<\/p>\n
The year 2025 left the media and entertainment industry with a series of significant, unresolved legal questions. As we move into 2026, several high-profile cases are poised to redefine the boundaries of fair use, the legality of AI training, and the application of the Rogers Test in trademark law.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1. Fair Use and the \u201cBiographical Anchor\u201d:\u00a0Whyte Monkey Productions v. Netflix<\/em><\/strong>: One of the most concerning cases for documentary filmmakers is\u00a0Whyte Monkey Productions v. Netflix<\/em>, a dispute involving the hit series\u00a0Tiger King<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Dispute<\/strong><\/p>\n Timothy Sepi, owner of Whyte Monkey Productions and a former employee of \u201cJoe Exotic,\u201d filed an infringement claim against Netflix for using approximately one minute of footage he shot of Joe Exotic\u2019s husband\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n The 10th Circuit\u2019s Narrow Interpretation<\/strong><\/p>\n While the district court originally ruled in favor of Netflix on fair use grounds, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. The panel found the use was not\u00a0fair use<\/strong>\u00a0because it did not criticize or comment on the\u00a0footage itself b<\/em>ut rather used the footage to comment on Joe Exotic. This ruling has caused significant alarm in \u201cThe Business,\u201d particularly for documentary creators who rely on the following \u201cbest practices:<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Biographical Anchors<\/strong>:\u00a0Using copyrighted clips from popular culture to illustrate an argument or point.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Historical Markers:<\/strong>\u00a0Incorporating material to establish a historical sequence.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Contextual Justification:<\/strong>\u00a0The belief that using a clip to explain a subject\u2019s history (e.g., an actor\u2019s \u201cmodest beginnings\u201d) is a protected fair use.<\/p>\n Why It Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n The 10th Circuit\u2019s decision appears to deviate from years of jurisprudence that protected the use of third-party content as a biographical anchor. \u00a0Notable precedents at risk include:<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Time, Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates:\u00a0<\/em>Sketches from the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley:<\/em>\u00a0Grateful Dead concert posters used in a band history book.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Passport Video:<\/em>\u00a0Use of television clips featuring Elvis.<\/p>\n The 10th Circuit is currently revisiting this decision following widespread criticism from filmmakers, authors, and law professors regarding the misapplication of the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0Warhol<\/em>\u00a0decision.<\/p>\n 2. AI Training and the \u201cHow\u201d of Data Acquisition<\/strong>: AI litigation was a dominant theme in 2025, with two landmark cases\u2014Bartz v. Anthropic<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Kadrey v. Meta<\/em>\u2014establishing a complex roadmap for AI liability.<\/p>\n Bartz v. Anthropic<\/em>: The Piracy Framework<\/strong><\/p>\n In\u00a0Bartz v. Anthropic<\/em>, the court issued what is essentially a split decision regarding the training of the \u201cClaude\u201d model.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Transformative Use:<\/strong>\u00a0The court found that training models on\u00a0lawfully-acquired<\/em>\u00a0materials could be considered transformative fair use.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0The Piracy Exception:<\/strong>\u00a0However, the creation of a \u201ccentral library\u201d using millions of books from\u00a0pirate sites<\/strong>\u00a0was not fair use.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Resolution:<\/strong>\u00a0Anthropic eventually settled the case for\u00a0$1.5 billion<\/strong>\u00a0and the destruction of the pirated datasets.<\/p>\n Kadrey v. Meta<\/em>: The Market Substitution Theory<\/strong><\/p>\n In the\u00a0Kadrey<\/em>\u00a0case, authors sued Meta for training \u201cLLaMA\u201d models on \u201cshadow libraries\u201d. The court leaned toward fair use for the training itself but left the door open for plaintiffs if they can prove\u00a0market harm<\/strong>. If AI outputs function as direct substitutes for the original works (e.g., near-verbatim reproductions or displacing clicks and subscriptions), the fair use defense may fail.<\/p>\n Emerging AI Litigation Trends<\/strong><\/p>\n Plaintiffs are now attempting to apply these frameworks to cases involving \u201cstealth scraping\u201d\u2014the use of undeclared crawlers and the circumvention of\u00a0robots.txt\u00a0directives. \u00a02026 will answer whether courts will treat these actions similar to the piracy in\u00a0Bartz<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/figure>\n 3. Trademark Infringement and the Rogers Test:\u00a0HomeVestors v. Warner Bros.<\/em><\/strong>: The final major area of resolution for 2026 involves the application of the\u00a0Rogers Test<\/strong>\u00a0to television titles following the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Jack Daniel\u2019s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Dispute<\/strong><\/p>\n HomeVestors of America, owners of the \u201cWe Buy Ugly Houses\u201d and \u201cThe Ugliest House of the Year\u201d trademarks, sued Warner Bros. Discovery over the HGTV show title\u00a0Ugliest House in America<\/em><\/strong>. HomeVestors claims the title causes consumer confusion and implies a false affiliation.<\/p>\n The Rogers Test Inflection Point<\/strong><\/p>\n Discovery moved to dismiss based on the\u00a0Rogers<\/em>\u00a0test, which provides First Amendment protection to titles of expressive works. However, the court ruled that:<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0The\u00a0Jack Daniel\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0decision does not allow a blanket\u00a0Rogers<\/em>\u00a0defense if the infringer\u2019s use of the mark is\u00a0source-identifying<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0HomeVestors provided enough evidence to suggest Discovery used the title in a source-identifying manner to move the case to trial.<\/p>\n I suggest that this case represents an \u201cinflection point\u201d where courts must decide and make corrections if\u00a0Jack Daniel\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0has been over-applied to expressive works\u2014the very context the\u00a0Rogers<\/em>\u00a0test was designed to protect.\u00a0The Supreme Court in\u00a0Jack Daniel\u00a0<\/em>specifically noted that there may be a \u201crare occasion where\u00a0Rodgers\u00a0<\/em>may be applicable to the use of a mark in connection with an expressive work that also functions as a source identifier.\u201d \u00a0It seems that lower courts have forgotten this caveat.\u00a0A final ruling is currently pending following an August 2025 bench trial.<\/p>\n Key Takeaways for 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Filmmakers<\/strong>\u00a0should monitor the 10th Circuit for a final ruling on \u201cbiographical anchors\u201d to ensure their documentary practices remain protected.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0AI Developers<\/strong>\u00a0must prioritize the\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0of data acquisition, as stealth scraping and pirated inputs are becoming dispositive factors for liability.<\/p>\n \u25cf\u00a0Brand Owners and Studios<\/strong>\u00a0must navigate a shifting trademark landscape where the\u00a0Rogers<\/em>test may no longer provide a \u201cblanket\u201d defense for expressive titles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.jdsupra.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The year 2025 left the media and entertainment industry with a series of significant, unresolved legal questions. As we move into 2026, several high-profile cases are poised to redefine the boundaries of fair use, the legality of AI training, and the application of the Rogers Test in trademark law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2246187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2246186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/The-2026-Entertainment-Law-Forecast-Navigating-Fair-Use-AI-Training.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2246188,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246186\/revisions\/2246188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2246187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}