Read more→
Published Mar 28, 2019
Perhaps too often in sports we focus on best of the best. Viewership skyrockets during playoffs and finals as consumers want to see someone win something tangible. But what about the worst teams? What about the 0-16 Cleveland Browns (2017), the 119-loss Detroit Tigers (2003), or the 2014-2015 Philadelphia 76ers squad that was being compared… Read more→
Published Mar 18, 2019
Anyone familiar with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird knows the plot is centered on legal drama. Currently, there is a stage adaptation of the novel telling the same legal story of the trial of Tom Robinson. While the play is centered on the trial, the play is also surrounded by its own legal issues…. Read more→
Published Mar 14, 2019
In some respects, imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery. But among songwriters, imitation can also be the surest route to a lawsuit. One of the most prominent music copyright cases today has ensnared pop star Miley Cyrus.[1] In March 2018, Jamaican songwriter Michael May a/k/a Flourgon sued Cyrus and Sony Music Entertainment for… Read more→
Published Mar 11, 2019
“You have been warned,” an International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) article exposing a recently-identified Jackson Pollock forgery concludes. But haven’t we already? The Foundation’s rejection of this latest false Pollock, allegedly owned by Fidel Castro, closely trails several other notorious exposures of purported Pollock works. When Alex Matter, the son of two artist-friends of… Read more→
Published Feb 22, 2019
Watching the TV show The Good Wife is actually a pretty effective way to learn some criminal law. Although it definitely presents a simplified version, a compelling drama making concepts manifest as “real world” situations can help people understand on a deeper level than any classroom could. For example, I credit the episode “Home,” from… Read more→
Published Feb 17, 2019
“Andy Warhol—From A to B And Back Again” opened at The Whitney Museum of American Art on November 12, 2018. The retrospective exhibit includes 350 works that span three floors of the museum. The exhibition, which is considerably larger than the typical feature at The Whitney, has been a rousing success. It’s gotten rave reviews… Read more→
Published Feb 8, 2019
As the rumor mill continues to buzz around Major League Baseball’s off-season deals, one name persistently comes up: Bryce Harper. Even before the Washington Nationals’ 2018 season ended, Harper’s name splashed headlines that speculated on where he would be playing next and for how much. But now it is February and Harper remains unsigned. Whether… Read more→
Published Feb 1, 2019
Taken together, the documentary RBG that came out last summer and the biopic On the Basis of Sex which was released this winter further cemented Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s status as a pop culture icon. In an interview on the podcast Amicus with Dahlia Lithwick, Daniel Stiepleman, the screenwriter of the latter and… Read more→
Published Jan 25, 2019
The 3D reconstruction of the city of Palmyra, a digitized copy of the Brazil national museum, new media art products, Google Cultural Institute’s collection and Object IDs have something in common: they are all “cultural data.” More than 2 billion people in the world create “digital culture” by simply sharing photos, videos, and links or… Read more→
Published Nov 30, 2018
Indulge me, for a moment, in a thought experiment based on a famous thought experiment: You may, through your various literary or philosophical exploits (or perhaps, a dalliance with the work of Douglas Adams), have come across something known as the Infinite Monkey Theorem. There are all sorts of mathematical proofs and statistics and theories of… Read more→
Published Nov 25, 2018
The context may differ, but the joke is always the same: there are too many lawyers, and what are they good for, anyway? After all, lawyers are nothing more than ambulance chasers and sharks and defenders of multi-billion-dollar corporations…right? Well, maybe there’s more to lawyering than that. For eons, humans have told stories to create… Read more→
Published Nov 16, 2018
On November 7, the day after the midterm elections, the President held a press conference. In an average administration, that statement could evince a real snoozer. The press conference could yield a few interesting tidbits, but it would more likely be filled with carefully-calibrated, spin-doctored gobbledygook that would attract the considered attention of self-described “politics… Read more→
Published Nov 12, 2018
It almost doesn’t bear repeating that Fall 2018 has been an exciting yet stressful time for many of us. We’re law students, so this will partly be related to school, as clubs, journals, clinics, and classes fill out much of our schedules. But there’s also that other Thing. The Thing that may not take up… Read more→
Published Oct 31, 2018
Halloween is here, and it’s one of our favorite holidays at JLA. So, in order to celebrate we thought we’d take you back to where it all began, and tell the fascinating story of…The Legal History of Halloween. The Magna Carta Back in 1215, King John of England agreed to the charter of rights known… Read more→
Published Oct 19, 2018
In the current digital age, the way we create and consume content is quickly changing, so much so that the law at times has a hard time keeping up. Recent developments have helped to bring some more balance between the service providers and the artists, but there is still much work to be done. The… Read more→
Published Oct 15, 2018
Stravinsky is perhaps classical music’s most celebrated stylistic chameleon. Whether it be revolutionary modernism in The Rite of Spring, sweeping romanticism in The Firebird, or sparkling neo-classicism in The Rake’s Progress, every genre Stravinsky touched, he mastered. It is in his smaller works, however, where Stravinsky demonstrates a subtler, but equally virtuosic, ability to exploit… Read more→
Published Oct 9, 2018
“Capturing the Flag” is an enlightening and inspiring new documentary from Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Anne de Mare that illustrates some of the ways in which voter suppression occurs in America and how the efforts of ordinary citizens can make a difference in ensuring that people are able to vote. In response to the Supreme Court’s… Read more→
Published Sep 28, 2018
“Bonjour! I’m x66x. All you need to know about me is I hate macaroni casserole with a passion. I’m on a new diet that consists of salad and sausage links,” reads my kitten’s profile. Fortunately for “x66x”, it inherited its likeness from one of its androgynous parents “10”, from whom it inherited its love… Read more→
Published Sep 20, 2018
It occurred to me earlier this semester, when a professor put on “Cabinet Battle #1” to school us on the beginnings of the federal tax system, that Hamilton must have been the best thing ever to happen to legal scholars. As an unabashed fan of the musical, I get it — but alongside the seemingly… Read more→
Published Sep 19, 2018
At age 85, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is ready for her closeup. It’s probably safe to say that never in history has a sitting member of the Supreme Court become so ingrained in the popular zeitgeist. “It’s completely ludicrous!” says Betsy West. West co-directed and co-produced the documentary RBG, which tells the story of Justice… Read more→
Published Apr 28, 2018
[Note: This review contains heavy spoilers for the Netflix original film Candy Jar.] I’ve often mused that Columbia Law School feels more like high school than college. We have lockers; there’s an annual basketball game in a gym with a pep band; we go to Law Prom each March; there are few enough people that there… Read more→
Published Apr 16, 2018
On April 5, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed an art dealer’s lawsuit against authenticators of the works of the abstract painter Agnes Martin, rejecting claims that the defendants’ authentication decisions intentionally sought to cause the dealer harm. Agnes Martin, who died in 2004, was an American abstract painter known for spare canvases… Read more→
Published Apr 16, 2018
It’s fair to say that Steven Spielberg’s The Post, starring Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham alongside an all-star cast, was well-received this awards season. The movie received a string of nominations for various awards including the Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. Set in the early 1970s, the film tells the true story of… Read more→
Published Apr 16, 2018
On April 3, United States District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York denied summary judgment moved for by the creators of the Broadway musical Anastasia. This is the most recent step toward trial in this copyright dispute over the musical, which is based on the rumored life of Anastasia, daughter… Read more→
Published Apr 4, 2018
Fireworks, barbecue, red, white, blue, stars, stripes – many things have long been emblematic of the Fourth of July; for basketball fans everywhere, however, Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors in free agency, penned in a now infamous article for The Players’ Tribune entitled My Next Chapter on July 4, 2016, is perhaps equally… Read more→
Published Apr 4, 2018
In the immensely successful 2018 documentary film, Black Panther, the world received a surprisingly candid and close look at the country of Wakanda. The film follows the newly-crowned king, T’Challa, as he rises to power and struggles to solidify his hold on the throne. Soon after T’Challa’s coronation, a U.S. citizen named Erik Stevens arrives… Read more→
Published Apr 2, 2018
On my first night home for spring break I was hanging out with my siblings and one of them brought out a game I hadn’t played before called, “What Do You Meme?” Seeking to combine the gameplay of the popular party game “Card’s Against Humanity,” with the Internet sensation of memes, “What Do You Meme?”… Read more→