Practice Notes

Legal Issues That Face Actors Guild

By Peter Page

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), established in 1933, represents nearly 120,000 actors working in theatrical and industrial films, television, commercials, video games, music videos and new media. The guild negotiates and enforces collective bargaining agreements that set compensation, benefits and working conditions for performers working with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and many independent film production companies. SAG, headquartered in Los Angeles, is a substantial operation in its own right, with 350 employees, a $60 million annual budget and 20 branch offices nationwide.

The SAG legal department includes 12 attorneys, three case managers and eight support staff. The various staff attorneys have expertise in labor law, entertainment law, transactions, litigation, motion-picture finance and secured intellectual-property transactions. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is SAG's in-house general counsel.

SAG's primary outside counsel is Geffner & Bush of Burbank, Calif. The firm handles most of SAG's traditional labor work as well as secured intellectual-property transactions and bankruptcy matters. In addition, as needed SAG retains: Rottman Kaplan and Friedman & Friedman of Beverly Hills, Calif.; McCarthy, Johnson & Miller and Altshuler Berzon of San Francisco; Greenbaum & Katz of Newport Beach, Calif.; the Newport Beach office of O'Melveny & Myers; Heller Ehrman's Los Angeles office; Curiale Dellaverson Hirschfeld & Kraemer of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Bredhoff & Kaiser of Washington.

In-house counsel Crabtree-Ireland's day can vary from the mundane legal chores faced by any organization the size of SAG to helping obtain the special O-1 visas reserved for 'aliens of extraordinary ability.'

 'Like every general counsel will tell you, [human resource] issues get more and more complicated,' Crabtree-Ireland said. 'I assist with lobbying and government relations; I'm responsible for handling opinion requests for O-1 visas; and I am primarily responsible for the legal work associated with the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which is currently broadcast on TNT and TBS in the USA, and on various television networks around the world.'

Crabtree-Ireland reports to SAG National Executive Director Doug Allen.

Because there is no business like show business, SAG has challenges like no other union. Many movies are the product of independent film-production companies working through shell companies created specifically to produce a single movie, Crabtree-Ireland noted. To make certain that SAG actors can collect residuals, the guild takes a security interest in the copyright of the motion picture.

'We take copyright mortgages and, as far as I know, we may be the only people in this country other than banks that have an active foreclosure process for films,' Crabtree-Ireland explained. 'Right at the very beginning of the production process, as a condition of using our members, the company has to give us a security interest in the copyright of the film. As long as everyone down the line pays the residuals, there is no problem. But if someday somebody does not pay the residuals, we have a way of recovering the copyright in the picture as collateral for the debt they have incurred to our members.'

Entertainment on the Internet poses new opportunities for actors, but also new challenges to getting paid, Crabtree-Ireland said. SAG and the companies that employ SAG actors are watching the future of entertainment unfold.

'In the long run, new technologies are going to be great for actors. The issue is how do we assure that actors are appropriately compensated,' he said. 'Our signatories are investing huge amounts of resources in making sure they remain viable players in whatever new media and technologies come out. While there might be more seats at the negotiating table, a lot of the same companies will be involved in these new technologies.'

Elkin Legal Team Takes Quick Jump to Winston Firm

By Julie Triedman

 Even the best marriage can leave some family members unhappy. In January, Michael Elkin, a New York-based entertainment and copyright trial lawyer responsible for $5 million to $10 million in annual billings, bolted the recently formed Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner for Winston & Strawn. Elkin had reportedly been shopping his practice around for several months. With him went eight colleagues, including partners Thomas Lane and Shari Markowitz Savitt.

The 650-lawyer firm he leaves behind is the product of the December merger between San Francisco's Thelen Reid & Priest, where Elkin was vice-chair, and New York's Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner. 'I was not enamored of the merger, that goes without saying,' Elkin said.

Elkin approached several firms, including Morrison & Foerster, before settling on Winston, which was willing to take Elkin's entire group. He was seeking compensation of around $1.5 million, former partners say. That may have put him out of the combined firm's reach, at least judging by what the legacy firms paid: Thelen Reid's 2005 compensation peaked at around $1.3 million and most partners earned closer to $500,000. Brown Raysman had a similar spread.

Winston managing partner Thomas Fitzgerald says Elkin's practice group deepens the firm's copyright practice substantially. 'He's certainly got a substantial book of business,' Fitzgerald says.

And it's getting bigger, according to Elkin: Among his half-dozen active litigations is the job of defending Yahoo! Inc. in a $2 billion copyright suit scheduled to go to trial in April, brought by record labels owned by Sony BMG Music Entertainment; a suit for EMI Music Publishing seeking $100 million from InfoSpace Inc., alleging that it underpaid royalties on ringtone music licensed from EMI; and a suit against client Bill Graham Archives filed in November by the Grateful Dead and others alleging copyright and trademark infringement by the Archive's live-concert archives, Wolfgang's Vault.

With the international footprint and a deeper intellectual-property bench at Winston, Elkin says, 'I could easily double or triple the practice I had.'

Peter Page writes for The National Law Journal, a sister publication of this newsletter. Julie Triedman is a senior reporter for American Lawyer, also a sister publication.

Legal Issues That Face Actors Guild

By Peter Page

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), established in 1933, represents nearly 120,000 actors working in theatrical and industrial films, television, commercials, video games, music videos and new media. The guild negotiates and enforces collective bargaining agreements that set compensation, benefits and working conditions for performers working with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and many independent film production companies. SAG, headquartered in Los Angeles, is a substantial operation in its own right, with 350 employees, a $60 million annual budget and 20 branch offices nationwide.

The SAG legal department includes 12 attorneys, three case managers and eight support staff. The various staff attorneys have expertise in labor law, entertainment law, transactions, litigation, motion-picture finance and secured intellectual-property transactions. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is SAG's in-house general counsel.

SAG's primary outside counsel is Geffner & Bush of Burbank, Calif. The firm handles most of SAG's traditional labor work as well as secured intellectual-property transactions and bankruptcy matters. In addition, as needed SAG retains: Rottman Kaplan and Friedman & Friedman of Beverly Hills, Calif.; McCarthy, Johnson & Miller and Altshuler Berzon of San Francisco; Greenbaum & Katz of Newport Beach, Calif.; the Newport Beach office of O'Melveny & Myers; Heller Ehrman's Los Angeles office; Curiale Dellaverson Hirschfeld & Kraemer of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Bredhoff & Kaiser of Washington.

In-house counsel Crabtree-Ireland's day can vary from the mundane legal chores faced by any organization the size of SAG to helping obtain the special O-1 visas reserved for 'aliens of extraordinary ability.'

 'Like every general counsel will tell you, [human resource] issues get more and more complicated,' Crabtree-Ireland said. 'I assist with lobbying and government relations; I'm responsible for handling opinion requests for O-1 visas; and I am primarily responsible for the legal work associated with the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which is currently broadcast on TNT and TBS in the USA, and on various television networks around the world.'

Crabtree-Ireland reports to SAG National Executive Director Doug Allen.

Because there is no business like show business, SAG has challenges like no other union. Many movies are the product of independent film-production companies working through shell companies created specifically to produce a single movie, Crabtree-Ireland noted. To make certain that SAG actors can collect residuals, the guild takes a security interest in the copyright of the motion picture.

'We take copyright mortgages and, as far as I know, we may be the only people in this country other than banks that have an active foreclosure process for films,' Crabtree-Ireland explained. 'Right at the very beginning of the production process, as a condition of using our members, the company has to give us a security interest in the copyright of the film. As long as everyone down the line pays the residuals, there is no problem. But if someday somebody does not pay the residuals, we have a way of recovering the copyright in the picture as collateral for the debt they have incurred to our members.'

Entertainment on the Internet poses new opportunities for actors, but also new challenges to getting paid, Crabtree-Ireland said. SAG and the companies that employ SAG actors are watching the future of entertainment unfold.

'In the long run, new technologies are going to be great for actors. The issue is how do we assure that actors are appropriately compensated,' he said. 'Our signatories are investing huge amounts of resources in making sure they remain viable players in whatever new media and technologies come out. While there might be more seats at the negotiating table, a lot of the same companies will be involved in these new technologies.'

Elkin Legal Team Takes Quick Jump to Winston Firm

By Julie Triedman

 Even the best marriage can leave some family members unhappy. In January, Michael Elkin, a New York-based entertainment and copyright trial lawyer responsible for $5 million to $10 million in annual billings, bolted the recently formed Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner for Winston & Strawn. Elkin had reportedly been shopping his practice around for several months. With him went eight colleagues, including partners Thomas Lane and Shari Markowitz Savitt.

The 650-lawyer firm he leaves behind is the product of the December merger between San Francisco's Thelen Reid & Priest, where Elkin was vice-chair, and New York's Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner. 'I was not enamored of the merger, that goes without saying,' Elkin said.

Elkin approached several firms, including Morrison & Foerster, before settling on Winston, which was willing to take Elkin's entire group. He was seeking compensation of around $1.5 million, former partners say. That may have put him out of the combined firm's reach, at least judging by what the legacy firms paid: Thelen Reid's 2005 compensation peaked at around $1.3 million and most partners earned closer to $500,000. Brown Raysman had a similar spread.

Winston managing partner Thomas Fitzgerald says Elkin's practice group deepens the firm's copyright practice substantially. 'He's certainly got a substantial book of business,' Fitzgerald says.

And it's getting bigger, according to Elkin: Among his half-dozen active litigations is the job of defending Yahoo! Inc. in a $2 billion copyright suit scheduled to go to trial in April, brought by record labels owned by Sony BMG Music Entertainment; a suit for EMI Music Publishing seeking $100 million from InfoSpace Inc., alleging that it underpaid royalties on ringtone music licensed from EMI; and a suit against client Bill Graham Archives filed in November by the Grateful Dead and others alleging copyright and trademark infringement by the Archive's live-concert archives, Wolfgang's Vault.

With the international footprint and a deeper intellectual-property bench at Winston, Elkin says, 'I could easily double or triple the practice I had.'

Peter Page writes for The National Law Journal, a sister publication of this newsletter. Julie Triedman is a senior reporter for American Lawyer, also a sister publication.