Seminar in Entertainment Law
Fall, 2010
Professor Perritt
Room 355
Tuesday
4 PM - 5:50 PM
Students and final papers
Katrina Barnett: Sports
Agents and Professional Athletes: The Legal Relationships Surrounding Professional
Sports
Jonathan Basofin: 360 Deals
and what they indicate about the future of the music industry structure
Michael Buchanio: Protecting
the "Terminator:" An analysis of trademark protection for an actor's
portrayal of a character
Mark Lindner: The High Speed
Indie-ternet Movie: Using the Internet to create, market, distribute,
and monetize an independent, low cost TV series or movie
Nick McIntyre: The
Low-Profit Limited Liability Company (L3C); A New Entity Choice for the Performing
Arts in Illinois?
Eric Meyers: The
Not-So-Friendly Confines: Where Tradition Meets Greed (Cubs' efforts to
shut down the rooftop bars around Wrigley Field)
Blake Nielsen: Misconduct
in Intercollegiate Sports: Inappropriate Benefits and Communications Between
Agents and Collegiate Athletes
Allie Payne: Understanding
the Shortcomings and Limitations of Current Tort Laws in Protecting Public Figures
Against Invasions by the Press
David Potempa: Producing
Video Games Through Crowdsourcing: Legal, Artistic, and Socioeconomic Limitations
on the Potential
Sarah Rosenbaum: Film
Studios Welcome the Digital Age of Entertainment with Foresight, Confidence,
and a Digital Survival Kit the Music Industry Never Possessed
Stephen Scovil: Burden: a screenplay
about record-industry suits against college students
Elsie Washington: Expanding
U.S. Trademark Protection for Celebrities Characters and Faces: The Effect on
the Paparazzi and Mainstream Media
Schedule
First day, 24 Aug.
- read "rules" for papers and criteria for evaluation at the top
of the home page: http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/seminar/ (before
class)
- fill out and discuss survey instrument on consumption of video entertainment
(in class) Questionnaire. It will save
time if you look at this before class, and even more if you print it, fill
it out and bring it to class.
- introduce selves
- begin selection of paper topics
Presentation guidelines
31 Sept. - Discuss HHP's draft article, "Technologies of Storytelling:
New Models for Movies"
7 Sept. - Basofin; Rosenbaum
14 Sept.- Lindner, Scovil
21 Sept. - Barnett, Nielsen
28 Sept. - Buchanio, Washington
5 Oct. - McIntyre, Potempa
12 Oct. - Myers, Payne
19 Oct. - Crowd sourcing experiment
26 Oct. - Basofin, Perritt on "rules
for good writing"
2 Nov. - Barnett, Nielsen
9 Nov. - Payne, Washington
16 Nov. - McIntyre, Potempa, Rosenbaum
23 Nov. - Myers, Scovil, Lindner
Possible topics (topics are not
limited to these)
- Raising capital for a music or video project without violating the securities
laws
- Draft a model agreement for collaboration on a video project through crowdsourcing,
explaining options
- Write a script for a documentary/feature on sports as a tool for promoting
inter-ethnic harmony
- Avoiding barriers to redistribution of images of athletic events and facts
relating to them
- Evaluating Hollywood contractual practices, starting with Celador Limited
v. Walt Disney Co, 2009 WL 3335357 (C.D. Cal. 2010) [links to most recent
documents are on this Westlaw page]
- Legal theories on behalf of persons leafletting on the public sidewalk outside
the venue of a competing production (First Amendment, antitrust, international
interference with contractual relations); availability of preliminary injunctive
relief
- Open source software for videogame production
- Crowd sourcing for videogame or movie production
- Narrative in videogames
- How short can a narrative be: limits on the migration of video entertainment
to YouTube?
- Serialization, soap operas, and YouTube
- Design IP agreements for a crowd-sourced movie
- Evaluate hypothetical legal disputes involving particular contract language
for a stage production of a musical
- Legal relations among members of a rock band: who owns the IP in songs and
recordings?
- Legal relations among filmmakers: who owns what?
- When is file sharing among friends and relatives fair use?
- Legal duties and powers of agents and managers
- Will video entertainment (movies, TV and video games) follow in the footsteps
of recorded music?
- Evaluation of legal arguments in Viacom v. YouTube
- Evaluate business models for indie moviemaking
- Efficacy of trademark protection for indie bands and filmmakers
- Protecting actor "ownership" of characters and roles
- Impact of bankruptcy of labels and flim producers on entertainers, authors,
and others
- Law and economics of AFM, Actors Equity and other entertainment-union policies
towards independents
- Constitutionality of "anti-bootleg act"
- Nominative use of trademarks for cover bands
- Privacy claims against imitators and cover bands
- Economic and legal evaluation of new forms of intermediation for music and
video
- Legal and business frameworks for micro advertising
- Evaluation of alternative business-entity forms for theatrical productions,
indie movies, and indie bands
- Legality (under the labor- and antitrust laws) and economic efficacy of
collective bargaining by indie musicians with record labels, promoters, and
venues