Entertainment Law Update – Episode 2
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SHOW NOTES
In this episode:
- Congratulations to Maren Christensen, Executive VP and General Counsel at Universal Studios, who’s been named Beverly Hills Bar Association’s Entertainment Lawyer of the Year for 2009.
- Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor’s background and 2nd Circuit ruling in favor of statutory damages as deterrent.
- Backlog at the Copyright Office
- Does the Register of Copyrights hold office lawfully? A pending Constitutional Appointments Clause challenge questions the validity of CRB appointments, but what about the Register’s ministerial Acts?
- Sports Leagues losing control of fantasy-sports leagues as Courts rule that the First Amendment trumps rights of publicity, and player statistics, etc., where there’s a public interest in the information.
- Good discussion of “Access” element of copying analysis in ruling on Summary Judgment for Defendant in song plagiarism suit.
- Warner Music issues DMCA Takedown on Organization that hosted Prof. Lessig talk
- Woody Allen/American Apparel case settles
- Supreme Court refuses to hear Steinbeck copyright termination appeal
- Penguin Group v. Steinbeck, 537 F.3d 193 (2nd Cir. 2008)
- Classic Media, Inc. v. Mewborn, 532 F.3d 978 (9th Cir. 2008) (involving Lassie rights)
- SAG settles Force Majeure claims
- Tenenbaum’s fair use argument – Case is set for trial July 20.
- Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, 07-11446, E.D. Mass. 2007 Consolidated into Capital Records, Inc. v. Alaujan, 03-11661,E.D. Mass. 2007
- See Case documents at http://joelfightsback.com/about-the-case/legal-documents/
3 Replies to “Entertainment Law Update – Episode 2”
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I had my caffeine right before listening to this, and I’m glad I did. You and Tamera covered a LOT of ground in just one hour. It definitely deserves a CLE, and I’ll get on the list to get notified about TN CLE when/if it becomes available. But I consider this indispensable each month, if only to save me days of research to catch every major case.
Short note about fantasy sports. I’ve played it, I’ve run leagues, I know that it is not a typical David vs. Goliath entertainment law situation. Most of the sites profiting from fantasy sports leagues are Sporting News, Yahoo, USA Today, and many other huge players in the media market. That’s one of the reasons why the plaintiffs (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc.) feel they can ask them to “contribute” for the use of the freely available information. But I agree with the “Celebrity Apprentice” analogy, and the following “slippery slope” argument, how long until the courtrooms start charging access fees for trial bloggers, printing fees for allowing FOIA documents to be freed to the media, etc. But one thing that has to be considered: the sports’ franchises labor agreements have already “priced in” to the future revenues this income stream; so would they be violating their own labor agreement if they didn’t continue to fight the fantasy leagues?
Tamera, Gordon, great job!
Your blog is so informative. Great work!
Thanks for the entertaining read! Alright playtime is over and back to school work.