Entertainment & Media

The music, film, television and digital entertainment industries are built around copyright ownership and contracts, and if you sign the wrong deal you can spend a career watching someone else collect on your work. Hank has represented recording artists, songwriters, producers, television and film players, visual artists and businesses in those fields, pairing copyright depth and contract drafting experience with the courtroom experience to enforce the rights of copyright owners.

In the music field, every song that is written gives rise to two separate copyright interests, the musical work (the "composition") that songwriters and publishers control, and the sound recording (the "master") labels typically control. Rights in compositions and sound recordings are licensed through different channels and generate different royalties, e.g., mechanical and performance royalty income on the composition, and master use and neighboring rights royalties on the sound recording. When you sample a recording created by a third party, both the composition and the sound recording have to be cleared (licensed), because an uncleared sample constitutes copyright infringement of both the sound recording and the underlying musical work.

In film and television, a finished production embodies several separate copyright interests. A screenplay or teleplay is a protected literary work in its own right, the completed picture receives separate protection as an audiovisual work, and a production based on a novel, a play, or an earlier film is a derivative work that requires rights in the underlying source material. Because Section 101 of the Copyright Act includes a contribution to a motion picture or other audiovisual work among the commissioned works that can qualify as works made for hire, production agreements commonly place ownership of each contribution in the studio or production company through signed work-made-for-hire language, usually backed by a present assignment. Placing music in the picture requires two more clearances, a synchronization license for the musical composition and a master use license for any existing recording.

For visual artists, ownership of a painting, photograph, print, or sculpture is separate from ownership of the copyright in it. Under Sections 202 and 204 of the Copyright Act, a sale of the original canvas or a signed print transfers only that object, and the rights to reproduce the work, prepare derivative works, and distribute new copies remain with the artist unless a signed writing assigns them. The Visual Artists Rights Act adds rights of attribution and integrity for qualifying works of visual art, rights that Section 106A bars the artist from transferring and permits the artist to waive only in a signed written instrument identifying the work and the covered uses. A commissioned portrait or mural rarely fits within the commissioned-work categories in Section 101, so a collector, developer, or brand that wants copyright ownership needs a signed assignment in addition to the purchase.

Your agreements determine how money is split between the various parties involved in entertainment transactions and who control the rights associated with those projects. Hank drafts and negotiates publishing and co-publishing deals, producer agreements, recording and distribution agreements, management agreements, live performance contracts, television and film agreements, endorsement deals and synchronization licenses that place a song in an audiovisual work, such as an advertisement, a film, or a video game. On every deal he reads the chain of title first, because a deal is only worth what the seller or licensor owns, and reversion, termination, and audit rights determine whether you can acquire control of those rights later.

Hank has worked with artists at the start of a career and established names protecting a catalog, with artists, producers and writers chasing unpaid royalties, and with companies licensing music for commercial use. Every engagement works toward the same result, ownership of what you created and licenses on terms you can live with.