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The legal protection afforded to the unborn has become a procedural and substantive issue arising in both traditional and non-traditional contexts. Following is a look at case law, past and present.

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Malpractice Claims/File-Sharing Software<br>Malpractice Claims/Statute of Limitations

BOOK COPYRIGHTS/FAIR USE DEFENSE<br>USE OF VOICE/PUBLICITY, ENDORSEMENT CLAIMS

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For Peter Wiley, the Walt Disney Co.'s European head of legal, these are interesting times. His employer, one of the most iconic companies in the world, is engaged in a drive to expand internationally and take the House of Mouse into the digital age.

During the last few years, recording artists have been entering into so-called "360 agreements" with record companies and entertainment corporations in increasing numbers, changing the relationship that existed for decades among artists and major labels. Instead of focusing solely on sales of recorded music, the record companies now are sharing, through these agreements, in performers' income from a 360-degree range of professional activities. These developments reflect the difficulties encountered in the music industry as electronic transmission of recordings has become dominant and piracy rampant, making the financial returns from sales of records insufficient to justify the cost of creating, marketing and promoting recorded music.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided that NBC didn't breach the employment contract of a producer for the investigative TV series "Dateline" when it fired the producer at the end of a contract cycle.

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Los Angeles entertainment attorney Robert A. Finkelstein accompanied Nancy Sinatra to Washington, DC, last summer for a U.S. Congressional hearing on a proposal for terrestrial radio stations to pay performance royalties to air sound recordings. Sinatra was a key artist-rights witness before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Finkelstein praised a recent change in Washington state's right-of-publicity statute. The amendment, which took effect in June 2008, eliminated a personality's domicile as a bar to bringing a right-of-publicity suit.

Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.