Superman Rights Are Not Part of Marital Property
February 28, 2008
The Court of Appeal of California, Second District, decided that any interests in Superman copyrights or termination rights held by Laura Siegel Larson, daughter of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, were her separate property, rather than community property of her marriage.
Comic-Book Rights Get Close Look
February 28, 2008
As a child, Geoffrey Gerber grabbed comic books out of his dentist's treat bag after checkups. As an intellectual-property partner at Husch Blackwell Sanders, he grabs comic books ' key elements now in a substantial portion of his practice ' out of his litigator's case. 'There's a tremendous amount of comic-book litigation out there,' says Gerber, who practices in St. Louis for the newly merged firm. He adds that comic books, which hit it big in the 1930s as mainstream media, are 'fairly new media' in the scope of entertainment.
Sampling Suit Is Filed over Fergie Hit
February 28, 2008
West Palm Beach, FL, resident Derrick Rahming dreamed of making it big with the hip-hop band Afro Rican and even formed a production company in the mid-1990s. These days millions have heard Rahming's group, even if they don't know it. A sample of his song 'Give It All You Got' jump-starts mega-star Fergie's hit 'Fergalicious' from her album The Duchess. Rahming recently filed a copyright-infringement suit, alleging he wrote the intro to the Billboard pop-chart topper in the late 1980s. He registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office and recorded it in its most popular form in 1995.
<b><i>Commentary:</b></i> As 2013 Approaches, Artist Termination Right Faces Record Labels' Work-For-Hire Argument
February 28, 2008
It's time to start thinking about work for hire again. Technically, 2013 is the first year qualified recording artists may exercise the termination right that will result in reversion to them of the copyrights in their sound recordings from their record labels. There is no doubt about it: Whether referred to hyperbolically as a 'time bomb' or more benignly as a 'leak' in the record company's vaults, how the sound recording work-for-hire problem is resolved will have enormous financial and political impact on both record labels and recording artists.
Settling the Tab for Entertainment Expenses
February 28, 2008
The conventional wisdom is that only 50% of the cost of routine meal and entertainment expenses is deductible. However, law and other professional service firms that spend a significant sum on these items should be aware of instances where they are fully deductible. Financial advisers can help find them.
Fantasy Baseball First Amendment Rights
February 28, 2008
Recently, the right of publicity of baseball players featured prominently in a federal appellate decision. <i>C.A.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P.</i> The Eighth Circuit concluded that the First Amendment rights to run a fantasy baseball league by using the names, performance, and biographical data of professional baseball players superseded the players' rights of publicity.
The Place to Network: Jumpstart Client Development with Social Networking
January 30, 2008
Teens, college kids and recent graduates have grown up with the Internet and social networking sites in their bloodstreams ' they are constantly communicating with each other through Web sites. If you not convinced that you're slightly out of the loop on this trend, ask yourself when was the last time you got 'poked' or 'threw a sheep' at someone on Facebook? The truth is the social networking is rapidly becoming a highly viable way for attorneys to expand their books of business.
Industry's Lead Counsel in Music-Sharing Suits Discusses Procedural Aspects of Campaign
January 29, 2008
The RIAA has filed thousands of legal actions since its campaign against unauthorized file sharers began in 2003. For the past two years, Holme Roberts & Owen ('HRO'), based in Denver, CO, has served as national coordinating counsel for these cases. Late last year, the first trial against a file-sharer resulted in a jury in Duluth, MN, finding the defendant liable for willful infringement and awarding the record company plaintiffs $222,000. HRO partner Richard L. Gabriel is the record industry's lead counsel in that case and in its national campaign. He recently gave an update on the Duluth case and the industry's legal efforts against file sharing in a discussion at his office with Stan Soocher, Associate Professor of Music & Entertainment Industry Studies at the University of Colorado Denver and Editor-in-Chief of <i>Internet Law & Strategy</i>'s sibling newsletter <i>Entertainment Law & Finance</i>.
In the Courts
January 29, 2008
Rulings of interest to you and your practice.
