In this seminar from a meeting of the American Bar Association in 2007, panelists Milton Williams, Nicholas Valner, Sandra A. Cranshaw-Sparks, and Stan Soocher conduct a review of a number of recent landmark cases in the field of entertainment law. Among the suits under discussion are: copyright infringement suits brought by the screenwriters of the film Dodgeball; a brief review of copyright cases against internet companies in order to identify the current meaning of “fair use” as applied to internet-distributed materials and parodies; suits against Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, the estate of Marilyn Monroe, the estate of Bob Marley and others which explore different sides of contract rights, theft of intellectual property, and celebrity image use rights; the ongoing set of lawsuits by Apple Records against Apple Computer; the lawsuit brought by the band Hawthorne Heights against their label; and more.

In this segment from an ABA 2007 Forum titled “Entertainment Law Litigation Review,” the panelists discuss Apple Records’ series of trademark infringement lawsuits against Apple Computer, Inc. which begun in 1989 when Apple Computer began putting music synthesizers into their products, and re-emerged when Apple Computer began to market iTunes. They also briefly recap a Wisconsin case in which a man ran for Sheriff in Wisconsin under the name “Andy Griffith,” which led to a lawsuit against him by the real Andy Griffith. This case clarifies the difference between commercial dilution and non-commercial use of a public persona, and the importance of demonstrating value of a trademark or persona via continued use.

In this segment from an ABA 2007 Forum titled “Entertainment Law Litigation Review,” the panelists discuss an Illinois case in which the subject of a Keanu Reeves film unsuccessfully sued the film studio, arguing that the film was an unfair depiction of his life and persona. The case turns on a unique Illinois statue called the “Innocent Construction” doctrine which makes that state unique from other jurisdictions for the purpose of defamation suits.

In this segment from an ABA 2007 Forum titled “Entertainment Law Litigation Review,” the panelists discuss some recent copyright infringement cases regarding filmed works (including suits brought by the screenwriters of Dodgeball and against the screenwriters and producers of White Chicks).

In this segment from an ABA 2007 Forum titled “Entertainment Law Litigation Review,” the panelists explain and discuss how the “right of publicity” for a performer’s image and legacy work in practice. They discuss in specific the battle over the will and postmortem rights of publicity for Marilyn Monroe, which have passed from hand to hand in a particularly confusing and controversial fashion since the icon’s 1962 death, and a case involving Patti Duke in which she sued a theater who dropped her from a cast for reasons the court found to be spurious but used her name to gain publicity.