LJN Newsletters

Depending on the circumstances and the law, parties on either side of an entertainment suit may ask a court for an award of attorney fees. Following are recent court rulings that deal with this and related concerns. In this and future issues, Entertainment Law & Finance will report on such relevant rulings in Attorney-Fee Updates.

This spring, RCA launched a DVD player that includes a software program by ClearPlay Inc. that is preprogrammed to filter out nudity, sex, violence and harsh language from hundreds of movies ranging from "Lost in Translation" to "The Cat in the Hat."
The technology has created a furor in Hollywood, with a group of 16 prominent directors ' including Stephen Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford and Stephen Soderbergh ' teaming up with seven motion picture studios to get it off the market. The directors claim the editing violates their trademarks by mutilating and diluting their movies, while the studios argue it infringes their copyrights by creating derivative works.

Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Recent developments in entertainment law.

Many contracts in the entertainment industry include arbitration clauses. EL&F will periodically provide updates on how courts are interpreting and enforcing these clauses and appeals to arbitrators' rulings.

Attorneys are faced with a variety of potential liability issues in handling matters for clients. Malpractice insurance can help, but such policies don't eliminate the raising of liability claims. These claims may include disqualification of counsel based on alleged adverse interests of clients, malpractice allegations based on transactional and litigation work and the threat of Rule 11 sanctions.
The entertainment business presents its own lawyer liability concerns.

Originally, e-commerce businesses relied on banner advertising that appeared on Internet sites when users visited. Next, e-commerce merchants found that unsolicited bulk e-mailing (a.k.a. spam) was more effective, because it could be sent to Internet e-mail users. Now, e-commerce professionals have found that "pop-up" ads are more effective still, because they can be sent to every Internet user. Pop-up ads are advertisements that spontaneously appear on a personal computer screen when an Internet user accesses the Internet. Currently there is no effective regulation of pop-up advertisements and until their actions are regulated, civil litigation is the most viable option to stop pop-ups advertisements from invading the privacy of unknowing and unwilling Internet users.

Cases and news of interest in the Internet industry. This month: Feds Reject 'Do-Not-Spam' list ... and more!