Art, Entertainment and Technology Counsel

I’ve wanted to update my post on the proposed Performance Rights Act for a while, but there really hasn’t been all that much movement on this bill in the past few years.  I find this a little surprising, as it seems like both political parties are in love with the RIAA (and Obama just nominated [...]

A few months back, Billboard* provided a list of three tips designed to help a band maximize their merchandise sales.  While Billboard’s sage advice is very useful and can definitely help increase the revenue of bands with all sizes of followings, the tips are somewhat little limited and ignore quite a few of the more [...]

  UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Augusto, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 52 (9th Cir. Jan. 4, 2011) The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals recently ruled that the third party sale of a promo CD is typically legal under the “first use” doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act.  This probably seems obvious to anyone who has [...]

US v. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, – F.3d -, No. 09-539 (2d Cir. September 28, 2010) The Federal Appeals Court for the Second Circuit recently issued an opinion (found in its entirety here) which no doubt rankled ASCAP executives and ruffled the feathers of the international copyright community.  The Court’s ruling was [...]