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Features

Jury Award in 'Walking Dead' Stuntman Fatality Suit Image

Jury Award in 'Walking Dead' Stuntman Fatality Suit

Greg Land & Katheryn Hayes Tucker

A Gwinnett County, GA, jury awarded $8.6 million to the family of a stuntman killed during the production of a Walking Dead TV-series episode in 2017.

Columns & Departments

Bit Parts Image

Bit Parts

Stan Soocher

California Court of Appeal Finds Film Producer's Anti-SLAPP Free Speech Argument Is Valid Against Lawsuit By Investor No Implied Covenant to File Song Cue Sheets for Foreign Broadcast

Features

How Judges Are Interpreting Supreme Court's Copyright 'Registration' Ruling Image

How Judges Are Interpreting Supreme Court's Copyright 'Registration' Ruling

Stan Soocher

In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, under 17 U.S.C. §411(a), "registration occurs, and a copyright claimant may commence an infringement suit, when the Copyright Office registers a copyright" — that is, acts on a registration application, rather than when an applicant delivers the registration materials to the Copyright Office.

Features

What Would End of Film Studio Consent Decrees Mean? Image

What Would End of Film Studio Consent Decrees Mean?

Karen Hoffman Lent & Kenneth Schwartz

In November, the DOJ asked a federal district court to terminate the Paramount Consent Decrees, a set of rules governing major film studios for the last 70 years. In effect, these rules prohibited movie studios from owning downstream movie theaters and banned a variety of vertical agreements, such as block booking — the practice of bundling multiple films into one theater license.

Features

Counsel Concerns: 3rd Circuit Decides Lawyers' Dispute over Video Game Litigation Client Image

Counsel Concerns: 3rd Circuit Decides Lawyers' Dispute over Video Game Litigation Client

P.J. D'Annunzio

A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of a Philadelphia lawyer's suit alleging that Los Angeles litigation boutique Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht acted in bad faith by failing to follow through with a $160,000 settlement in a dispute over attorney fees.

Features

IP Issues and Esports Athletes Image

IP Issues and Esports Athletes

Frank Ready

A new esports-centric survey released by the law firm of Foley & Lardner projects that esports revenues will climb above the $1 billion mark this year. But the increased stakes and growing sophistication of the industry will likely not be without their headaches.

Features

Challenges to Evidence of Copyright Ownership Image

Challenges to Evidence of Copyright Ownership

Stan Soocher

There has been a long-term debate over whether sound recordings can be copyright works made for hire. Sound recordings don't appear in the list of works for hire set out in §101 of the Copyright Act of 1976, though record labels argue recordings can be deemed so as a "compilation" or a "contribution to a collective work," per §101.

Columns & Departments

Players on the Move Image

Players on the Move

Dan Clark

Copyright Office General Counsel Moves to MPAA

Features

Film and Music Cases Result in Different Outcomes for Default Judgment Motions Image

Film and Music Cases Result in Different Outcomes for Default Judgment Motions

Stan Soocher

Non-payment of monies is an all-too-common complaint in the entertainment industry, with frustrated plaintiffs in many cases seeking default judgments against defendants who fail to respond to lawsuits seeking payment. Two new Central District of California federal court decisions illustrate — after the judges sort through the factors for determining whether to grant a default judgment — how consideration of the amount of money at issue resulted in different outcomes on whether to enter a default judgment.

Features

Editor's Note Image

Editor's Note

Stan Soocher

We sadly note the November passing of long-time Entertainment Law & Finance editorial board member Jay Rosenthal.

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