Toby Butterfield

Moses Singer LLP (USA)

Toby Butterfield is a Partner in Moses Singer's Intellectual Property, Entertainment/Media & Technology and Litigation practice groups. He has over 30 years of experience litigating and counseling on copyright, trademark, defamation, software and digital media, and commercial matters. His clients include media and entertainment companies, motion picture and theater producers, major brand owners, technology companies and designers of luxury goods.

Toby's work includes successfully representing a software development company in a substantial royalty dispute with its distributor; representing an "over the top" TV broadcaster in a distribution dispute with numerous Russian broadcasters; successful defense of a well-known theater production in a jury trial concerning music royalty payments; representation of on-line pharmacies in a large case concerning false advertising, trademark, fraud and RICO claims; defending book publishers, magazine publishers, motion picture distributers and producers in copyright litigations; and obtaining a fair use dismissal of copyright infringement claims against theater producers concerning a parody play. He has successfully litigated all manner of claims for and against film producers and distributors, theater producers, technology and software companies, and obtained injunctions and seizure orders, for example for magazine publishers and a well-known producer of children's TV programming. He regularly counsels IP owners and performs pre-publication and pre-broadcast review of content for publishers of books, motion pictures, newspapers and magazines.

Toby writes and speaks frequently for bar associations and industry organizations. He is Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, where he has conducted a seminar on Social Media Law and Regulation since 2014. He co-chaired the Entertainment Business Law Seminar during the annual CMJ Music Festival at NYU (now called MONDO.NYC). He lectured at AIPLA's annual national conference and to PLI on copyright fair use, and authored the first chapter of Counseling Content Providers in the Digital Age on defamation for the New York State Bar Association. His articles on Fair Use, Copyright Termination, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other hot topics have been published by the Copyright Society of the USA, ABA's Landslide magazine, Media Law Resource Center and other bar associations and publications, and regularly appear in Moses Singer’s IP Newsletter. He has lectured at legal and television industry conferences all over the world and taught Media and Entertainment Law at Cardozo Law School. Toby previously served as President of MLRC's Defense Counsel Section and Chairs its Executive Committee. He was president of MLRC's Defense Counsel Section, and chaired MLRC’s Media Copyright and Trademark Committee, New York City Bar's Committees on Entertainment Law and on State Courts of Superior Jurisdiction, WNYC Radio's Community Advisory Board, and was Administrator of the New York State Supreme Court Screening Panel for Democratic Party judicial candidates in New York County.

He has appeared on BBC World News, Forbes TV, and been quoted by the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Forbes, Law360 and many other news and legal publications.