The Pitch newsletter is a monthly update of legal issues and news affecting or related to the music, film and television, fine arts, media, professional athletics, eSports, and gaming industries. The Pitch features a diverse cross-section of published articles, compelling news and stories, and original content curated and/or created by Arnall Golden Gregory LLP’s Entertainment & Sports industry team.
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton
AGG News
The Importance of Font Licensing for Creators and Business Owners
In the popular Saturday Night Live skit, Ryan Gosling plays a tormented graphic designer who, years after the blockbuster film Avatar‘s release, cannot get over the fact that the logo is just…Papyrus. What is arguably the second most hated font after Comic Sans.
(Source: Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, October 31, 2024)
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Industry News
Megan Thee Stallion Files Lawsuit Against YouTuber Over ‘Lies’ About Tory Lanez Shooting Case
Megan Thee Stallion is suing a YouTuber and social media personality who she claims is a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Tory Lanez, accusing the woman of “churning out falsehoods” about the criminal case stemming from Lanez shooting her. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, attorneys for the rapper (Megan Pete) accused Milagro Gramz (Milagro Elizabeth Cooper) of carrying out a public campaign to “denigrate, belittle, insult, and spread false statements” about her. That allegedly included Gramz sharing a pornographic “deepfake” depicting the rapper – a move that Megan’s lawyers say violate a Florida statute banning “altered sexual depictions” of real people.
(Source: Billboard, October 30, 2024) [Subscription required]
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Meet the Duo on A Mission to Have the Streamers Pay Their “Fair Share”
Via their fledgling consultancy businesses, British TV vets Adrian Wills and Simon Brown are on a mission to help producers, talent and agents pick up a greater slice of the pie from the streamers. Working closely with analysis firm Digital-i, the pair, who have several decades of experience between them working for the likes of BBC Studios and UKTV, have developed a formula to broadly work out how much certain shows are worth to a streaming service in terms of monetary value – prospective gold dust to in-the-dark content makers.
(Source: Deadline, October 30, 2024)
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Netflix, Universal Renew Licensing Deal for Animated Titles, Add Live-Action Films
Universal Filmed Entertainment Group has signed a new licensing deal with Netflix, renewing a pact for the studio’s animated feature and adding the U.S. rights for live-action titles from both Universal Pictures and Focus Features. The two companies expanded an existing deal that sees Illumination and DreamWorks Animation titles like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Minions films stream on Netflix. Additionally, starting in 2027, the U.S. rights to live-action films from the studio will also be licensed onto the service no later than eight months following theatrical release after the premium video on-demand window and following an initial four-month streaming release onto Peacock. Such deals are highly lucrative for the legacy studios.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, October 30, 2024)
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Chick-fil-A to Launch Entertainment App With Kid-Friendly Games and Shows
Chick-fil-A is looking to fill family entertainment needs in addition to tummies, and plans to use a new streaming service to direct poultry eaters to its more than 3,000 locations. The fast-food chain is launching Chick-fil-A Play on November 18, a service geared for "parents and kids to share and experience together whether they're enjoying a meal at home, in the drive-thru or anywhere in-between," Chick-fil-A announced on October 21. Chick-fil-A will debut the free service with several original animated shows, including Evergreen Hills and Chick-fil-A Cows, scripted podcasts such as Hidden Island, as well as cooking shows and interactive stories.
(Source: CBS News, October 21, 2024)
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Randy Newman’s Publishing and Recorded Music Rights Acquired by Litmus Music
Litmus Music has acquired Randy Newman‘s music publishing and his stake in his recorded music catalog, the company announced Thursday. The deal includes both songs and film scores from throughout his entire career, which dates back to the 1960s.
(Source: Variety, October 17, 2024)
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Op-Ed: The Lyte Bankruptcy and What it Reveals About the Ticketing Industry
While I was surprised by the sudden shutdown of Lyte, others I know in the industry were not (see above). That said, the recent news of the bankruptcy of Lyte, a ticketing marketplace once hailed for its innovative approach to fan-to-fan ticket exchange, has sent shockwaves through the industry. I am not privy to the internal workings of Lyte, but from the outside, Lyte’s collapse does seem to signal how the ticketing industry, as we know it, is changing. My take is not one critical of Lyte or how it was managed; rather, my take is about what it signals for ticketing at a macro level. It seems there are several key takeaways here that highlight the significant changes happening in the ticketing industry — changes around where you play in the ecosystem, who you play with, and how you bring your products or services to market. In fact, the situation with Lyte tells us much more about how the dynamics in ticketing are changing than most people realize.
(Source: Celebrity Access, October 15, 2024)
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Influencers Putting Companies on Hot Seat by Demanding 'Reverse' Morals Clauses
The next general counsel to slide a morality clause across the desk for a celebrity or web influencer to sign shouldn't be surprised if the talent also whips out a morals clause, one to cancel the contract if the brand acts immorally. In this era of corporate scandal and corruption, so-called reverse moral clauses, also known as reciprocal or bilateral morals clauses, are popping up even among web influencers. These rising stars of social media are particularly vulnerable to having their reputations dashed in the event of corporate malfeasance. And no doubt reverse moral clauses are perversely satisfying for this talent, feeling "owned" by a brand and forced to parse every word they speak to not say anything offensive—a virtual impossibility in this day and age.
(Source: Law.com. October 15, 2024)
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The K-Pop King
Scooter Braun was in a tailspin. It was February, 2021, and the music manager, who had made his name launching the careers of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, was nearing forty and facing a brutal divorce. An equally nasty battle with Taylor Swift, over his ownership of her song catalogue, had sullied his public image. Rumors circulated that the future of Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, was in doubt. Amid this tumult, he was surprised to receive an invitation to speak with someone who had long fascinated him: the South Korean producer Bang Si-hyuk—known to admirers as Hitman Bang. Braun had first heard of Bang several years earlier, when a member of his social-media team told him about a boy band from South Korea whose online-engagement numbers had surpassed even Bieber’s. Braun was skeptical and asked her to check the figures again in a week. They’d gone up. The group, BTS, became the biggest act in the world—and the one with the most zealous fan community, which routinely mobilizes online to ensure that their boys top the charts. Bang had handpicked the group’s members and co-written many of its early hits.
(Source: The New Yorker, October 14, 2024)
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An Artist Signed Over His Career to Investors. Now He Wants It Back.
The “Main Agreement” was supposed to be the final agreement, a contract to end all other contracts between two investors and Bjarne Melgaard, a provocative Norwegian artist who had drawn notice at the 2011 Venice Biennale with an exhibition about a fictional movement of gay terrorists. Melgaard was struggling financially by the time he signed the agreement in 2020, capping a tumultuous rise in the art world. He filled Manhattan galleries with sex dolls and live tiger cubs. Wealthy collectors bought his work. Norwegian curators wrote that he was this generation’s answer to Edvard Munch.
(Source: New York Times, October 14, 2024)
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Amazon Moves to Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit Over Prime Video Ad Tier
Amazon is pushing back against a lawsuit accusing it of misleading Prime subscribers by charging them an additional fee to stream movies and TV shows without ads. In a bid to dismiss the proposed class action, the company argues that it previously disclosed that the bundle of Prime benefits is subject to change. It says that it “never guaranteed that any particular” perk of the package would “remain available indefinitely.”
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, October 7, 2024)
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A Blurry Line Between Managers and Agents Is at the Center of CAA’s Legal War
For years, Hollywood talent managers have grumbled at a California law that puts them in danger of losing their commissions if they’re found to have engaged in activities related to obtaining work for their clients. The issue relates to the Talent Agencies Act, a licensing scheme that was originally enacted to regulate agents and ensure that they’re acting in their clients’ best interests. The law says that only licensed agents can “procure” work in the entertainment business and that managers caught doing the same can have their contracts voided and commissions forfeited. Although lawmakers’ intent was to prevent unscrupulous business dealings, like conflicts of interests, it grew to be used as a sword largely wielded by talent to sidestep having to pay commissions. At least $250 million in fees have been nullified over the past 55 years, per the trade group representing managers in the entertainment industry.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, October 2, 2024)
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Fleetwood Mac Sound Engineer Sues ‘Stereophonic,’ Saying Play Used Copyrighted Material From Book
A former sound engineer who wrote a memoir about working on the Fleetwood Mac album Rumors is suing the creators of the Broadway play Stereophonic for allegedly stealing copyrighted material from the book. In the suit, filed in the Southern District Court of New York this week, Kenneth Caillat, the former sound engineer, and his co-author Steven Stiefel, allege that playwright David Adjmi stole copyrighted material from their 2012 book Making Rumours to create the play, which won the 2024 Tony Award for best play. They allege scenes in the play are “substantially similar” to passages from the book and say the premise of setting the play in the recording studio, with the audience having the point of view of the sound engineer, replicates the trajectory of the book.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, October 2, 2024)
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Lauryn Hill Hit With Lawsuit From Fugees Bandmate Pras Over Cancelled Tours: ‘Scheme of Fraud’
Lauryn Hill is facing a lawsuit from her Fugees bandmate Pras Michel, claiming she defrauded him over the group’s shortened 2023 tour — and that her “gross mismanagement” also led to the abrupt recent cancellation of the 2024 tour. In a complaint filed October 1 in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Pras allege that Hill exploited his mounting legal bills to get him to sign onto a plan for the 2023 tour with false promises – a deal they say enriched Hill at the expense of her bandmate.
(Source: Billboard, October 1, 2024) [Subscription required]
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Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the ‘Soul of the Internet’
To many, the Internet Archive is its own kind of sanctuary — a vestige of a bygone internet built on openness and access, a Silicon Valley standout interested not in series funding or shareholder value, but the preservation of any piece of the cultural record it can get. But to the corporations and people that own the copyrights to large swaths of that record, the Internet Archive is like a pirate ship stuffed with digital plunder. Two lawsuits have brought these long-simmering tensions to the courts and public consciousness, with financial repercussions in the hundreds of millions that could bring down the internet’s greatest library.
(Source: Rolling Stone, September 29, 2024)
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Randy Orton Tattoos in WWE 2K Raise Copyright Concerns
Wrestler Randy Orton isn’t a party to Alexander v. Take-Two Interactive Software, a federal copyright litigation in Illinois. But his tattoos are. On September 25, U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle denied a motion by WWE 2K’s publisher to set aside a jury verdict from 2022 which found that Take-Two and other defendants infringed on the copyright of tattoo artist Catherine Alexander by utilizing her tattoos in video games without permission. But Yandle granted Take-Two’s demand that the jury’s awarded damages of $3,750 be set aside since Alexander failed to prove she was financially harmed.
(Source: Sportico, September 28, 2024)
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Richard Simmons’ Family Is Fighting With His Housekeeper Over His Estate. What to Know
Friends and family of Richard Simmons are fighting for control of the fitness guru’s estate, months after he died of injuries from an accidental fall at his home in July. A legal battle for control of Simmons’ trust began just days after Simmons’ death, according to court documents obtained by NBC News, and now his housekeeper and friend of 36 years, Teresa Reveles, is fighting to be renamed as a co-trustee, saying it was Simmons’ wish for her to administer his trust should he die before her.
(Source: TODAY, September 28, 2024)
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Netflix Loses Bid to Dismiss Defamation Claim in ‘Baby Reindeer’ Lawsuit
A federal court has advanced the key defamation claim in a lawsuit against Netflix over its portrayal of a woman depicted as a stalker in Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer, while dismissing other allegations. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner on Friday found that Netflix could’ve defamed Fiona Harvey, the inspiration behind Jessica Gunning’s Martha depicted as a twice-convicted stalker sentenced to five years in prison for sexual assault, by stating that the series was “based on a true story.” Netflix may have “insisted on adding” the disclaimer despite Gadd’s concerns, the court said.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, September 27, 2024)
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Climate Pledge Arena Charged Thousands of Customers This Hidden Fee. Now They’ll Pay a $477K Penalty
Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle will pay nearly $500,000 in penalties after charging thousands of customers a hidden fee. Between Feb. 27 and July 22, 2023, Climate Pledge added a 3% fee to food and beverage purchases that they did not disclose "in any way" before customers made purchases, according to the Washington State Attorney General's Office, which announced the agreement on September 27. This violates Washington's Consumer Protection Act, which stipulates that fees must be clearly disclosed before customers pay them.
(Source: KING 5, September 20, 2024)
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Don't be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.
—
Paul Cezanne
