Documentary Fair Use After Warhol: Analysis of Whyte Monkee Productions v. Netflix

Documentary Fair Use After Warhol: Analysis of Whyte Monkee Productions v. Netflix (10th Cir. 2026)

Abstract: This article analyzes the Tenth Circuit's April 2026 decision in Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., affirming summary judgment in favor of Netflix and confirming that the brief use of amateur video clips in the documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness constitutes transformative fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107. The decision addresses two distinct legal issues: the work made for hire doctrine (which denied videographer Timothy Sepi ownership of seven videos) and the four-factor fair use analysis as reshaped by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. 508 (2023). The court held that the use was transformative by virtue of its distinct critical and documentary purpose, and that quantitative insubstantiality, the factual nature of the original work, and the absence of a cognizable derivative market each independently weighed in Netflix's favor. The article extracts practical implications for documentary producers and identifies open questions for the evolution of fair use in the digital era.

Keywords: fair use, copyright, documentary film, work made for hire, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, Tiger King, archival footage, Tenth Circuit.

Introduction

The tension between independent creators and major streaming platforms over the scope of fair use has found a new landmark in *Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc.*¹ In April 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Netflix, holding that the use of brief clips from amateur videos in the documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness constitutes transformative fair use that does not infringe the copyrights of videographer Timothy Sepi.² The decision — which vacated a prior 2024 panel opinion and was reconsidered at defendants' request — represents one of the most significant applications of the fair use doctrine following the Supreme Court's ruling in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (2023).⁴

The case presents two distinct legal questions. First, the seven videos filmed by Sepi while employed at Joe Exotic's zoo were declared works made for hire under § 201(b) of the Copyright Act.¹ The district court excluded Sepi's contradictory 2021 deposition testimony under the sham affidavit doctrine, and the Tenth Circuit confirmed that the new appellate theory — arguing the scope of employment did not cover cinematography — was raised too late and therefore waived.⁵ Second, the eighth video — a funeral recording made after Sepi left the park — underwent a detailed four-factor fair use analysis, with all factors weighing in the defendants' favor.²

The significance of Whyte Monkee extends well beyond its specific facts. It is the first appellate decision to explicitly apply Warhol's framework of distinct purpose, transformativeness, and justification to a documentary that incorporates archival footage without directly commenting on the source work.⁶ The court held that "targeting" — direct reference to or commentary on the original — is not always required when the secondary use is significantly transformative and serves recognized preamble purposes such as social criticism, education, or public interest journalism.¹ This holding has been welcomed by documentary advocacy organizations — including the International Documentary Association and Film Independent, which filed amici curiae briefs⁷ — and received with some caution by copyright scholars who warn of potential erosion of the derivative works right.⁸

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The litigation arose from the production of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, a seven-episode documentary series released by Netflix in March 2020 and produced by Royal Goode Productions.¹¹ The series, centered on Joseph Maldonado-Passage ("Joe Exotic") and the controversial world of big-cat breeders, attracted a massive audience — more than 34 million U.S. viewers in its first ten days.¹²

Among the footage incorporated by the filmmakers were brief clips from eight videos shot by Timothy Sepi, a videographer who worked at the Gerald Wayne Interactive Zoological Park ("the Park") between March 2015 and August 2016.¹¹ Seven of those videos were recorded during his employment at the Park, while the eighth — the "Travis MM Funeral Ceremony" or "Funeral Video" — was filmed after Sepi had left, as a personal memorial for his friend Travis Maldonado, Joe Exotic's husband.¹³

A. The First Seven Videos and the Work Made for Hire Dispute

Sepi had been hired by the Park as a videographer and photographer of Park tours, receiving a weekly salary of $150 and free accommodation on the premises.¹¹ After a fire destroyed the studio and equipment, Sepi remained as the sole camera operator, continuing to produce content for the web series Joe Exotic TV.¹⁴ In 2016, in a deposition taken in connection with a garnishment proceeding initiated by Carole Baskin, Sepi testified that he had been hired by and worked for the Park as a videographer and photographer, and that he had no knowledge of or involvement in the formation of Whyte Monkee Productions.¹¹ By 2021, however, Sepi had reversed course, claiming that he had created Whyte Monkee Productions after the studio fire and that the videos were the property of that entity — admitting in the process that he had committed perjury in 2016.¹⁵

The district court excluded the 2021 testimony under the sham affidavit doctrine, characterizing it as "a transparent attempt to create a sham issue of fact."¹⁶ Applying the agency factors established in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730 (1989), the court concluded that Sepi had acted within the scope of his employment when filming the seven videos, which therefore constituted works made for hire belonging to the Park.¹⁷

B. The Funeral Video and the Fair Use Defense

Netflix used only 66 seconds of the Funeral Video — a recording approximately 23 minutes and 52 seconds in length — in Episode Five of Tiger King, amounting to 2.58% of that episode and 0.35% of the entire series.¹¹ The clip depicted Joe Exotic delivering a eulogy at the funeral, and the producers intercut it with statements from the deceased's mother, Cheryl Maldonado, who was critical of Exotic's behavior, commenting: "He has to do dramatics, you know, drama" and "He was even acting there."¹²

Sepi registered the eight videos with the Copyright Office after Tiger King was released and had never licensed or commercially exploited any of his works.¹¹ In September 2020, Whyte Monkee Productions and Sepi sued Netflix and Royal Goode for copyright infringement.¹⁸

C. Procedural History

On April 27, 2022, the district court granted summary judgment for the defendants.¹⁶ The Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in 2023 and published an initial decision in 2024 that partially reversed the district court's ruling as to the Funeral Video. Following a limited petition for rehearing filed by Netflix and Royal Goode — which argued the panel's analysis was inconsistent with Warhol and Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. — the court vacated its prior opinion and directed supplemental briefing on three specific questions: (i) the relevance of predominant fair use principles for documentary use of film clips under § 107's preamble; (ii) the impact of Warhol on the first-factor analysis; and (iii) whether an independent justification for copying was required.¹⁹ In April 2026, the Tenth Circuit issued its revised opinion, affirming the district court in full.¹¹

II. The Work Made for Hire Doctrine

A. Legal Framework: § 201(b) and the Reid Test

The Copyright Act of 1976 provides in § 201(b) that, in the case of a work made for hire, "the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author" for copyright purposes, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument.²⁰ The statute defines a work made for hire as, inter alia, a work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment.²¹ In Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730, 751-52 (1989), the Supreme Court established a multi-factor agency test for determining employment status, examining: (a) the hiring party's right to control the manner and means of production; (b) the provision of tools and location; and (c) the duration of the relationship, the method of payment, and tax treatment, among other factors.²²

Applied here, the factors pointed toward employee status: Sepi received a fixed weekly salary, resided on Park property, used Park equipment and facilities, and worked under the supervision of Joe Exotic and Rick Kirkham.¹⁷ The court also found that Sepi had not created Whyte Monkee Productions as a separate venture and had not acted on its behalf when recording the seven videos.¹¹

B. The Sham Affidavit Doctrine

The application of the sham affidavit doctrine was central to the outcome. Following the rule established in Franks v. Nimmo, 796 F.2d 1230, 1237 (10th Cir. 1986), courts may disregard a sworn declaration that contradicts prior sworn testimony without adequate explanation when the sole apparent purpose is to avoid summary judgment.²³ The district court found Sepi's 2021 reversal to be precisely such an attempt, and the Tenth Circuit saw no error in that determination.¹⁶

C. Waiver of the New Appellate Theory

On appeal, plaintiffs abandoned the theory that the videos belonged to Whyte Monkee Productions and instead argued — for the first time — that "the scope of Sepi's employment as a tour videographer did not extend to cinematography or film editing conducted on his own time outside of tours."²⁴ The Tenth Circuit held that this argument was waived: a party that fails to raise a theory before the district court and fails to argue plain error on appeal is not entitled to review.²⁵ Because the new theory was factually incompatible with the position taken below — Sepi had previously argued the videos belonged to Whyte Monkee, not that they were outside any employment relationship — the district court had never had an opportunity to consider it.¹¹

III. Fair Use of the Funeral Video After Warhol

The fair use doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 107, permits unauthorized use of copyrighted material in circumstances involving recognized purposes — criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research — when the use, considered as a whole, does not unduly harm the copyright holder's legitimate interests.²⁸ Four non-exclusive factors must be weighed together.²⁹

A. First Factor: Purpose and Character of the Use

i. The Post-Warhol Standard: Beyond Mere Addition of New Meaning

Prior to Warhol, many courts had interpreted the first factor to favor any use that added "new meaning or message" to the original work.³¹ The Supreme Court corrected this reading, holding that such an expansive notion of transformativeness would swallow the copyright owner's exclusive right to create derivative works.⁴ The proper inquiry is whether the secondary use has a "further purpose or different character" from the original and whether that difference is substantial enough that the secondary use does not supersede the original in its customary markets.

The Tenth Circuit found Netflix's use of the Funeral Video to be significantly transformative. While Sepi's original recording was created as a personal "remembrance" of Travis Maldonado's funeral,¹³ Netflix used the footage for an entirely different purpose: to illustrate Joe Exotic's purported megalomania and showmanship, even in the face of tragedy, as part of a broader documentary commentary on the world of big-cat breeders.³⁰ The series juxtaposed clips of Exotic's eulogy with statements from the deceased's mother criticizing his behavior, transforming the material from a commemorative function to one of social commentary and critique.

ii. The Targeting Question: Is Direct Commentary on the Source Work Required?

One of the appellants' principal arguments was that, under Warhol, fair use requires the secondary user to "target" the original work — meaning to comment on or criticize it directly.³² Because Tiger King never addresses Sepi's video or its creative choices, they argued the use could not be fair.

The Tenth Circuit rejected this restrictive reading. The Supreme Court had itself noted in a footnote that "targeting is not always required."³³ For documentary filmmakers, archival footage typically serves preamble purposes — educating, informing, critiquing social phenomena — that do not require explicit commentary on the source.³⁰ What matters is that the use has an objectively distinct purpose, not that it directs criticism at the original work.⁶ The court cited Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U.S. 1 (2021), where the Supreme Court found fair use of copyrighted software interfaces without any commentary on the original, because the purpose was to enable interoperability.³⁴

iii. Broad Justification vs. Narrow Justification

Following Warhol's analytical framework, the court distinguished two senses in which a secondary use may be justified.⁴ In the broad sense, a use is justified when its distinct purpose advances the constitutional objectives of copyright — "to promote the progress of science and useful arts"³⁵ — without substituting for the original. That was precisely the case here: Tiger King enriched public discourse about exotic animal exploitation and the personality of Joe Exotic, purposes that copyright law is meant to foster.³⁰

In the narrower sense, justification may require that copying be "reasonably necessary" to achieve the new purpose, as in parody — where the user must conjure up the original work to make its point.⁴ The court emphasized that narrow justification is "particularly relevant" when the purposes of the original and the secondary use are the same or highly similar, but not when they are markedly different.³⁰ Given the clear divergence in purpose between the Funeral Video and its documentary use, no narrow justification was required.

iv. Commerciality and Its Weight Against Transformativeness

Netflix is a subscription-based commercial platform, and Tiger King was a massive commercial success. Appellants argued that this commercial character — "as commercial as it gets" — should weigh decisively against fair use.¹³ The court acknowledged the commercial nature of the use but applied the longstanding principle from Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994): "the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism."²⁹ Moreover, the relevant inquiry is not the commerciality of the secondary work as a whole, but the extent to which the specific copyrighted clip — constituting 0.35% of the series — provided commercial gain.³⁰ The commerciality factor did not materially alter the balance.

B. Second Factor: Nature of the Copyrighted Work

The second factor examines whether the original work is more creative or more factual — the former receiving greater protection — and whether it was published or unpublished before the secondary use.³⁷ Appellants argued the Funeral Video was an "artistic and expressive" work and that posting it on YouTube constituted a mere public performance, not a "publication" under 17 U.S.C. § 101.³²

The Tenth Circuit rejected both contentions. The video was an essentially factual record of a real event — a funeral — with no scripted elements, fictional content, or staged creative performance.³⁰ While Sepi made some camera choices, the core content was documentary: who spoke, what was said, how attendees reacted. On the spectrum from bare factual compilations (most favorable to fair use) to fictional motion pictures (least favorable), the Funeral Video fell clearly toward the factual end.³⁸

On the publication question, the court adopted a purposivist approach, declining to apply the § 101 statutory definition mechanically. The rationale for affording greater protection to unpublished works is to preserve the author's "right to control the first public appearance of his expression."³⁸ Because Sepi had already voluntarily livestreamed and posted the video on YouTube — making that editorial choice himself — he could not argue that Netflix's subsequent use deprived him of that control.³⁹

C. Third Factor: Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used

The third factor requires analysis of both the quantitative extent and the qualitative significance of the material taken.²⁹ Netflix used approximately 66 seconds from a video nearly 24 minutes in length — roughly 4.6% of the total duration.⁴¹ The court applied the Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811, 820-21 (9th Cir. 2003), standard: the secondary user need only copy "as much as is necessary for his or her intended use."⁴² To comment on Joe Exotic's theatrics and megalomania in the context of his husband's funeral, the selected footage was reasonably necessary and proportionate to that purpose. The district court's qualitative assessment — noting that while the clips were "unusual," the mother's statements were equally significant to any viewer interested in the event — was left undisturbed.³⁰

D. Fourth Factor: Effect on the Potential Market

The fourth factor — the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — requires consideration of both the market for the original and the market for derivative works.⁴⁴ The court found this factor in the defendants' favor on four converging grounds.

First, appellants did not contest the district court's conclusion that Tiger King is not a market substitute for the Funeral Video itself. No viewer would watch the Netflix episode as a replacement for the full funeral recording.⁴⁵

Second, appellants failed to identify any protectable derivative market that might be harmed. Their argument — that because "Joe Exotic is content gold," derivative markets must exist somewhere — was found insufficient.⁴⁶ A defendant's evidentiary burden to negate derivative market harm does not arise until the plaintiff has actually identified a protectable market.

Third, the significantly transformative character of the use attenuated the likelihood of any cognizable market harm. The more different in purpose and character the secondary use, the less likely it is to substitute for the original or its derivatives.⁴⁸

Fourth, Sepi himself admitted that he had never licensed, attempted to license, or commercially exploited the Funeral Video in any way.⁴⁷ The absence of any licensing history or future commercial plans for the relevant market weighs against a finding of market harm. Under Campbell, the "market for potential derivative uses includes only those that creators of original works would in general develop or license others to develop" — and there was no evidence Sepi fell into that category.

E. Weighing All Four Factors

After evaluating each factor independently, the court weighed them together as required.⁵⁰ The result was unambiguous: all four factors pointed toward fair use with substantial force. The court confirmed that even if one factor were to weigh slightly against fair use, the strength of the remaining three would have been sufficient to sustain the defense. The fair use determination was affirmed.

IV. Practical Implications for Documentary Filmmakers and Content Creators

A. Transformativeness Remains the Central Inquiry

Whyte Monkee confirms that the first factor — distinct purpose and significant transformativeness — continues to be the analytical core of fair use in documentary contexts. Under the post-Warhol standard, it is not sufficient to add new meaning to an original work; the secondary use must serve an objectively different purpose and must not substitute for the original in its natural markets.⁵²

B. Quantity Matters, But It Is Not Alone Dispositive

Using only what is strictly necessary for the documentary purpose strengthens fair use arguments. The 66 seconds extracted from a 24-minute video was found to be both quantitatively insubstantial and qualitatively proportionate to the filmmakers' critical purpose.⁴³

C. Market Documentation: Establish the Absence of Harm

If the copyright holder has never exploited or has no concrete plans to exploit the relevant market (documentary licenses, similar derivative uses), that fact should be part of the record. Sepi's own admissions about non-exploitation proved decisive in the fourth-factor analysis.⁴⁵

D. Factual Nature and Prior Publication Reduce Exposure

Documentaries incorporating footage of real events (news conferences, ceremonies, historical occurrences) benefit from the second factor's preferential treatment of factual works over creative fiction. Equally, prior voluntary publication eliminates the heightened protection afforded to unpublished works.³⁸

E. Commerciality Is Secondary When Transformativeness Is High

The commercial scale of a streaming platform like Netflix does not determine the fair use outcome. The relevant commercial inquiry focuses on how much the specific copyrighted clip — not the secondary work as a whole — contributes to the commercial enterprise.³⁰

F. Practical Guidelines for the Industry

| Scenario | Assessment | |----------|------------| | Clips of real events (funerals, press conferences, protests) | Strong fair use argument if use is limited and purpose is distinct | | Use of fictional works or licensed music | Higher risk; evaluate targeting and proportionality carefully | | Unpublished, confidential material | High risk under the second factor | | Author with active licensing history in the documentary segment | Carefully evaluate the fourth factor | | Clip duration below 5% of the original | Favorable quantitative argument, reinforced if not the "heart" of the work |

G. Persistent Limitations and Risks

The decision is not a blank check for documentarians. The court expressly reiterated that there is no presumptively fair use category for documentaries: the label alone does not substitute for the case-by-case analysis required under § 107.³⁰ Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Passport Video, 349 F.3d 622 (9th Cir. 2003), remains a cautionary precedent: clips used at length and primarily for their entertainment value — rather than as historical evidence — may not pass the fair use test.⁵³

V. Conclusion

A. Summary of Findings

Whyte Monkee Productions v. Netflix (10th Cir. 2026) resolves the primary uncertainty Warhol left for the documentary industry: can a documentary invoke fair use without directly commenting on the source work? The Tenth Circuit's answer is yes — provided the use is significantly transformative, serves recognized preamble purposes, is quantitatively insubstantial relative to the original, and does not threaten the markets in which the author exercises or plausibly would exercise exclusive rights.

The decision also clarifies the targeting question: targeting the original work is one available means of justifying a secondary use — particularly useful when the original and secondary uses share similar purposes — but it is not an absolute requirement when the documentary purpose is clearly distinct from the archival material it incorporates.

B. Open Questions for Future Research

1. Circuit divergence. Will the Second and Ninth Circuits — where entertainment copyright litigation is most active — apply the same flexible approach to targeting, or will they require more direct commentary on the source work? Early post-Warhol decisions from those circuits will be determinative.

2. Generative AI and archival footage. How will the Whyte Monkee standard apply when the "use" of a protected work is performed by a generative AI system trained on thousands of videos, rather than by a human documentarian who manually selects 66 seconds? The transformativeness question in machine-learning contexts is already being litigated, and Whyte Monkee may serve as an analogical precedent.⁵⁴

3. Creative Commons licenses and fair use. If the author of an original work has released it under a CC BY-NC license (non-commercial uses only), can a commercial documentary like Tiger King invoke fair use to override that restriction? The relationship between voluntary licensing and the statutory fair use defense remains largely uncharted territory that Whyte Monkee did not address.

Bibliography

1. Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 22-6086 (10th Cir. Apr. 30, 2026), slip op.
2. Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc. (Justia Law, 2026).
3. Petition for Partial Panel Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 22-6086 (10th Cir. 2024).
4. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. 508 (2023).
5. Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc. (Justia Law, 2024) (vacated initial decision).
6. Yuanxiao Xu, "A Comprehensive Review of Post-Warhol Appellate Decisions," Copyright Law Review (2025): 55-78.
7. Brief of Amici Curiae International Documentary Association et al. in Support of Defendants-Appellees, No. 22-6086 (10th Cir. 2026).
8. Peter J. Karol, "What's the Use?," Boston College Law Review (2025).
9. Legal Research Report (internal case analysis), Whyte Monkee v. Netflix, 2026.
10. "Fair Use Still Protects Histories and Documentaries," Electronic Frontier Foundation blog, May 10, 2026.
11. Whyte Monkee (10th Cir.), slip op. at 3-10.
12. District Court Order, Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 5:20-CV-00933-D (W.D. Okla. Apr. 27, 2022), slip op. at 5-9.
13. Legal Research Report, "Whyte Monkee v. Netflix: Timeline and Agency Factors," 2026, 12-18.
14. Whyte Monkee (Justia 2024), supra note 5.
15. Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc. (CaseMine).
16. District Court Order, supra note 12, at 12-15.
17. Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730, 751-752 (1989).
18. Whyte Monkee (Justia 2026), supra note 2.
19. Legal Research Report, "Whyte Monkee v. Netflix: Timeline and Agency Factors," 2026, 3-5.
20. 17 U.S.C. § 201(b).
21. 17 U.S.C. § 101 (definition of "work made for hire").
22. Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730, 751-752 (1989).
23. Franks v. Nimmo, 796 F.2d 1230, 1237 (10th Cir. 1986).
24. Whyte Monkee (Justia 2024), supra note 5.
25. Jacks v. CMH Homes, Inc., 856 F.3d 1301, 1306 (10th Cir. 2017).
26. Selected Annotated Cases — The Copyright Society, "Work Made for Hire and Waiver on Appeal," Copyright Society of the USA (2025): 45-48.
27. 10th Circuit — ALFA International, "Standards for Commercial Litigation in the Tenth Circuit," ALFA International Compendium (2025): 112-15.
28. 17 U.S.C. § 107.
29. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 577-78 (1994).
30. Whyte Monkee (10th Cir.), slip op. at 18-55.
31. Pierre N. Leval, "Toward a Fair Use Standard," Harvard Law Review 103 (1990): 1105.
32. Brief of Appellants, Whyte Monkee Productions, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 22-6086 (10th Cir. 2025), at 23-29.
33. Warhol, 598 U.S. at 547 n.21.
34. Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U.S. 1, 30-31 (2021).
35. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8.
36. Mark Bartholomew, "Publicity Rights After Warhol," UC Davis Law Review 57 (2024): 1125-70.
37. 17 U.S.C. § 107(2).
38. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 563 (1985).
39. Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 564.
40. Swatch Group Management Services v. Bloomberg L.P., 756 F.3d 73, 88 (2d Cir. 2014).
41. 17 U.S.C. § 107(3).
42. Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 336 F.3d 811, 820-21 (9th Cir. 2003).
43. SOFA Entertainment, Inc. v. Dodger Productions, Inc., 709 F.3d 1273, 1279 (9th Cir. 2013).
44. 17 U.S.C. § 107(4).
45. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 590.
46. Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 137 F.3d 109, 116 n.6 (2d Cir. 1998).
47. Selected Annotated Cases — The Copyright Society, "Fair Use and Market Harm," Copyright Society of the USA (2025): 112-15.
48. Warhol, 598 U.S. at 536 n.12.
49. Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605, 615 (2d Cir. 2006).
50. Warhol, 598 U.S. at 551.
51. 10th Circuit — ALFA International, "Commercial Litigation Standards in the Tenth Circuit," ALFA International Compendium (2025): 120-25.
52. Dave Hansen, "Tiger King 2: The Tenth Circuit Sequel," International Documentary Association Blog, May 15, 2026.
53. Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Passport Video, 349 F.3d 622, 629 (9th Cir. 2003).
54. See generally emerging debates on artificial intelligence and copyright, and potential circuit divergence, as noted in Section V.B.