For years I’ve advocated to anyone who’d listen that unpaid work is tantamount to a slap in the face; that experience and exposure aren’t sufficient compensation for people whose livelihoods depend on their art. Three years ago I said: “[B]eing paid for your work is a statement about your worth to yourself and to the project. Directors, producers, and publishers don't work for free; neither should you.”
Read MoreBetween the migrant crisis in Europe, Congress' inevitable rush towards a government shutdown, and all things Pope, it's been a news-heavy couple of weeks. The world of copyright law has been equally busy; in the span of ten days, federal courts in California unveiled three headline-grabbing opinions, some of which have shaken copyright to its very core.
Read MoreThe Big Bang Theory gets a lot of hate and I have to confess I don’t really understand why. Sure it’s no Mad Men (what is?), and it relies too frequently on dumb blonde and fat jokes, but I just can’t muster a strong feeling about it either way. My wife and I used to watch, mostly in syndication, but I just couldn’t get enough of a foothold to stick with it. Despite my ambivalence to the show, one thing has nagged at me for several years. So in honor of TBBT’s return tonight for its ninth season, I’d like to discuss whether Sheldon and Leonard’s roommate agreement is legally valid.
Read MoreDo you remember the time Donald Trump played “It’s The End of the World as We Know It” at a campaign rally and REM told him not to use their music "for your moronic charade of a campaign?" Or that time John McCain used “Running on Empty” in a TV ad bashing Obama and Jackson Browne sued him? Or that time Rand Paul used “Tom Sawyer” during his Senate run and Rush said that it was obvious Paul “hates women and brown people?"* It seems like every time there’s an election, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a band upset at a politician for using its music. And with a year left before the general election, it’ll happen a few more times at least.
Read MoreUnless you’re a witch (you’re not), your contracts don’t manifest fully formed out of thin air. They're the product of a negotiation, and whether long or short, the process will consist of you and the other party generating ideas about what the deal will look like. Sometimes during the negotiation, one of you may make a promise that for whatever reason doesn’t end up in the final written agreement. But when the other party assumes it’s still part of the deal, that’s when things can get FUBAR.
Read MoreReality will place limits on you... and that's okay. Perfection is an illusion anyway. Real world pragmatism - that is, taking the world as it is, not how you'd like it to be - isn't something to rebel against, it's to be embraced. I think a lot of people - lawyers included - think that if you can't get everything you want, you've failed, and that means you're weak. You haven't represented your client to the best of your ability; you haven't bent the world to your will. But that's a lie because that's not how the world works. What were my instructors really saying? Get used to imperfection. We lawyers can stand to internalize that a bit more and pass that knowledge on to our clients.
Read MoreWhen I started this blog three years ago, it was a lark. I had just taken the bar exam and had months to wait before the results would come out, so I needed something to do. Even at my most optimistic, I didn’t see myself sticking with the blog for more than six months. But here we are, three years later and it’s going as strong as ever. That’s in large part due to your readership and encouragement. Even in hard times this has been safe space for me to discuss topics that I felt were important, or address issues that I wish I’d known about when I was a struggling filmmaker. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that.
Read MoreAs many of you know, I’ve been contributing to MovieMaker Magazine’s Cinema Law column, an ongoing blog that discusses how the world of filmmaker intersects with the law. You can imagine why that would appeal to me. Anyway, my sixth article was published last week, so by way of self-aggrandizement, I thought I’d post links to all six of my articles to date in reverse chronological order. Please click through and if you have any questions you’d like me to address in an upcoming Cinema Law article, please email me or submit a comment on one of the articles listed below.
Read MoreLast week, graffiti artist Joseph Tierney, also known as Rime, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against fashion designer Jeremy Scott and his house Moschino for that exact infraction. Moschino took Rime’s design entitled “Vandal Eyes" and placed it one a dress, recently modeled by Gigi Hadid at the Met Gala (a sentence I never would’ve understood 10 years ago).
Read MoreThis Washington Post article discusses the issue and ultimately concludes that the entire process was mishandled. Attorney John Dowd (who conducted MLB’s investigation into Pete Rose’s gambling way back when) states that “the entire NFL disciplinary process lacks integrity and fairness,” referring to the ruling against Brady as “an ambush." In other words, there was inadequate due process.
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