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Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section
Profile
In Its 21stYear, Section’s Members Wield Global
Influence
By Alan Barson As the Entertainment, Arts and
Sports Law Section begins its 21styear, it has never been
stronger nor offered more opportunities and resources to its members.
The section has a large, active and diverse membership, with lawyers
occupying every corner of the entertainment, art and sports law fields,
at every level, from law students and first-year attorneys to senior
partners at leading national and international firms and senior legal
and business affairs executives at multinational media corporations.
While the majority of our members are located in New York City and
around the state, we also have members in 28 other states and 20
countries, notably in Canada, China, most European countries and the UK,
Japan, Korea and throughout the Pacific Rim.
The section is comprised of 16 committees, chaired by the members of
the Executive Committee—all leading entertainment, art and sports law
practitioners—and each committee hosts frequent, outstanding, and
frequently oversubscribed CLE programs.
The committees are: Alternative Dispute Resolution, Copyright &
Trademark, Fine Arts, Legislation, Literary Works and Related Rights,
Litigation, Motion Pictures, Music & Recording, Pro Bono, Programs,
Publications, Publicity, Privacy & Media, Sports, Television &
Radio, Theatre & Performing Arts and Young Entertainment
Lawyers.
Varied Programming Clearly, there is something
for everyone, and there is no limit to the number of committees a
section member can join. Once the Section dues have been paid, there are
no additional dues for committee memberships. With the convergence our
industries have undergone over the last decade, it makes sense to join
several of them, and most members do. Here are a few highlights of
committee and section activities. More information can be found on the
section’s newly revamped Web site, ;www.nyeasl.org.
All section members receive information about section-wide
meetings. In 2007, these included our Annual Meeting in January, which
explored “The Impact of Digital Technologies on the Entertainment
Business;” the 11thAnnual Symposium on Current Legal Issues
in Sports (co-sponsored by Fordham Law School Sports Law Symposium) in
April; our spring meeting in May, which last year featured Stan
Soocher’s highly informative “Entertainment Law in Review: 2006-2007;”
and our fall meeting in October—The 2nd Annual “Music Business Law Seminar” at CMJ Music Marathon and
Film Festival 2007, which delved into the future of the recorded music
business, and included a three-day laminate for all CMJ events.
To meet the demands of those members who cannot attend
section-wide programs, for a very reasonable fee we make those programs
available via DVD and will soon be offering them via streaming or
download. EASL Annual Meeting programs from 2005 - 2007 and other
programs are available atwww.nyeasl.org (click theEASL
Recorded Programslink on the left). If you are looking for an
enjoyable, informative and affordable way to get some CLE credits, I
highly recommend them. Non-EASL section members can purchase these
too.
In each of 2006 and 2007, the section and its committees
presented 16 programs, with almost all of them offering CLE credit,
lunch and networking opportunities. These were mostly priced at
afraction
Publications As Benefits Another section
benefit is a complimentary subscription to the Entertainment, Arts &
Sports Law Journal, a forum for first rate scholarly journalism on
topics of interest to (and frequently contributed by) our members,
published three times per year. To mark the 20thanniversary
of the section, an additional Special Edition will be published to
coincide with Annual Meeting on January 28. This edition will be
distributed to all current and new members throughout the year. Also,
every issue going back 10 years is posted on the section’s Web site, and
the entire archive is searchable. The Journal also publishes an edited
transcript of the Annual Meeting each year in the spring issue. The
Journal alone is worth far more than the modest section dues we charge.
In the 20 years since the section was formed, the needs of those
who practice entertainment, arts or sports law have evolved as
dramatically as the needs of our clients, the practice of law and the
law itself. The section strives to not only meet the needs of our
increasingly specialized and sophisticated membership by providing the
best CLE programs, but also to fulfill its role as advocate for our
members’ interests, promote professional responsibility and emphasize
the core values of our profession. We invite you to join us and share in
this mission.
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Barson practices entertainment, copyright, trademark and business law
and is based in New York City. In addition to serving as chair of the
section, he co-chairs the section’s Music and Recording Committee and is
a section delegate to the House of Delegates. Reprinted with
permission from the January/February 2008 issue of the State Bar News.
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