Arts, Sports, And Entertainment CLE

With the increasing legal complexities in the live performance industry, lawyers, agencies, promoters, managers and talent buyers have had to re-examine their template agreements and legal protocols related to performers and entertainment. In this CLE course, you will learn more about the intricacies of the live performance industry, primary agreements within the industry, how the industry is evolving, and how you can protect your clients in the industry.

This course is designed to give the participant an insight into the reasons behind athlete activism and taking stances on political and social stances in the sports world, as well as how to advise sports-clients on the legal and practical implications involved in choosing to take a stance – no matter the type of statement to be made.

With the increasing legal complexities in the live performance industry, lawyers, agencies, promoters, managers and talent buyers have had to re-examine their template agreements and legal protocols related to performers and entertainment. Learn more about the intricacies of the live performance industry, the primary clauses within the industry’s agreements, how the industry is evolving, and how you can protect your clients in the industry.

This exciting program introduces uninitiated attorneys to the wild world of esports, its tremendous growth in recent years, and the legal opportunities in this space. In this course, we will provide an overview of the esports industry and relevant esports stakeholders in order to set the foundation for applicable legal concepts. We will then examine a variety of legal practice areas and their applicability to esports, including: intellectual property, contract structure, entertainment, employment, unions and associations, and immigration.

Welcome to NFL Contract Advisors – “So You Want To Be An Agent…” A big part of sports law is getting agents ready for the obligations of managing high-profile clients. And that’s where lawyers come in. NFL Contract Advisors covers NFLPA certification requirements, agent eligibility, standards of conduct and prohibited actions, key points of agent-player contracts and player-team contracts, and the NFL’s personal conduct policy. And most importantly, we’ll look at some recent episodes of “bad client behavior” in the NFL (aka – The 3 AM Phone Call). Stories include a mercurial QB skipping a game to party (in disguise) in Las Vegas, a star wide receiver allegedly throwing furniture off a 14th floor Florida condo balcony, the league’s highest-paid player bankrolling a dog fighting operation, and of course…“DeflateGate.”

Domestic violence and sexual violence allegations against professional sports players have appeared frequently in the headlines in the last several years – as have accusations that player’s governing organizations have failed to address or prevent these incidents. This course will explore the various legal systems and mechanisms that might be at play when a professional athlete is accused of domestic violence, the various approaches that the player’s organizations have taken to address and prevent domestic violence within player’s contracts and collective bargaining agreements, and takeaways for attorneys who might become involved in these cases.

Changing a professional sports team name may seem like it requires a simple press release announcement that introduces a new mascot, logo, or merchandise. In this course, we analyze some of the major legal obstacles to changing and owning rights to a new team name—specifically in Cleveland—where a local roller derby team claimed it previously owned the same name that a baseball team tried to acquire. We also discuss integral factors that affect legal disputes surrounding trademarks.

Relocating a professional sports franchise name may seem as simple as selecting a new city, building a new stadium, and changing the team's name. In this course, we analyze some of the major legal obstacles that can appear when relocating a professional sports team—specifically the St. Louis Rams—where a beloved NFL franchise moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles. We also examine the legal battle that ensued and future implications for sports teams looking to relocate.

Until very recently, the NCAA prohibited student-athletes receiving compensation due to their “amateur” status. In this course, we examine landmark cases review the NCAA actions for potential antitrust law violations. We also look ahead to the future of college athletics in the new name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) era.

The sports industry is a unique, highly popular and fast-changing business. The legal issues involving professional, college and recreational sports are more varied and complex than many realize. The goal of this series is to acquaint lawyers who are unfamiliar but interested in learning more about the legal aspects of this industry. This presentation will focus on Sports Governance, the Internal and External Laws of Sport and contractual issues, with a short discussion about Covid at its conclusion. Other portions will focus on collegiate sports and professional sports labor and antitrust issues.

Most sports fans know what the NCAA does and does not do. For many years, the NCAA's autonomy regarding college sports was unchallenged. However, in recent years, courts have become more conscious of the serious antitrust concerns arising out of NCAA policies and starting earlier in this decade, the courts began to seriously apply antitrust law rules to NCAA conduct. This presentation will discuss the background of the Alston case, the rulings by the lower court, the Supreme Court's ruling and concurring opinion by Justice Kavanaugh and world of college sports after the Supreme Court's seminal ruling in NCAA v. Alston.

Women's Soccer scored big by getting paid $24 million dollars in a settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation when they leveraged The Equal Pay Act. Then, they renegotiated their collective bargaining agreement to ensure equal pay with the men's team moving forward. Your clients can also win big if they are experiencing sex-based wage discrimination at work. Learn the in's and out's of The Equal Pay Act and its companion law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, to score a big win. Participants in this course will be ready to bring claims and defend suits right out of the gate, which is particularly important because women were still earning 82 cents on the dollar, as compared to men, as recently as 2020. Plus, those figures were from before COVID set women back decades in their fight for equality.

Professional sports involve a unique interplay between antitrust and labor law. On the one hand, pro leagues have a cartel structure where independent team owners coordinate policies with regard relocation, broadcasting deals and salary controls, their way of doing business raises antitrust questions and poses challenges for courts to determine whether these policies violate antitrust law. In addition, because labor agreements are made by all of these owners through the umbrella of the league, the labor agreements combine aspects of labor law, but also involve the applicability of antitrust exemptions involving their labor agreements. This presentation will focus on the basic antitrust standards, the scope of Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption, the scope of the “rule of reason” test and the scope of the so-called non-statutory labor exemption to antitrust. If there is time, we will review some key provisions of the current labor agreements between Major League Baseball and its players and the NFL and its players.

For many years, sports betting was solely considered an amenity at casinos and racetracks. Today, it is a multi-billion dollar industry legal in many U.S. states. In this course, we examine landmark cases and statutes that shaped the world of sports betting, and also look ahead to future policy and legal concerns.

The last four years have been a watershed moment in amateur college sports. From the possibility of losing eligibility for pursuing endorsement offers in 2019 to signing multi-million dollar deals in 2022 this is a new era for student-athletes. Sports lawyers will learn about how we got here and how the intersection of NIL deals, the NCAA Transfer Portal & Boosters have changed the college sports landscape. And we know this much…where we are now and what is allowed or not allowed today will change rapidly and frequently. It will be critical for lawyers to stay up to date as the NCAA, federal legislators and states continue to jockey for position in controlling the direction of college sports.

For over a century, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) prohibited student athletes from being compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness (“NIL”). Long standing NCAA bylaws characterizing student athletes as amateurs barred these students from fully capitalizing on their own talent, athleticism and labor. Over the years, student athletes grew increasingly critical of the NCAA, universities, and corporate structures that earned millions of dollars through marketing, promoting, and televising students’ NILs without payment to the athletes. Eventually, athlete criticism evolved into a movement wherein lawsuits, the enactment of new state laws, and revised NCAA bylaws now permit student athletes to be compensated for their NIL. This program will review the basics of NIL agreements and provide academic institutions with general factors to consider when student athletes, enrolled in their programs, are approached with NIL agreements. Legal professionals, coaches, and student athletes will benefit from the course’s historical discussion of NILs, summary of new state laws, and updated NCAA rules, as well as practice tips for avoiding predatory contract terms and managing the power imbalance between student athletes and entities seeking to profit from their NIL.

“The metaverse is the new virtual and visual frontier, a user-interactive digital environment based in computer-generated spaces of augmented and virtual realities in which visual imagery predominates, cryptocurrency is lucre and NFTs are fashion and decor." 1 The technology is new but the legal rights regulating imagery and art are not new-- copyright, trademark, publicity rights. We will discuss art, sports, entertainment and rap examples of how rights owners, including Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, Andy Warhol and Prince, rapper Lil Yachty, heirloom and iconic brands like Hermes, Patek Philippe, Cartier and Bulgari, are asserting their claims and defenses in the metaverse world of appropriation. This presentation connects the Andy Warhol fair use case [Section 107 of Title 17 of the US Code] before the U.S. Supreme Court with appropriation concepts in metaverses and NFTs and other appropriation types of litigation in copyright and trademark infringement, publicity rights, unfair competition. Participants will gain a general understanding of what they need to know in this evolving technology space to ethically and responsibly advise clients in a climate of rapid change and inconclusive precedent.

Music copyright law is consistently entertaining but confusing. Music copyright cases feature fun fact patterns, big personalities, difficult copyright issues, and the application of music theory concepts that are often foreign to lawyers. Additionally, the regulatory regime for licensing music-related copyrights, featuring different rules for different types of music copyrights, is complex to say the least.

This course will provide an overview of notable recent developments in music copyright law. Presenters Scott Sholder and Benjamin Halperin—both experienced copyright attorneys and musicians—will unpack the law and music at issue in recent cases from the world of rock, R&B, and hip hop. We will unpack how the substantial similarity analysis unfolded in cases involving allegedly similar chord progressions, melodies, and lyrics, including recent lawsuits against Ed Sheeran, Led Zeppelin, Jay-Z, and Cardi B.

This course will provide attorneys with an in-depth overview of what comprises sports law. We will discuss the key aspects of case law in sports law and define various industry dynamics required to understand the space. Finally, this course will review how sports law can be added into an existing law practice.