A US TV auctioneer who helped to sell $20m in forged art to more than 10,000 customers has been sentenced to five years in prison. Via the BBC.

I’ll be on NYC’s WBAI Radio (99.5 FM) on Friday, Nov.5th, speaking with radio host and friend Susan Lee about legal issues for artists. The show is called You and Your Money, and runs from 10:30am to 11am. We’ll be covering a bit of everything: from contracts, corporations, and LLCs, to copyright, contracts, and artist/gallery relationships. You can listen in via web here.

I’ll also be at speaking to The Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law Society (IPELS) of the New York University School of Law tomorrow about art law with law students while enjoying a great lunch and drinks. They’re a super group with intelligent and challenging questions, and always fun and exciting to speak with. Really looking forward to both!

If there is one logo in the world you shouldn’t mess with, it’s the Hells Angels logo. Saks, Zappos, and Alexander McQueen Trading Ltd. don’t seem to agree.

The Hells Angels have sued the three parties above in the Central District of California for trademark infringement, claiming the three parties violate the Hells Angels trademarks by using their name and death’s head on apparel and accessories, like the ring featured above. I’m sure the Angels’ counsel has thought of this, but if they’re using the Angels’ trademark on yuppie apparel, why not add dilution and tarnishment to the claim?

You can read a bit more info on the complaint here. Via Courthouse News Service.

Entrepreneur’s online magazine has a good (and brief) little article on copyright issues and websites. Although it’s not art specific, many artists and art galleries may find this information useful (ie- it’s in layman’s terms). The article also points to a few online tools to ensure that copy on your site doesn’t belong to someone else–and to guard your own intellectual property from non-fair use taking by others. Read the article here.

If you have a few minutes to spare today, the WSJ has a great article on lawyers, engineers, stock analysts, and other left-side people who began new careers as artists. Unfortunately the WSJ seemed to target people post-50, but it’s still worthwhile reading for anyone thinking of doing something more interesting than drafting memos or filling out copyright registration forms.

Prince Sixte-Henri de Bourbon-Parme, a descendant of France’s King Louis XIV, is seeking a court order to halt a radical contemporary exhibition by Takashi Murakami in the royal apartments at Versailles because it sullied “supreme good French taste.”

Via The Independent.

Joe Simon, who filed a federal lawsuit against the Andy Warhol Foundation and its subsidiary Art Authentication Board, says he is withdrawing his lawsuit and bringing it to an end. Simon brought the suit in 2007, challenging the board’s rejection of the authenticity of the 1964 Warhol self-portrait that Simon owns. Simon’s lawyer, Seth Redniss, will withdraw from the case at the next hearing, scheduled for November 10 in federal court in the Southern District of Manhattan. According to Simon, a parallel lawsuit in which Redniss is counsel, filed last year by U.S. collector Susan Shaer after the rejection of a self-portrait from the same series, also will be dropped.

Background info here and here. Artinfo has more here.