MSK Team Successfully Thwart TRO in $4.5M Piracy Suit Over Players’ Moves
The most important chess championship in the world began Friday, November 11th, and runs until November 30th with the winner taking home $1.1 million as the top prize. On Monday, November 7th, the official commercial rights holder of this year’s world chess championship filed a lawsuit with our clients, E-Learning Ltd. and Logical Thinking Ltd., who own/operate a highly reputable website for chess players called chess24.com. In World Chess US, Inc. et al v. Chessgames Services LLC et al, the Plaintiff sought in NY federal court for a TRO stopping our clients from reporting, on their website, each move made by the competing chess players, and from having commentators comment on the game as it plays. The case centered around the very narrow and interesting theory of “hot news” misappropriation.
Marc Mayer and Daniel Kohler had filed a very persuasive and convincing brief in opposition which further explicated our objections to the Plaintiff’s allegations. Patricia Benson and John Durrant also contributed while Brionna Ned assisted with the memo back in July. The TRO motion was heard on November 10th. The judge rejected every argument made by the Plaintiff, and accepted each and every argument presented by MSK, ultimately denying the TRO.
Major news publishers, such as Reuters, The Associated Press, The New York Times and Law360, are reporting and running stories surrounding this case.
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