Publicist and Videographer Sue PBS and Surrogacy Firm for Copyright Infringement

Publicist Wendy Wheaton and cameraman Tommy Phipps Sr. sue PBS and World of Surrogacy LLC for $2.55M in damages, after the surrogacy firm’s owner Crystal Travis allegedly used Wheaton and Phipps’s copyrighted surrogacy footage and photographs, as if they belonged to her, in a PBS documentary entitled “To the Contrary.”

By Dru Sefton.  Current.

http://current.org/2016/04/lawsuit-alleges-copyright-infringement-in-to-the-contrary-segment

NY Photographer Sues Foundation for Copyright Infringement

Photographer Bobby Miller claims that the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation is not exhibiting self-portraits of the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, but instead infringing on exclusive photos that Miller took of Mapplethorpe in his Manhattan loft, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Associated Press.  The New York Daily News.

www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mapplethorpe-foundation-sued-65m-drag-photography-article-1.2593275

Producers of Fox’s Hit Show ‘Empire’ Sued for $1.5 Billion

Novelist Timothy J. Levi sues Fox, ‘Empire’ creator Lee Daniels, and other show producers for $1.5 billion in damages; the defendants allegedly infringed on Levi’s rights to the show’s concept, after Levi shared his 2007 manuscript with an attorney, whom supposedly copied and shared it with “Empire’ producers before the show premiered in 2015.

By Linda Ge.  The Wrap.

www.thewrap.com/empire-producers-fox-sued-for-1-5-billion-for-copyright-infringement