Band 1 – Intellectual Property: Trademark, Copyright & Trade Secrets
Chambers USA 2025
Leading Partner – Intellectual Property: Copyright
Legal 500 US 2025
Music Legal Elite
Variety 2025
Top Music Lawyer
Billboard 2025
Innovative Lawyers – North America
Financial Times 2024
IP Vanguard Award
California Lawyers Association 2024
"A super smart and talented attorney who is extraordinary in litigation. He is sharp on both strategy and implementation."
Chambers USA 2024
"Has deep technical knowledge in the machine-learning space and is an extraordinary litigation strategist."
Chambers USA 2024
"One of the most effective litigators I've ever worked with. He brings a depth of experience resolving complex copyright issues and understanding how decisions made today are likely to impact one's business."
Legal 500 US 2024
"Provides a perspective on the intersection between competition and copyright law that is unparalleled."
Legal 500 US 2024
Profile
Andy Gass is an acclaimed antitrust and IP lawyer who represents technology companies in their highest-stakes disputes.
Andy is the architect of the firm’s decorated copyright practice and teaches a course titled “Copyright, Competition & Technology” at the UC Berkeley School of Law. He serves a wide range of clients, from early-stage startups to the largest companies in the world, as a trusted counselor and lead litigator. In that capacity, Andy has shaped the highest-profile, most cutting-edge issues in digital copyright law in the past decade, whether by resolving a matter behind the scenes, advocating in regulatory proceedings, or trying a case in US federal court. Leading legal and general publications, including the Financial Times, Billboard, and ChambersUSA, have recognized Andy's work for its pragmatism, efficiency, and quality.
Andy regularly writes and speaks on issues related to the legal rules that govern artificial intelligence products, internet platforms, streaming services, and other topics. Before joining Latham, he was a law clerk to the late Honorable Stephen F. Williams on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Experience
Andy has served as lead trial and appellate counsel in copyright cases, antitrust cases, and the unique hybrid form of dispute known as music-rights rate-setting cases across a range of industries, from software to streaming and beyond.
His recent, publicly known experience includes representing:
OpenAI in ongoing litigation challenging the training and operation of ChatGPT as large-scale copyright infringement
Apple in cases involving the unauthorized use of iOS and the copyrightability of emoji
Spotify in the Phonorecords III appeal and the Phonorecords IV proceeding
Anthropic in litigation brought by music publishers and book authors over the development of Claude
The music generative AI companies Suno and Udio in lawsuits brought by all of the major record labels seeking to shut down the product category
Amazon in a variety of copyright and other cases
Shopify in a suit challenging its eligibility for DMCA immunity
Roblox in litigation matters related to copyright, antitrust, privacy, and other issues
The Andy Warhol Foundation in its Supreme Court case about whether Warhol’s iconic depiction of the musician Prince was a fair use of the source photograph from which it derived
Live Nation in all of its highest-stakes litigation in the past decade
DeviantArt in a federal court lawsuit seeking to assert liability arising from an implementation of the generative AI product known as Stable Diffusion
Internet Archive in a copyright infringement lawsuit over the “Great 78” project
The National Association of Broadcasters in the Web V matter
The Radio Music License Committee in litigation against all four major US performing rights organizations
Creative Commons in litigation over the interpretation of its copyright licenses
Pandora in litigation over the use of “pre-1972” sound recordings
iHeartMedia in all of its music-rights-related disputes since 2016
The Digital Media Association and other industry trade groups in connection with the Department of Justice’s review of the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees
Qualifications
Bar Qualification
California
Education
JD, University of California, Berkeley, 2008 Order of the Coif
Latham litigation teams secured an appellate victory in rate-setting litigation under an antitrust consent decree governing Broadcast Music, Inc., and defeated the first-ever attempt to apply Washington's 1984 Telephone Buyers' Protection Act to modern smartphones in a consumer class action.
The new executive order is the latest effort by the Trump administration to establish a “minimally burdensome national standard” for regulating the AI industry.
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