In the post-“Blurred Lines” music industry, where an artist even casually admitting that their work was influenced by another may expose them to potential copyright infringement lawsuits, music labels are taking no chances when commissioning official remixes. In what appears to be a direct response to the surprising verdict in which a jury awarded $5.3 […]
The Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law recently sat down with attorney Horacio Gutierrez, General Counsel of Spotify, to discuss current issues in music streaming law. As Spotify’s top lawyer, Mr. Gutierrez is responsible for overseeing Spotify’s legal, compliance and regulatory affairs around the world, and serves as corporate secretary to its board of directors.
Irish superstar Ed Sheeran and his song writing team were recently hit with a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit alleging that Sheeran’s hit song “Photograph” is a “note-for-note copying” of Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard’s 2009 song “Amazing.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, instead of disputing the technical musical issues of whether there was infringement,
Das Films, a U.S.-based production company, has sued Bliss Media, a Chinese company, for breach of contract in relation to Orlando Bloom’s new film, Smart Chase: Fire & Earth. According to the complaint, Das and Bliss signed a producer agreement in 2015 for the film, with Das Films as the producer and Bliss as the
The Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law recently sat down with Josh Berman, the co-creator and show runner of the new ABC show Notorious, to discuss current issues in entertainment law. Prior to his work on Notorious, Mr. Berman was an executive producer on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, a consulting producer on the Fox
Drake’s upcoming album, View From The 6, is coming to fans on April 29th – but only fans who subscribe to Apple Music. As streaming has come to be an undeniable reality rather than a passing trend, “streaming exclusives” are becoming a powerful tool for stars like Drake, Rihanna, and Kanye West to use
Ticketmaster and Facebook have announced a new joint venture between these two industry-leading companies, where fans will be able to buy tickets from Ticketmaster directly through Facebook’s user interface. According to the announcement, the service will be rolled out as soon as the end of April 2016. Due to a “growing number of mobile-addicted fans,”
Spotify and the National Music Publishing Association have reached a $30 million settlement agreement to compensate publishers and songwriters for unpaid royalties that resulted from unmatched songs in its database. According to the Agreement, the $30 million will constitute a “payout pool” where $5 million is a “penalty pool.” Under the Agreement, publishers will claim
On the same week Tidal celebrated surpassing three million subscribers and turning one years old, current owner Jay-Z served its former owners legal papers for lying about Tidal’s business specifics when the company was purchased. According to the King of Roc Nation and his attorneys, Tidal’s former owners, Scandinavian company Aspiro AB, were dishonest about
Last Friday the period for individuals and companies to submit comments regarding the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA ended. The US Copyright Office provided this 4-month comment period to help “evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the safe harbor provisions.”1 The Copyright office cited rapid changes in the internet since 1998 when the DMCA was
The music industry is all abuzz as SoundCloud has (finally) launched its first paid subscription service – Go. The subscription is $9.99 a month with a 30-day free demo. The subscription gives you ad-free and offline listening, and is currently only available in the U.S. The most important thing about SoundCloud’s service is that its
