Stanford CIS
Anthony Falzone

Anthony Falzone

Tony Falzone is the Deputy General Counsel at Pinterest, Inc.

Prior to joining Pinterest, Tony co-founded CIS’s Fair Use Project, which he led as its Executive Director from 2006 to 2012. In the course of his work at CIS, Tony represented conductor Lawrence Golan in his challenge to Congress's constitutional power to remove works from the public domain, which he argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. He also represented visual artist Shepard Fairey in copyright litigation against The Associated Press over Fairey's "Obama Hope" posters, and represented RDR Books as trial counsel in its copyright and Lanham Act dispute with J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers over the Harry Potter Lexicon. Those cases followed notable victories on behalf of the producers and distributors of the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in litigation against Yoko Ono Lennon and EMI Records, on behalf of Professor Carol Shloss in her lawsuit against the Estate of James Joyce. Tony also represented a wide array of organizations as amicus curiae in federal appeals courts throughout the country, including The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Creative Commons, and the American Library Association. In addition to litigating, Tony advised dozens of documentary filmmakers, writers, artists and other content creators on fair use and other intellectual property issues.

As a Lecturer in Law, Tony has taught both lecture and clinical courses at Stanford Law School, including Fair Use in Film, Advanced Topics in Cyberlaw, and the Cyberlaw / Fair Use Clinic.

Prior to his work at Stanford, Tony was a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Bingham McCutchen. He is a 1997 graduate of Harvard Law School, and was a law clerk to the Hon. Barry T. Moskowitz, U.S. District Judge, Southern District of California.

Recent articles

Case

Aguiar v. Webb

Plaintiff William V. Aguiar III, sued documentary filmmaker Floyd Webb, alleging that Webb’s promotional website and film trailer for his upcoming film infringe…

Case

Vargas v. BT

We successfully defended Grammy-nominated American music producer, composer, and songwriter, Brain Transeau’s (better known by his stage name, BT), against spur…

Case

Fairey v. The Associated Press

We represented visual artist Shepard Fairey in connection with the AP’s claim that his iconic “Hope” poster in support of President Obama’s campaign infringes t…

Case

Shloss v. Estate of Joyce

After the Estate of James Joyce refused to allow a scholar to quote Joyce in her book, we successfully defended her right under the fair use doctrine to use the…

Case

Brave New Films v. Savage

Brave New Films produced a video, titled “Michael Savage Hates Muslims,” that  criticized radio host Savage’s treatment of Muslims on his show.  The video used…

Case

Salinger v. Colting, et al.

When J.D. Salinger sued to stop the publication of Swedish author Fredrik Colting’s book 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye alleging it infringed his copyri…