Cover Story Entertainment Law & Finance

What happens when a business manager gets involved in a dispute with one of the artist’s other advisers? A recent example is the litigation between the longtime business manager for rapper Nelly and a longtime consultant who has provided a range of services to the artist that include marketing and promotion, managing Nelly’s touring business, and seeking endorsement deals.

Most of the federal circuit courts that have addressed what qualifies either as a "compilation" or as a single creative work apply an "independent economic value" analysis that looks at the market worth of the single creation as of the time when an infringement occurs. But in a recent ruling of first impression, the Fifth Circuit rejected the "independent economic value" test in determining which individual sound recordings are eligible for their own statutory awards and which are part of compilation.

As for the Truth-in-Music-Advertising law in this case of first impression, band-name rights holders will have to wait for state counsel to act in order to seek remedies provided by the statute.

When artists take action over political-campaign settings, it's usually in the form of a cease-and-desist letter sent to a candidate's representatives. In some instances, artists file lawsuits, but to date there's been just a smattering of notable court decisions. This article provides a refresher on these rulings as well as a look at the recent lawsuit by the estate of Isaac Hayes over the Trump campaign's use of the classic soul song "Hold On, I'm Coming."

With a view toward injecting some modicum of clarity into the volatile arena of NIL, a plethora of legislation has been enacted at the state level and proposed at the federal level.

Can the settlement of a lawsuit by one profit participant in a TV production be used to increase the contingent compensation provisions of other profit participants in the show?

In a case of first impression, the Eleventh Circuit decided that a copyright plaintiff may recover damages that occur more than three years before a copyright lawsuit is filed.

A recent New York federal court decision in a dispute between a broker that sublicenses program content and a broadcaster that sublicensed content from the broker considered the interaction of contract language and extra-contractual elements of the parties' relationship to determine whether a fiduciary relationship existed.