The yr 2025 left the media and leisure business with a collection of great, unresolved authorized questions. As we transfer into 2026, a number of high-profile instances are poised to redefine the boundaries of truthful use, the legality of AI coaching, and the applying of the Rogers Check in trademark legislation.
1. Honest Use and the “Biographical Anchor”: Whyte Monkey Productions v. Netflix
One of the regarding instances for documentary filmmakers is Whyte Monkey Productions v. Netflix, a dispute involving the hit collection Tiger King.
The Dispute
Timothy Sepi, proprietor of Whyte Monkey Productions and a former worker of “Joe Unique,” filed an infringement declare in opposition to Netflix for utilizing roughly one minute of footage he shot of Joe Unique’s husband’s funeral.
The tenth Circuit’s Slender Interpretation
Whereas the district courtroom initially dominated in favor of Netflix on truthful use grounds, the tenth Circuit Court docket of Appeals reversed that call. The panel discovered the use was not truthful use as a result of it didn’t criticize or touch upon the footage itself, however fairly used the footage to touch upon Joe Unique. This ruling has induced important alarm in “The Enterprise,” significantly for documentary creators who depend on the next “finest practices”:
● Biographical Anchors: Utilizing copyrighted clips from well-liked tradition for instance an argument or level.
● Historic Markers: Incorporating materials to ascertain a historic sequence.
● Contextual Justification: The idea that utilizing a clip to elucidate a topic’s historical past (e.g., an actor’s “modest beginnings”) is a protected truthful use.
Why It Issues
The tenth Circuit’s choice seems to deviate from years of jurisprudence that protected the usage of third social gathering content material as a biographical anchor. Notable precedents in danger embrace:
● Time, Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates: Sketches from the Zapruder movie of the Kennedy
assassination.
● Invoice Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley: Grateful Useless live performance posters utilized in a
band historical past e book.
● Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Passport Video: Use of tv clips that includes Elvis.
The tenth Circuit is presently revisiting this choice following widespread criticism from
filmmakers, authors, and legislation professors relating to the misapplication of the Supreme Court docket’s
Warhol choice.
2. AI Coaching and the “How” of Knowledge Acquisition
AI litigation was a dominant theme in 2025, with two landmark instances—Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta—establishing a posh roadmap for AI legal responsibility.
Bartz v. Anthropic: The Piracy Framework
In Bartz v. Anthropic, the courtroom issued what is actually a cut up choice relating to the coaching of the “Claude” mannequin.
● Transformative Use: The courtroom discovered that coaching fashions on lawfully-acquired supplies might be thought-about transformative truthful use.
● The Piracy Exception: Nevertheless, the creation of a “central library” utilizing hundreds of thousands of books from pirate websites was not truthful use.
● Decision: Anthropic ultimately settled the case for $1.5 billion and the destruction ofthe pirated datasets.
Kadrey v. Meta: The Market Substitution Idea
Within the Kadrey case, authors sued Meta for coaching “LLaMA” fashions on “shadow libraries”. The courtroom leaned towards truthful use for the coaching itself however left the door open for plaintiffs if they’ll show market hurt. If AI outputs operate as direct substitutes for the unique works (e.g., near-verbatim reproductions or displacing clicks and subscriptions), the truthful use protection could fail.
Rising AI Litigation Tendencies
Plaintiffs at the moment are making an attempt to use these frameworks to instances involving “stealth
scraping”—the usage of undeclared crawlers and the circumvention of robots.txt directives.
2026 will reply whether or not courts will deal with these actions much like the piracy in Bartz.
3. Trademark Infringement and the Rogers Check: HomeVestors v. Warner Bros.
The ultimate main space of decision for 2026 includes the applying of the Rogers Check to tv titles following the Supreme Court docket’s choice in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Merchandise.
The Dispute
HomeVestors of America, homeowners of the “We Purchase Ugly Homes” and “The Ugliest Home of the
Yr” emblems, sued Warner Bros. Discovery over the HGTV present title Ugliest Home in
America. HomeVestors claims the title causes client confusion and implies a false affiliation.
The Rogers Check Inflection Level
Discovery moved to dismiss based mostly on the Rogers check, which gives First Modification
safety to titles of expressive works. Nevertheless, the courtroom dominated that:
● The Jack Daniel’s choice doesn’t permit a blanket Rogers protection if the infringer’s use
of the mark is source-identifying.
● HomeVestors offered sufficient proof to counsel Discovery used the title in a source-
figuring out method to maneuver the case to trial.
I counsel that this case represents an “inflection level” the place courts should determine and make
corrections if Jack Daniel’s has been over-applied to expressive works—the very context the
Rogers check was designed to guard. The Supreme Court docket in Jack Daniel particularly famous that
there could also be a “uncommon event the place Rodgers could also be relevant to the usage of a mark in
reference to an expressive work that additionally capabilities as a supply identifier.” Plainly
decrease courts have forgotten this caveat. A remaining ruling is presently pending following an August
2025 bench trial.
Key Takeaways for 2026
● Filmmakers ought to monitor the tenth Circuit for a remaining ruling on “biographical anchors” to make sure their documentary practices stay protected.
● AI Builders should prioritize the how of information acquisition, as stealth scraping and pirated inputs have gotten dispositive elements for legal responsibility.
● Model Homeowners and Studios should navigate a shifting trademark panorama the place the Rogers check could not present a “blanket” protection for expressive titles.
