What’s Behind The Devil Wears Prada 2? The Making of Iconic Trademarks. That’s All.

Twenty years ago, the movie The Devil Wears Prada entered our collective cultural consciousness. Adapted from a “fictional” book written by Lauren Weisberger, a former assistant to VOGUE’s Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the movie cemented the impact of a tell-all behind the scenes reveal of perhaps the most influential fashion magazine of the 20th century and its management. As The New York Times observed in a review of the book in 2003, “does it even matter what’s actually on the page when everybody is reading between the lines?”  The book had raised eyebrows (to say the least) in VOGUE circles, and, when the movie premiered it was understood that the plot was all about Anna Wintour. Despite the takedown quality of the narrative, some reviewers of the book went so far as to say the hidden hero of the book was the Anna Wintour/Miranda Priestly character. The Editor-in-Chief that has her assistants running for lattes and takes down Andrea “Andy”/Lauren with a lesson in the history of cerulean blue was every career woman’s secret idol. “Andrea’s aura of self-importance is almost enough to make you sympathize with the Prada-wearing devil herself,” said the same New York Times book review. Meryl Streep, who played Miranda Priestly in the movie, explained that she modeled the character on men in positions of power.  Despite all the chatter, there was, however, no official VOGUE feature on the movie in 2006 and no dedicated article, although Anna Wintour did attend a benefit screening of the film. In other words – “no comment.”

Flash forward twenty years, and how things have changed! We have a sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, in the vein of so many other movie franchises based on intellectual property (ask any Marvel fan). VOGUE, now managed by Editor-in-Chief Chloe Malle, put Anna Wintour (now Chief Content Officer for Condé Nast and global editorial director for VOGUE) and Meryl Streep on the magazine’s May cover. Wintour and Streep appear under the heading “Seeing Double: When Miranda Met Anna”.

The May 2026 cover of Vogue
The May 2026 cover of Vogue
Continue ReadingWhat’s Behind The Devil Wears Prada 2? The Making of Iconic Trademarks. That’s All.

Quick Reactions to the Cox v. Sony Music Oral Argument

The Cox v. Sony Music Entertainment argument just ended as I started this; here are my immediate takeaways. (For more detail on the case, see my blog series over the weekend: Part 1 on the contributory infringement test, Part 2 on the confusion about the required mental state after Grokster, and Part 3 on the connections between contributory copyright infringement doctrine and the common law.)

It’s almost always difficult to predict a result, or even votes, based on the oral argument, and I haven’t even had the opportunity to read the transcript yet. But here’s a few things that stood out to me:

1. Much of the argument focused on the required state of mind for liability. There was basically no appetite from anyone for adopting the Restatement/Gershwin standard of knowledge of the wrongdoing. Cox, represented by Joshua Rosenkranz, and the Solicitor General’s office, represented by Malcolm Stewart, argued that contributory liability requires a showing that the defendant shared the same purpose as the direct infringer, and wanted to accomplish the same goal — a standard drawn from the many criminal aiding and abetting cases cited in Twitter. A number of questions from the justices seemed to support this idea, leading Justice Gorsuch at one point to conclude, perhaps optimistically, that a consensus view had emerged on that. In response, Paul Clement, representing the music companies, argued that intent was the correct standard, defining intent as including, under Restatement 2d of Torts sec. 8A, substantial certainty that harm to the plaintiff will result from one’s actions.

Continue ReadingQuick Reactions to the Cox v. Sony Music Oral Argument

Copyright and the Restatement of Torts

In my first post, I discussed the emergence of the Gershwin test and how it’s run into trouble from a combination of rigid interpretation and novel fact patterns. In my second post, I argued that this problem was made worse with the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, which cited Gershwin and referred to contributory infringement, but discussed only intentional inducement.

The Cox case brings the contributory liability question back before the Supreme Court for the first time since Grokster. That makes it an ideal opportunity for the Court to straighten out some of the confusion, but there is always the danger that a generalist, textualist court could instead make things worse. (See, e.g., Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands.) Doing my bit to try to avoid that result is part of the reason I spent the 100-plus hours to submit an amicus brief in this case, but not the entire reason. After all, the court gets dozens of amicus briefs in a case like this, so the marginal impact of an additional brief is near zero. (One oddity of the Supreme Court rules is that every brief, even a pro se amicus brief, is required to be filed by a “counsel of record.” So I filed the brief as counsel to myself.)

The other reason I bothered to write my brief is because I spotted a connection that I don’t think has been fully presented by anyone else. I’ve been pondering the relationship between indirect copyright liability and tort law for over a decade, so it captured my attention at the cert. stage in this case when both Cox and the Solicitor General relied heavily on Twitter v. Taamneh, decided in 2023. Taamneh had nothing to do with copyright law. Instead, the case involved claims against Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) for “knowingly providing substantial assistance” to persons engaged in international terrorism. The Taamneh complaint alleged that the platforms knew members of ISIS were using their services, but did nothing to remove them. The Supreme Court held that that was insufficient for liability under JASTA. Otherwise, the Act “would effectively hold any sort of communication provider liable for any sort of wrongdoing merely for knowing that the wrongdoers were using its services and failing to stop them,” a conclusion that would “run roughshod over the typical limits on tort liability.”

Aha, Cox and the Solicitor General said in their cert. briefs, that’s exactly like Cox! Sony Music and some amici, on the other hand, argued that Taamneh was decided under a completely different statute, and therefore of dubious applicability to a copyright infringement claim, particularly one with more compelling facts about the defendant’s involvement.

I don’t think either side of this debate has it quite right. Cox and its amici are correct that there’s a deep connection between civil aiding and abetting liability, the subject of a lengthy analysis in Taamneh, and contributory liability in copyright law. But that connection has to do with the legal doctrine and how it’s applied. Sony Music and its amici are correct that factually, this case is far different from Taamneh, in a way that justifies sending it to a jury — which it was, and the jury had all the tools it needed to decide the case under a civil aiding and abetting framework. I’m a bit ambivalent about the use of juries to decide complicated copyright policy questions, but the Supreme Court for the most part isn’t, and this case went to a well-informed and properly-instructed jury that decided against Cox.

Continue ReadingCopyright and the Restatement of Torts
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