When a big media company puts on an international event and something goes wrong, it can be a tightrope managing the potential public relations fallout.

Sang Lan was a former world-class gymnast from China who was going to be competing in the 1998 Goodwill Games, a quadrennial competition conceived by media mogul Ted Turner and later sold to Time Warner.

As the gymnast was warming up for a vault event that year, she fell and fractured two vertebrae and her spinal cord, rendering her permanently paralyzed from the mid-chest down.

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After the horrible accident, Goodwill Games President Michael Plant pledged that her medical needs would be taken care of by insurance. "I can't speak to the long-term, but it is our commitment to do what we can," he said. "Ted Turner and (then Time Warner CEO) Gerald Levin are both concerned."

Harvey Schiller, then president of Turner Sports, also made pledged to do "everything within our power to assure that her future is secure."

In a lawsuit brought in 2011, Sang alleged that didn't happen. But a magistrate judge is now recommending that Time Warner be given a soft landing.

In a closely-followed case in the art world, artist Richard Prince has scored a big win at the Second Circuit Court of Appeal against photographer Patrick Cariou.

The ruling has the potential to become big precedent and influence the nature of art.

Cariou sued Prince for copyright infringement, alleging that the artist appropriated copyrighted photos from a 2000 book, Yes Rasta, which featured Rastafarians in Jamaica. Prince admitted taking the work, altering and incorporating them into a series of paintings and collages called Canal Zone, which he exhibited in 2007 and 2008 at the Eden Rock hotel in Saint Barthelemy and at New York's Gagosian Gallery.

When questioned during depositions, Prince probably could have defended his appropriation better on the basis of "fair use," perhaps saying that he made transformative use of the original photos. But he declined to do so, playing the role of the difficult-to-decipher artist. He said his art "do[es]n't really have a message."

Largely because of that, at a lower court, Cariou was successful against Prince, but on Thursday, the Second Circuit reversed the decision in part. The appellate judges find that 25 of Prince's 30 works are fair use and remands the remaining five for a lower judge to determine with the proper standard.

According to Second Circuit circuit judge Barrington Parker's decision, "What is critical is how the work in question appears to the reasonable observer, not simply what an artist might say about a particular piece or body of work. Prince’s work could be transformative even without commenting on Cariou’s work or on culture, and even without Prince’s stated intention to do so."

Pop star Katy Perry has struck back at the hair-styling company that rushed into court April 11 in anticipation of being sued over an endorsement contract.

Two weeks ago, Jemella Group Limited sued Perry's loan-out company, Killer Queen LLC, contending that it had paid the singer $4.5 million under a two-year deal to endorse GHD ("Good Hair Day"). JGL said that no more was owed despite the contention by Perry's agent at CAA that an oral agreement had been reached on an extension of the contract.

It's now Perry's time to respond.

In counterclaims filed in a California federal court Monday, the singer's lawyers say that if there was no deal, JGL had no right to continue to use Perry's image on the GHD website and refer to Perry as the company's "brand ambassador." The company allegedly did so. Her lawyers add that what really happened was that JGL didn't wish to repudiate the deal because an untimely rift with Perry would impede a proposed sale of the company.

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Slamming JGL for threatening to defame Perry, the singer's lawyers say in their new legal papers, "Those who wish to do business with a company that does not honor its contractual commitments, yet reaps the benefits of the agreements giving rise to those commitments, would find a perfect business partner in GHD."

Here's the full counterclaim.

In a closely watched digital copyright lawsuit, a panel of five judges in the New York State Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed a lower state court decision favoring Escape Media Group Inc., the operators of the music streaming site Grooveshark.

The lawsuit, filed by Universal Music Group, alleged that Grooveshark had violated copyright laws by hosting unlicensed music from Universal’s catalog that was recorded prior to 1972.

The date is significant because recordings from 1972 and onward explicitly fell under the DMCA, which granted online service providers such as Grooveshark a “safe harbor” against copyright litigation, provided that they meet certain obligations, including a process for taking down infringing content uploaded by users.

On the hit AMC series, Mad Men, the male ad executives led by Don Draper slowly come of age during a wave of feminine mystique. In early March, several weeks before the debut of the show's sixth season, producer Lionsgate faced a different sort of self-empowerment. Gita Hall May, a 79-year-old ex-fashion model, sued over the opening credits, which uses for one fleeting moment, her image from a Richard Avedon photo shot more than half a century ago.

Lionsgate is now attempting to kill the lawsuit, explaining the transformative value of Mad Men's opening credits and looking to a judge to protect it as quintessential free speech. The show's producer has filed an anti-SLAPP motion, meant to deter litigation aimed at interfering with First Amendment rights.

Among the papers filed is a declaration by Mad Men executive producer Scott Hornbacher, who reveals that the credits contain more than 40 period advertisements, including those from Herman Miller, IBM, American Airlines, Carling Black Label Beer, Van Heausen, Pan Am, TWA, Heinz, Lady Remington, Zippo and Smirnoff Vodka. Horbacher also submits a "storyboard" that depicts each step of the opening title sequence and cross-references the original advertisements.

Every so often, an individual captures the spotlight for some notorious criminal activity. Eventually, that person gets arrested. Then, the defendant hires a lawyer.

An entertainment lawyer.

Why? Is there really hope of controlling rights on a possible film?

This afternoon, according to the New York Times, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights, as he was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the attack that killed three people and wounded 176. And while he was told that he has a right to remain silent and the right to consult an attorney, he also has the right to attempt to strike it rich in Hollywood. (Or at least get a cut of the take.)

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But if he tries, there will be obstacles.