In this plenary panel discussion presented at a 2008 meeting of the American Bar Association, panelists Lon Sobel, Ken Abdo, Jay Cooper, David Given, Joel Katz, David Knochemsen, Ed Pearson and Mike Rudell discuss how the practice of entertainment law has evolved over the last half-century, from a few lonely practitioners doing an ill-defined set of tasks to a large and sprawling body of jurisprudence, legal theory, and competing orthodoxies.
In this segment of a plenary session of the American Bar Assocation’s 2008 Entertainment & Sports Forum, focusing on the past, present and future of entertainment law, the panelists discuss how the industry worked when they first began their careers - whether the work has become more or less specialized over time, what they did with their day, how they attracted clients, how big entertainment firms were then, how to help clients today navigate thorny issues of rights, how to help them cross-collateralize their work, and, most of all, what “entertainment law” as a concept even means today.
In this segment of a plenary session of the American Bar Assocation’s 2008 Entertainment & Sports Forum, focusing on the past, present and future of entertainment law, the panelists discuss what entertainment lawyers need to understand about today’s business, and whether business knowledge has become more important than knowledge of the law. They also offer advice to anyone who wishes to become an entertainment lawyer – especially how dangerous and difficult some statutes can be to interpret, and what the penalties are for not doing your homework when making deals and performing due diligence.
In this segment of a plenary session of the American Bar Assocation’s 2008 Entertainment & Sports Forum, focusing on the past, present and future of entertainment law, the panelists explain how the legal underpinnings of the entertainment industry are likely to evolve over the coming years, and how this relates to cultural and technological changes in how music, film, television and other media are distributed and consumed.