Michael Elkin

Practice Areas

Michael Elkin serves as the firm-wide vice chairman. He and his core team have collectively tried more than 100 cases to verdict, including high-profile and precedent-setting disputes involving major entertainment and digital media companies, representing the defense of billions of dollars in liability and the recovery of massive awards for Winston clients.

Michael leads a Winston team in trial and appellate courts in three separate proceedings in different parts of the United States, defending some of the largest internet service providers against secondary copyright infringement claims (involving multibillion-dollar exposure) brought by nearly the entirety of the music industry arising alleged residential and business subscriber file sharing. The same Winston team has been responsible for some of the biggest and high-profile trial and appellate wins which have shaped the boundaries of numerous aspects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Michael is truly a pioneer in complex and precedent-setting digital copyright matters. Notably, he has earned three “Litigator of the Week” honors from The American Lawyer as a result of his success in three separate “bet-the-industry” digital media copyright disputes involving the streaming of motion picture, television, and music properties. Most recently, in February 2018, Michael convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reverse a copyright infringement jury verdict (in a case tried by another firm) and remand the case for a new trial.

In another case for which he received “Litigator of the Week” honors—one of the most closely watched digital media copyright cases of the last several years—Michael secured the denial of a motion for preliminary injunction that had been filed against Aereo, Inc., a digital media venture. The plaintiffs, comprised of 17 television broadcast networks, sued Aereo for copyright infringement based upon Aereo’s transformative mobile streaming television technology. The decision was affirmed on appeal and was featured by The American Lawyer Litigation Daily as one of its “IP Wins Worth Bragging About,” as well as by The Hollywood Reporter as “Deal of the Year.”

Michael first earned “Litigator of the Week” for his lower court wins and successful defense on appeal of a series of cases for Veoh Networks that first applied and tested the applicability of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act section 512(c) safe harbor protection to website owners and operators that offer user-generated content. This appellate victory was recognized by Corporate Counsel as one of its “10 Biggest IP Litigation Wins” of the year.

These headline-grabbing wins have made him the go-to litigator in digital media law in the country. World Trademark Review recently noted: “Michael Elkin is a leading light in the digital media and entertainment space.” In previous editions, WTR recognized that Michael “is on home turf when high-stakes trademark and copyright issues collide in the courtroom. Those in the entertainment and digital media domains can rest easy in his eminently capable hands.”

Complementing his extraordinary copyright litigation skills, Michael also has significant experience representing digital media service providers in royalty rate-setting proceedings, including (for clients such as Amazon) before the Copyright Royalty Board, to determine the appropriate licensing rates for the creation and distribution of content. His deep knowledge of U.S. copyright laws, as well as the IP challenges inherent in the digital media and entertainment sector, make him uniquely well qualified to handle these types of matters.

In addition to being one of the most sought-after media and entertainment attorneys in the country, Michael is also an experienced patent, trademark, and trade secret litigator. His experience includes representing a manufacturer of flash memory cards in an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration involving claims of misappropriation of confidential information and trade secrets; winning a significant victory for a consumer electronics company in a patent litigation case involving failure to pay royalties for use of patents in selling DVD players; and representing a leading broker-dealer firm in one of the largest and most high-profile of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitrations.

Michael also advises and counsels entertainment clients on capital markets transactions and licensing of intellectual property. His international experience includes private litigation and arbitration that required the application of treaties, conventions, and foreign and domestic law on subjects such as the extraterritorial gathering of evidence, foreign sovereign immunity, recognition of foreign country judgments and foreign arbitral awards, and international conflicts of law.