Issue No. 046
August 28, 2026
New York
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The IP Briefing · by ESCA Legal
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| Operation Bluebird launched an early-access social network called Twitter.now while it contests X Corp.'s rights in the Twitter name, the blue bird logo, and related marks. |
| § | Operation Bluebird's founding team includes Stephen Coates, a former Twitter trademark lawyer. | | § | X sued the startup and sought to stop it from launching a social platform under the Twitter name. | | § | Operation Bluebird has argued that X abandoned marks including Twitter and Tweet after the platform rebranded. | | § | The new service is in testing, with paid early access and a public disclaimer that it is not affiliated with X. |
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| Continue reading → |
| § ESCA Takeaway |
| This issue tracks what happens when valuable names and creative catalogs move into new hands or new uses. Launches, archival releases, settlements, and AI training can each turn ownership questions into active disputes. |
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| More IP Stories |
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| § Copyright · Update |
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| The estate of DMX has objected to DJ Superior's proposed release of early recordings and archival material from the rapper's years in Yonkers. |
| § | DJ Superior says he possesses unreleased recordings, VHS footage, handwritten lyrics, and other items tied to DMX's early career. | | § | He says he co-owns music in the archive and wants to make portions of it available to the public. | | § | The estate's cease-and-desist letters assert that the physical materials belong to the estate. | | § | The estate has warned that releasing the recordings could prompt a copyright lawsuit. |
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Why it matters
Unreleased artist archives can separate possession of tapes and memorabilia from copyright ownership and release authority. Those distinctions become especially important when collaborators and an estate claim competing rights in the same material.
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| § Trademark · Closed |
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| Nike and Lontex settled their long-running Cool Compression trademark dispute, and the Third Circuit vacated lower court rulings that required Nike to pay about $5.8 million in attorneys' fees. |
| § | The parties reached a settlement after oral argument and during court-ordered mediation. | | § | The appeals court granted their joint request to erase the fee-related rulings and judgment. | | § | A prior precedential decision upholding Nike's willful infringement liability and damages remains intact. | | § | The settlement ends the dispute without disturbing the underlying infringement finding. |
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Why it matters
The settlement separates the continuing infringement judgment from later findings about litigation conduct and fees. It also shows how an appellate court may erase fee decisions when a court-encouraged settlement resolves the dispute.
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| § Copyright · Filed |
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| wikiHow sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court, alleging that its instructional articles were copied for model training, retrieval systems, and ChatGPT outputs without authorization. |
| § | wikiHow identifies 1,211 copyright registrations covering 11,211 articles at issue. | | § | The complaint alleges that OpenAI crawlers continued accessing the site after wikiHow added technical directives intended to block them. | | § | wikiHow claims some ChatGPT outputs reproduced protected text and article structure. | | § | The suit also alleges removal of titles, bylines, dates, and other copyright management information. |
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Why it matters
The complaint combines training, live retrieval, output reproduction, crawler restrictions, and copyright management information in one case. That range of allegations broadens the factual record beyond the initial act of model training.
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QUICK HITS
| § Copyright | Universal Music Group and Sony added a DMCA claim to their Suno lawsuit, alleging that the company bypassed YouTube's anti-downloading technology to obtain recordings for AI training. The court allowed the amendment but declined to add 61,026 more recordings to the existing case. [source] |
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This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Published by ESCA Legal. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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