Copyright

While we register copyright claims and enforce rights for clients across a range of industries, our attorneys also continually break new ground in developing and deploying inventive solutions to copyright challenges presented in today’s dynamic digital world. Consider these outcomes, among the many that we’ve helped clients reach:

• As pioneers in the emerging and ever-evolving recaptured copyright space, we’ve helped many well-known songwriters or their heirs regain the rights to their musical compositions that they surrendered years ago. We understand the ins-and-outs of the copyright law, recognizing that by moving quickly and knowing exactly how to do it, we can recapture songs that are still being played and monetized.
• On another front, we came to the aid of our NYSE-traded client, the largest in its industry, when the company received a cease-and-desist order. Our client was playing songs in locations throughout the nation, which the order claimed constituted a copyright violation. Our attorneys pushed back, settled the legitimate claims on a favorable basis, and disposed of the others. In addition, because the client didn’t have the proper protocols in place when it came to us, we assisted it in drafting and implementing prophylactic policies and procedures to help keep them from triggering in the future.
• Sometimes copyright infringement matters surface in places you least expect. We represent an insurance company, and it learned multiple competitors were using language in insurance policy forms that our client had spent significant time, effort and resources to create. Our team implemented an innovative strategy for securing the copyright. 

Summary

Our copyright lawyers cover a wide range of issues in both the entertainment arena and the corporate world. We have counseled the estates of Elvis Presley and George Gershwin as well many clients in the music recording and publishing industries, new media companies, fashion, software companies, and literary works, among others. In what’s become a hot area for us, we also represent several celebrity lifestyle brands, cutting their deals from merchandise to endorsements of restaurants and entertainment venues.

We’re recognized as legal trail blazers of copyright recapture and have represented some of the most famous compositions in the world.

Defining Strengths

Recognizing that content, media and entertainment companies need broad strategies to protect their works, we leverage their creations and safeguard that content from piracy and other threats. In keeping with the firm’s commitment to serving clients with top-shelf legal counsel, we:

• Protect prized copyrighted works
• Deliver strategic advice on unique issues
• Provide guidance on copyright protection and fair use
• Build and negotiate transactions for the commercialization of copyrighted work
• Advise sophisticated clients on national and international copyright exploitation, protection projects and rights clearance
• Counsel on collective rights management, negotiating with collecting societies and advising on copyright levies