Olivia Rodrigo and her co-writer, Daniel Nigro, have retroactively given songwriting credits to artists they assert inspired parts of, or the essence of, their hit songs ‘good 4 u’ and ‘deja vu.’ The process of giving retroactive songwriting credit, in…
“All that for a drop of blood.” Easter season would not truly be complete without a controversial story involving Satan. But how exactly does a tendentious music video involving a lap dance with the devil ultimately lead to a lawsuit…
On March 11, 2021, a 443-megabyte JPEG image sold for a record-breaking $69.3 million. This sum was not only the highest price paid for a piece of digital artwork ever, but was also the third-highest auction price achieved by any…
A recent legal dispute between singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman and rapper Nicki Minaj has shed light on an interesting issue in the field of copyright and music: whether musical artists “can be held liable for copyright infringement for works in progress”…
As fitness companies transform into entertainment companies, new licensing issues arise regarding music in an at-home work-out video versus music heard in an in-person gym class. Specifically, the usage of music in a gym class requires a public performance license…
As the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of life, it has had a colossal effect on the production of TV shows and the contractual obligations of the various parties involved. While the production of almost all motion pictures…
The fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic this past year has been economically devastating for nearly every industry and market, but it has hit the arts and entertainment sectors especially hard. The impacts of long-term lockdown and the resulting recession will…
The music industry’s widely anticipated Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) officially went into effect at the beginning of January 2021. The MLC, which was created via the passage of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) in 2018, was created to administer a…
The bankruptcy code provides a debtor with the power to either reject or assume an executory contract. The debtor must decide 60 days after filing for chapter 7 or before the reorganization confirmation in a chapter 11 case, to reject…
The 2014 Billboard Music Awards featured a Michael Jackson performance like no other: a holographic Jackson moonwalked once again as he sang “Slave to the Rhythm,” a song from the new, posthumously released Jackson album “Xscape.” The legality surrounding holographic…
Loot boxes are random chance purchases inside a game. Gamers pay real money for a box whose contents can range from a pedestrian low-value in-game item to a rare and costly in-game treasure. FIFA, an annually released football simulation video…
On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, a Broadway usher tested positive for COVID-19. A day later, on March 12, 2020, one of New York’s most significant cultural institutions, and a symbol of the city itself, entered an indiscernibly long hiatus when…
