Entertainment Law, Media Law and Telecoms Law

Former UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh joins Jon Van Gorp to explore which legal skills will remain most valuable as artificial intelligence transforms the practice of law. The conversation examines how lawyers can develop and refine critical abilities like identifying argument strengths and weaknesses, writing persuasively, and effectively working with AI-generated content.

Businesses operating websites and mobile applications have faced a growing wave of lawsuits under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), a 1967 statute enacted long before the modern internet. Plaintiffs increasingly argue that common website technologies—including cookies, pixels, and analytics tools—violate CIPA provisions originally aimed at wiretapping, eavesdropping, and pen registers.

Federal courts are grappling with whether communications with generative AI platforms receive attorney-client privilege or work product protection, with outcomes varying between criminal and civil cases. Recent rulings reveal critical distinctions in how courts treat AI-assisted materials depending on who uses them and whether counsel directed their creation.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed sweeping legislation restricting addictive social media features for minors and establishing safety requirements for AI companion chatbots. The laws target design features that keep users scrolling rather than just content moderation, marking a significant shift in online child-safety regulation.

The Fifth Circuit has rejected the Ninth Circuit's "server test" for copyright infringement in embedded content cases, establishing a new "transmit requirement" standard that examines where content originates and whether transmission was authorized. While reaching similar practical outcomes, this transmission-focused approach creates new considerations for publishers and aggregators regarding technical controls, server configurations, and content sourcing practices.

The International Chamber of Commerce has released an updated Framework for Responsible Alcohol Marketing Communications, providing enhanced guidance on marketing to minors, influencer responsibilities, and alcohol-free brand extensions. This 2026 edition addresses critical issues in modern alcohol advertising, including transparency requirements and the special obligations marketers have when engaging influencers and endorsers.

Gaming companies face mounting legal challenges as plaintiffs argue that loot box systems constitute illegal gambling under state law. The dispute centers on whether randomized in-game rewards with real economic value cross the line from traditional mystery products into regulated gambling territory, with courts now weighing arguments that could reshape the industry's most controversial monetization practice.

A federal district court has dismissed a six-year legal challenge to Oklahoma's 2020 tribal gaming compacts, ruling that the plaintiff tribes lacked standing to contest agreements between the state and the Comanche Nation and Otoe-Missouria Tribe. The decision provides greater operational certainty for tribal gaming enterprises while leaving unresolved broader questions about compact validity under federal law.

The legal fight over sports-related prediction-market contracts has moved quickly from regulatory novelty to a full-blown federal-state jurisdictional dispute. On August 28, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in KalshiEX, LLC v. Assad that Nevada may continue enforcing its gaming laws against Kalshi’s sports-related event contracts because those contracts likely fall outside the category of swaps subject to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) exclusive jurisdiction under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).

The Seventh Circuit has issued a landmark ruling that significantly narrows the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's application to text messages, holding that private litigants cannot sue under Do Not Call prohibitions when senders fail to honor opt-out requests for marketing texts. This decision creates a potential circuit split with other appellate courts and may accelerate Supreme Court review of how the TCPA applies to text messaging.

A federal court in California has ruled that plaintiffs alleging privacy violations under the California Invasion of Privacy Act need not provide granular technical details about website tracking mechanisms at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The decision addresses whether cookie-based tracking constitutes unlawful use of a pen register and what level of specificity plaintiffs must plead when alleging interception of their communications with a website.

The sunk-cost proposition holds that because an upfront spectrum auction payment is irrecoverable, it should not influence forward-looking decisions. Since the introduction of large-scale spectrum auctions in the mid-1990s, economists and regulators have often referenced this proposition as a reason not to be concerned about high upfront fees paid for mobile spectrum licenses