Find an Entertainment, Sports & Leisure Law Lawyer

Entertainment, sports and leisure law is heavily regulated. It falls into the broader area of intellectual property law (because of copyright and trademark issues) and sometimes touches the area of discrimination law. That's Entertainment Issues within entertainment law include, but are not limited to, merchandising, licensing, advertising, franchising, contracts, copyrights and trademark infringement, and taxes. This area of the law often deals with motion pictures, books, newspapers, television broadcasts and Internet laws. An important and fairly recent development in this area of the law is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The DMCA limits the liability of Internet service providers for acts of copyright infringement by their customers who are using the providers' systems or networks. Most frequently, entertainment lawyers handle publicity rights for their celebrity clients (and even the rights of deceased celebrities); they protect clients' names and images from being exploited. Lawyers also handle issues in connection with creating derivative works, which are based on one or more pre-existing works. A motion picture version of a novel, an abridgment or condensation of a book, the translation and fictionalization of a real-life drama are all examples of derivative works. An author's right to protect the derivative work applies only to the elements he or she adds to the book. Continued... By Kathleen Goolsby