Courthouse Steps
Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Attorney Fees Update
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 court rulings from recent months that deal with this and related concerns. In this and future issues, <i>Entertainment Law & Finance</i> will report on such relevant rulings in Attorney-Fee Updates.
Creative Dilemma: Determining Authorship Rights in Studio Session Works
A recording session is generally a team effort, with artist, engineer and producer working together to create sound recording masters. However, unless set forth in written agreements, just who owns the rights in the works may not be clear. For example, what if an engineer with creative input claims to be a joint author? Even less clear may be who owns the rights if a visitor to a recording session becomes a contributor to a track. Such situations may raise claims of joint authorship and/or copyright infringement, among other things. (A joint copyright owner can't sue a co-owner for infringement, but a court may recognize a joint authorship claim as a distinct alternative from an infringement claim in the same case.) Defendants in these actions may claim an implied license, that the visitor's contribution wasn't original enough to be copyrightable or that the contribution was a work-for-hire under that the defendants own. These arguments were recently tested in a case involving a recording session for the popular hip-hop artist Jay-Z.
Tax Returns Can Make or Break Your Case
The primary purpose of a tax return is for government entities to assess income taxes on the earnings of a business or individual, but in divorce, the role of the tax return is much broader and serves various purposes. Business and personal tax returns should be thoroughly analyzed before marital assets are divided and before income is set for the purpose of determining spousal maintenance and child support. If analyzed properly and creatively, they can help show whether: 1) there was financial irresponsibility; 2) income is much greater than appears on the surface; or 3) assets no longer exist that one spouse assumes still do exist.
Bit Parts
Recent developments in entertainment law.
Clause & Effect: <b>Enforcing Deal Memos Between Parties</b>
Negotiations in the entertainment industry are often set down in deal memos that are many times followed by more formal agreements. A complication arises when parties dispute whether a deal memo or a subsequent draft agreement is the enforceable document. This issue recently was considered in a case in California that arose over negotiations for music publishing rights.
Peer-to-Peer Downloading Legalized in Canada
Before the Canadian Copyright Act was amended in 1998, copying any copyrighted sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright in Canada. The 1998 amendment legalized copying of sound recordings for the private use of the person who makes the copy. But it was unclear whether the amendment legalized Internet music downloading. In Dec. 2003, the Canadian Copyright Board determined that downloading music from peer-to-peer file-sharing services is legal as long as the downloaded file is used as a "personal copy." In its recent determination, however, the Board didn't declare uploading to be legal and stopped shy of completely legalizing peer-to-peer music trading.
