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.

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)

  1. Raising capital for a music or video project without violating the securities laws
  2. Draft a model agreement for collaboration on a video project through crowdsourcing, explaining options
  3. Write a script for a documentary/feature on sports as a tool for promoting inter-ethnic harmony
  4. Avoiding barriers to redistribution of images of athletic events and facts relating to them
  5. 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]
  6. 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
  7. Open source software for videogame production
  8. Crowd sourcing for videogame or movie production
  9. Narrative in videogames
  10. How short can a narrative be: limits on the migration of video entertainment to YouTube?
  11. Serialization, soap operas, and YouTube
  12. Design IP agreements for a crowd-sourced movie
  13. Evaluate hypothetical legal disputes involving particular contract language for a stage production of a musical
  14. Legal relations among members of a rock band: who owns the IP in songs and recordings?
  15. Legal relations among filmmakers: who owns what?
  16. When is file sharing among friends and relatives fair use?
  17. Legal duties and powers of agents and managers
  18. Will video entertainment (movies, TV and video games) follow in the footsteps of recorded music?
  19. Evaluation of legal arguments in Viacom v. YouTube
  20. Evaluate business models for indie moviemaking
  21. Efficacy of trademark protection for indie bands and filmmakers
  22. Protecting actor "ownership" of characters and roles
  23. Impact of bankruptcy of labels and flim producers on entertainers, authors, and others
  24. Law and economics of AFM, Actors Equity and other entertainment-union policies towards independents
  25. Constitutionality of "anti-bootleg act"
  26. Nominative use of trademarks for cover bands
  27. Privacy claims against imitators and cover bands
  28. Economic and legal evaluation of new forms of intermediation for music and video
  29. Legal and business frameworks for micro advertising
  30. Evaluation of alternative business-entity forms for theatrical productions, indie movies, and indie bands
  31. Legality (under the labor- and antitrust laws) and economic efficacy of collective bargaining by indie musicians with record labels, promoters, and venues