JSEL recently sat down with Patrick Ragen, an Associate at Ziffren Brittenham in Los Angeles, which specializes in negotiating, structuring, and executing transactions in the entertainment and media industries. Patrick is an attorney in the firm’s film and television group, representing writers, actors, athletes, directors, producers, production companies, and rights holders in the film, television, […]
On November 2nd, 2020, Justice Andrew Nicol of the High Court of England and Wales handed down judgement in Depp II v News Group Newspapers Ltd & Anor [2020] EWHC 2911 (QB) with the world watching. In what is arguably the largest and most high profile case since the introduction of the Defamation Act 2013 (“2013
Loren Cheri Shokes received her J.D. from Harvard Law School (2017), her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles (2013), and is the author of Life After Death: How to Protect Artists’ Post-Mortem Rights, 9 Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. 27 and Note, Financing Music Labels in the Digital Era
On Thursday, October 29th, 2020, JSEL sat down with a legendary practitioner in the entertainment industry — Bruce Tobey, head of the Entertainment and Media Practice at O’Melveny and Myers. Mr. Tobey is a highly regarded entertainment transactions lawyer with more than a decade of executive experience. His practice covers all aspects of production, distribution,
By Stuart N. Brotman Matt Lauer and Louis C.K. may be the latest answers on Jeopardy. But here is the real question: How do you control talent behavior in the entertainment and media fields? This inquiry has been posed for over 80 years now. When Hollywood had a studio system for the movie industry, most of
On July 17, 2014, Douglas Jordan-Benel sued Universal Studios, United Talent Agency and screenplay writer, James Demonaco, claiming the movie The Purge is based on his screenplay, Settler’s Day. Jordan-Benel alleges in his complaint that he submitted his screenplay for consideration to United Talent Agency around July 8, 2011, but the work was ultimately rejected.
On Wednesday, film producer Neil Moritz filed suit against Universal Studios for breach of oral contract and promissory fraud. Moritz was the lead producer on all eight Fast and Furious films. The dispute centers on his involvement with the forthcoming franchise spinoff Hobbs and Shaw, scheduled for release next August. In his complaint, Moritz alleges
In the most recent litigation battle between powerhouses Disney and Redbox, Redbox triumphed as a federal court judge rejected Disney’s request for an injunction. In its initial lawsuit filed in December, Disney alleged that Redbox was in violation of their contract and of Disney’s copyrights due to its sale of download codes for Disney movies.
As Disney is gearing up to establish its own streaming service, it has started cracking down on unauthorized digital downloads of its works. In November 2017, Disney sued the video rental company Redbox for breaching the terms and conditions of their licensing agreement as well as violating Disney’s copyrights in their motion pictures. In the complaint, Disney
According to The New York Times, the man behind the cyber attack on HBO this summer has been indicted on charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, identity theft and extortion. Behzad Mesri, an Iranian national, hacked into HBO’s system under the pseudonym “Skote Vahshat”, where he stole data from May to August. Additionally, Mesri released
Over the summer, Disney and Pixar were sued by childhood development expert Denise Daniels over the film Inside Out. She claims that the film was based on her TV show, The Moodsters, and that she was uncompensated for her work. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, there are some similarities between the two films as both conceptualize the emotions as
