Issue No. 068
October 24, 2026
New York
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The IP Briefing · by ESCA Legal
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| Eminem's former employee Joseph Strange pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement on October 22 in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan. The Justice Department says he copied and sold unreleased music for about $50,000 without authorization. The court has not decided whether to accept the plea agreement, and no sentence has been imposed. |
| § | The August 28 information, a charging document, alleges willful reproduction and distribution of 10 or more copies within 180 days for commercial advantage and private financial gain. | | § | The Justice Department says the files reached public streaming platforms and had been accessed more than eight million times as of November 2025. | | § | Sentencing is set for January 27, 2027, and the maximum is five years in prison. |
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| § ESCA Takeaway |
| Strange has entered a guilty plea, with the plea agreement still awaiting court acceptance. Criminal copyright infringement requires proof of willfulness and commercial advantage or private financial gain and can carry prison time, while civil actions seek damages or an injunction. |
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| More IP Stories |
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| § Copyright · Update |
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| Apple and the other defendants prevailed on October 22 at the Ninth Circuit in Francesca Gregorini's copyright appeal over Servant. Gregorini alleged the show's first three episodes were substantially similar to her film The Truth About Emanuel. The panel affirmed the jury's verdict for the defendants. |
| § | Gregorini argued the access instruction in her case against Apple, M. Night Shyamalan and others should have defined widely disseminated. | | § | The panel held the model instruction correctly stated the law and found no error in accepting the verdict without answering the jury's question. | | § | The panel made no separate determination on whether Servant copied the film, leaving the jury's verdict for the defendants in place. |
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Why it matters
Access can be shown through a chain of events or wide dissemination. The appeal turned on whether jurors needed a definition of how widely a work must circulate.
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| § Copyright · Filed |
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| Reservoir Media Management and two other music publishers sued Anthropic on October 21 in federal court in the Northern District of California. They allege Anthropic copied the lyrics of 853 compositions to train its AI model without a license or payment. Anthropic has not responded in court, and no court has decided the claims. |
| § | The publishers allege Anthropic obtained lyrics by scraping and torrenting pirated sources. | | § | The complaint claims infringement, circumvention of copyright protection measures and removal of copyright management information. | | § | They seek $127.95 million in statutory damages for infringement, more than $23 million for other claims, a permanent injunction and destruction of infringing copies, including training datasets and model weights. |
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Why it matters
The protection measure and copyright information claims ask how Anthropic allegedly obtained and handled the lyrics, separate from whether copying them for training infringed copyright.
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| § Trademark · Update |
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| The USPTO issued a nonfinal refusal of Anthropic's application to register CLAUDE MYTHOS for AI software services on October 20. The examiner found a likelihood of confusion with a MYTHOS registration for software services involving searchable databases and customizable surveys. Anthropic has three months to respond. |
| § | No final determination on registration has been made, and the USPTO record showed no response as of October 24. | | § | The examiner said CLAUDE MYTHOS contains the whole registered MYTHOS mark and Anthropic's registered CLAUDE house mark does not considerably change the overall impression it makes. | | § | Two earlier-filed applications may also bar registration if they register, and Anthropic must meet a foreign registration requirement tied to its claimed priority from a Jamaica filing. |
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Why it matters
The registration question is whether adding Anthropic's registered CLAUDE house mark to MYTHOS changes the likelihood of confusion with the existing registration. The refusal addresses registration, not use of the name.
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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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