Law Arts Blog

If you’re a business owner or artist with a brand name, phrase, or design that identifies your business, you will probably do just about anything to market yourself and protect its value. Using intellectual property rights to proactively protect that value you’re creating is something any artist should consider sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, your intellectual property is vulnerable t...

For the first time since 1960, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) have gone on strike as a result of unsuccessful negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).  While production studios' interest in AI has emerged as one of the main talking points due the AMPTP’s allegedly poor reaction to the WG...

Technology: it’s a blessing and a curse. Artificial intelligence has long been an “if and when” subject. Within the last year, ChatGPT and other AI tools have become increasingly popular in many industries, especially the art and entertainment industries. While AI has no doubt provided vast opportunities and benefits to these industries, it also is presently a legal gray area with issues lik...

Whether you and your friends have just started a band or you have been playing together for over 10 years, your band is a business. Sure, your focus is on creating music and hopefully making money from that music, but it is also important to recognize that that can have legal implications. A band agreement is quite possibly the single most important document a band can have, so that everything ...

Despite what an old children’s rhyme about sticks and stones may say, words can hurt both your mental state and your wallet. Defamatory statements can affect your reputation, business dealings, and your status in your community. As an artist or entertainer, your public persona inherently makes you a potential target for all kinds of slander or libel that can dramatically affect your career.  If...

On January 26, 2023, Rick Astley filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against rising-star rapper Yung Gravy; producers Popnick, Dillon Francis, and dwilly; as well as Republic Records.  Astley alleges that, although defendants had permission from the songwriters to make the track, ...

Under U.S. law, copyright holders are entitled to compensation for the use of their works.[1] For songwriters, composers, and music publishers this means they are owed payment when their songs are copied, distributed, synced with video co...

Update: On January 27, 2023, in light of the results from its playtest survey, WotC announced that it would be leaving OGL 1.0a in place and unrevised, and that the entire SRD 5.1 would be available under a Creat...

In late December 2022, District Court Judge Stephen Wilson of the Central District of California, issued a limited order denying Universal Studio’s motion to dismiss in a lawsuit brought by two fans of actress Ana de Armas.

When Universal cut an early trailer for the film, “Yesterday,” they probably didn’t foresee the legal mae...

Though it may seem like streaming services have already fully entrenched themselves as the present and future of television, behind the scenes, the transition away from broadcast business models is still very much in progress and creating strife within a few of the major entertainment unions. Two major Hollywood union disputes in recent years have shown the complicated task facing entertainment la...