Recent developments in entertainment law.

Features

Four thousand two hundred and eighty lawsuits and counting. That's how many lawsuits have been brought by the major record labels against music fans for using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software (like KaZaA or Morpheus) to swap music over the Internet. The 1-year anniversary has just been reached in the recording industry's unprecedented litigation campaign against its own customers.

Features

Putting together a film financing package can often be risky. Artisan Entertainment learned that after it thought it had entered into an essentially risk-free financing deal to produce eight films. But after its cash-flow insurer refused to accept some of the films, Artisan found itself on the losing end of a lawsuit that offers insights into just how complex and tricky film financing can be.

Features

Issuing two important copyright-infringement decisions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently offered different methods for dealing with different types of disputed works.

Several judges in Connecticut have deprived mothers of custody due to their vitriolic comments about the father. A woman recently lost temporary custody of her sons because, according to Judge F. Herbert Gruendel, her "incessant and completely unjustified vilification" of the father placed their younger son "in a condition of intense psychological turmoil."

When drafting and executing prenuptial agreements, the parties are generally concerned about protecting their assets and delineating their rights upon divorce. In addition to provisions in the event of divorce, however, careful attention also must be paid to the disposition of one's assets upon death. The provisions in the event of death may be particularly important where the assets to be protected were received from one's family or are comprised of a family business. Depending upon the circumstances, the death provisions of a prenuptial agreement may be used to negotiate more favorable divorce provisions for your client. Whether or not used in negotiation, any death provisions included in a prenuptial agreement require an understanding of complex federal tax issues, knowledge of state property law, and thoughtful drafting.

Features

When a business is sold, there is often an allocation of a portion of the purchase price to a covenant not to compete. While this allocation may be appropriate in the sale of a business, frequently the allocation is artificial and is a behind-closed-doors deal between buyers and sellers, driven entirely by tax considerations. Such allocations may have unwanted and unintended consequences for a divorcing party.

Premarital agreements, commonly referred to as "pre-nups," are usually associated with celebrity marriages. Indeed, you'll likely hear someone ask after a high-profile marriage ends, "I wonder what their pre-nup says?" While most of us would like to learn the juicy details, it's important to remember that a prenuptial agreement does more than list who gets what.