You might be forgiven for concluding that the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines were largely a thing of the past following the Supreme Court's decision two years ago in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). The Court held that the Guidelines were purely advisory ' not mandatory ' and just one among many factors to be consulted in meting out a sentence under 18 U.S.C. ' 3553(a). Other factors specified in ' 3553(a) include such…
Over the past several years, the Department of Justice ('DOJ') has expanded its tools and efforts to gather evidence from abroad and reciprocate by helping foreign prosecutors gather evidence in the United States. For a client whose primary presence is in this country, cross-border cooperation among law enforcement organizations raises distinct and difficult issues. An effective defense requires knowledge of treaties and criminal law in two or more jurisdictions, and collaboration among defense counsel in different countries.
Copyright Infringement/Motion to Intervene; Copyright Infringement/Striking Similarity; Right of Publicity/Attorney Fees.
A new department centering on key cases.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan decided that unresolved issues of fact as to whether a distributor or a record label abandoned a record-distribution agreement precluded summary judgment for either party on breach claims by the distributor.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada granted summary judgment in part for Nevada-based entertainment attorney John Mason on his claim of breach of legal-services agreements by a film-production company.
Summit Entertainment's $1 billion movie financing deal ' which created a new production and distribution studio ' all started with a group of bankers and lawyers sitting around and talking about how to get more money from movie-financing deals. In recent years, investors have invested in films that are distributed by studios, which take a distribution fee of about 10% to 15%. With the Summit deal, the investors for the first time cut the middleman in this process.
Digital Downloading/No Public Performance; Management Agreements/Tortious Interference.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided that a Florida federal district court, rather than a Mexican court, should hear a suit by one Spanish-language broadcaster against another for tortious interference with a soap-opera actor's contract.
