The post below was first posted by my colleague Jeff Polsky on the Fox Rothschild California Employment Law blog. We are reprinting it here because the recent California Supreme Court decision that it describes will have tremendous impact on the way many producers do business.
It’s common practice for producers to engage cast and
The digitization of content is forcing courts to take a fresh look at basic copyright concepts. The Disney v. Redbox case that I’ve recently blogged on addressed whether a digital download code is a “copy” of a work. Now a New York District Court has taken up the meaning of “display” in a case that
In another controversial move, the FCC has approved by a 3-2 vote the adoption of the ATSC 3.0 standard for broadcast TV, known as Next Gen TV. This IP-based standard will permit over-the-air broadcasters to offer Ultra High Definition signals and improve mobile transmission. Sounds good, right? Opponents cite two concerns.
My partner Nancy Yaffe has just posted a blog with disturbing implications for California entertainment lawyers. As young practitioners we all were taught that every agreement with a person providing services on a film or TV show must include a provision that the results and proceeds of the person’s services are a “work made for
Here in the Hollywood bubble, it’s easy to get wrapped up in our own tales of heartbreak, victory and scandal and forget that events outside of LA can also impact the entertainment business. One of these is that the FCC is now Republican-controlled. The new FCC chair Ajit Pai has already signaled that we can
Charlie Nelson Keever writes:
The Supreme Court ruled this morning that a federal law that prohibits the government from registering trademarks that “disparage” others violates the First Amendment.
Members of an Asian-American rock band filed a lawsuit after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) kept the band from registering its name, The Slants, a
We reported previously that LA City Attorney Mike Feuer had brought misdemeanor criminal charges against five casting workshops and 25 individuals under the Krekorian Talent Scam Prevention Act. Feuer alleged that the workshops–purportedly for training actors in audition techniques–were actually pay-to-play schemes in which
The TV manufacturer Vizio agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the State of New Jersey over its data collection practices.
The lawsuit alleged that the company’s internet-connected smart TVs were recording exactly what consumers
It’s widely anticipated that the new Republican-controlled administration will seek to roll back the FCC’s net neutrality rules. These rules require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to treat identically all content that travels over their pipes. For example, an ISP cannot throttle the download speed of content furnished by its competitors. In his farewell speech, outgoing