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Lee S. Brenner

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Lee Brenner, chair of Venable’s Entertainment and Media Litigation Group, is a trial attorney and business litigator. With numerous published decisions throughout his career, Lee has deep experience in the media and entertainment industry, particularly in the areas of defamation, copyright law, idea theft, credit disputes, privacy, intellectual property, and right of publicity. A recognized leader among his peers, Lee is also co-editor of Communications Lawyer, the American Bar Association’s publication on media and First Amendment law.

Lee’s legal achievements have been recognized by numerous leading industry associations and publications. He was named a Leader in Law nominee by the Los Angeles Business Journal; an Intellectual Property Trailblazer by the National Law Journal; and a Local Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation. Lee has also been listed in Chambers USA, in The Best Lawyers in America, as a Top Intellectual Property Lawyer in the Daily Journal, and as 2020’s Entertainment Lawyer of the Year by the Century City Bar Association.

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In a recent interview with The Recorder, Venable partners Lee Brenner and David Fink, based in Los Angeles, weighed in on two major developments shaping today’s defamation litigation landscape: the sharp increase in defamation lawsuits and the troubling erosion of California’s anti-SLAPP protections.

According to Brenner, 2025 has become what he calls “The Year of Defamation,” driven in part by the cultural impact of high-profile trials like Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard. “The cool kids are suing for defamation,” he remarked, noting a clear uptick in both serious and meritless cases. Fink added that the role of social media, and its ability to spread information widely and instantly, with little oversight, have only fueled the trend.Continue Reading Defamation on the Rise and Anti-SLAPP Protections at Risk: Lee Brenner and David Fink Featured in The Recorder

Statements of pure opinion are not actionable as defamation, as they do not imply facts capable of being proven true or false. Qureshi v. St. Barnabas Hosp. Ctr., 430 F. Supp. 2d 279, 288 (S.D.N.Y. 2006); Cochran v. NYP Holdings, Inc., 58 F. Supp. 2d 1113, 1121 (C.D. Cal. 1998).

However, not every opinion qualifies as a pure opinion. And not every opinion is safe from liability for defamation. Some opinions cross the line.

A recent court decision in Fradkoff v. Winston out of the Southern District of New York sheds light on how, and when, opinions may become defamatory.

Fradkoff, the plaintiff, and Winston, the defendant, both worked for a prestigious jewelry company founded by the defendant’s father. Fradkoff v. Winston, 24 Civ. 1830 (VM), 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118444, at *2–3 (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2025). After his father’s death, the defendant assumed control of the company and later published a biography about his father’s leadership. Id. The book portrayed the plaintiff negatively, and the plaintiff brought a defamation claim. Id. at *3-4.Continue Reading When Do Opinions Become Defamation?

In the age of group chats and rumor mills, telling even one person a damaging rumor can unleash consequences far beyond the intent of the original conversation. But when does gossip cross the legal line?

A recent decision out of the Central District of Illinois, Holzgrafe v. Lozier, offers key guidance on this interesting defamation principle.

1. Can You Be Liable for Spreading a Rumor?

Yes.Continue Reading When Gossip Becomes Defamation: Liability for Rumors and Their Ripple Effects

Who can’t recover for defamation even though they may have been libeled?

The libel-proof plaintiff.

The “libel-proof plaintiff” doctrine provides an independent ground for dismissing a defamation cause of action on the basis that a person with a widespread reputation for bad or dishonest behavior may not recover. Often defendants will raise this doctrine when moving to dismiss a complaint or moving for summary judgment. The underlying rationale for the application of the libel-proof plaintiff doctrine across federal and state courts to a plaintiff with a well-known “sullied reputation” is that an alleged defamatory statement pertaining to a plaintiff’s reputation, or crimes, cannot further harm such a plaintiff’s already-damaged reputation.

So how does a plaintiff become “libel-proof”?

Continue Reading The Libel-Proof Plaintiff

Should California courts permit litigants to conduct discovery into litigation funding, namely whether a third party is funding their adversary’s litigation efforts?

Certainly, parties defending a case will want to know, “Who are we really litigating against, and what are their true motives?” “Who is the real party in interest here?” And even if a litigation funder is not the same thing as a plaintiff, a funder may have a significant role to play in the case. After all, “[h]e who pays the piper may not always call the tune, but he’ll likely have an influence on the playlist.” Conlon v. Rosa, No. 295907, 2004 WL 1627337, at *2 (Mass. Land Ct. July 21, 2004).

So, are litigation funding arrangements discoverable? While courts across the country are split on this issue, state legislatures and select judicial districts have begun to intervene and enact disclosure requirements relating to such funding.Continue Reading To Be or Not to Be…Discoverable: Third-Party Litigation Funders

On April 24, 2025, the California Supreme Court held that contract clauses that limit damages for injuries caused by willful tortious conduct are prohibited by Section 1668 of the California Civil Code.

In New England Country Foods, LLC v. VanLaw Food Products, Inc., No. S282968, 2025 Cal. LEXIS 2299 (Cal. Apr. 24, 2025), a barbecue sauce company sued a manufacturer for allegedly secretly attempting to replicate its popular barbecue sauce and sell it to Trader Joe’s. The barbecue sauce company, New England Country Foods (NECF), asserted both contract and tort claims against VanLaw, but VanLaw responded that the claims were barred by a contractual clause between the two parties that purported to limit damages for willful injuries caused by either party.Continue Reading California Supreme Court Finds Parties Cannot Contract Away Liability for Willful Injury

On March 6, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York confirmed that historical events are not subject to copyright protection. 

This is true even if the events were discovered through original research. In Ackerman v. Pink, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40028 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 6, 2025), the court explained that although copyright protection applies to an artistic expression of historical events, the events themselves are not subject to copyright protection.  

This case began in August 2023, when Plaintiff Daniel Ackerman brought claims for copyright infringement, unfair competition, and tortious interference against individuals and companies that contributed to the production of the 2023 film Tetris. Ackerman alleged that the film contained “glaring similarities” to his own book, The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized The World, which was copyrighted and published in September 2016. Ackerman further asserted that the creators of the film used his book to create the film without his consent. To substantiate his claims, Ackerman provided the court with an “exhaustive analysis and examination of the film and the book” that outlined “the substantial similarities between the two works.”Continue Reading New York District Court Confirms Limits of Copyright Protection Regarding Historical Events

On February 25, 2025, the United States Supreme Court held that plaintiffs who obtain a preliminary injunction are not eligible for attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) because they do not qualify as “prevailing parties.” See Lackey v. Stinnie, 604 U.S. ___ (2025). Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, explained that obtaining a preliminary injunction does not confer “prevailing party” status under § 1988. The Court reasoned that preliminary injunctions do not provide “enduring judicial relief on the merits.”

This case began in late 2018 when a group of Virginia drivers challenged a Virginia statute that permitted the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend the licenses of individuals who failed to pay court fines. The drivers asserted that this statute violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause “as applied to people who cannot afford to pay due to their modest financial circumstances.” The United States District Court for the District of Virginia granted the drivers a preliminary injunction in December 2018, thereby prohibiting the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles from suspending licenses for failure to pay court fines.Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Decision Prohibits Plaintiff Recovery of Attorney’s Fees After a Preliminary Injunction Win

Generative AI is creating previously unimaginable possibilities for influencers and brands to engage with consumers. Rather than merely posting on social media, influencers will be able to utilize AI to have two-way conversations that feel authentic. Influencers can do this literally in their own voice, having unique dialogs with countless people at the same time.

Influencers and brands are accustomed to the rules governing what can be said on social media, but now they’ll need to start thinking about what sort of information they can elicit from their fans and consumers in the course of unique and unpredictable interactions, and what they can do with that information, because they will have the ability to gather more consumer information than ever before, and in ways that may be difficult to control.Continue Reading Let’s Chat: Influencers and Brands Testing the Waters of Generative AI Must Navigate Data Privacy and FTC Issues

The recent explosion in popularity of generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, has sparked a legal debate over whether the works created by this technology should be afforded copyright protections. Despite that several lawsuits on the subject have been filed, and the U.S. Copyright Office has recently issued guidance clarifying its position, that the bounds of copyright protections for works created using AI are not yet clearly defined and many questions remain unanswered. For now, it appears that copyright eligibility for such works depends on the extent of human involvement in the creative process and whether any use of copyrighted work to generate a new work falls within the purview of the fair use doctrine.

The analysis of this issue has been framed around two key aspects of the technology itself: input data and output data. Input data are the pre-existing data that human users introduce into the AI system that the system then uses to generate new works. Output data are the works ultimately created by the system—the finished product. Thus, copyright eligibility for AI-generated or AI-assisted works depends on whether the AI system’s use of copyrighted works as input data is permissible and whether the output data is itself copyrightable.Continue Reading ChatGPT and the Rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence Spark Debate on Copyright Protections of AI-Generated Works