CBS Interactive Inc. v. National Football League Players Association is the most recent case permitting the commercial use of professional athlete’s names and statistics without permission.

CBS Interactive operates the website CBSSports.com.  The NFL Player’s Association acts as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for active players in the NFL.  Among other things, the NFLPA has the right to license the use of the individual players’ names, signatures, facsimile, voices, pictures, photographs, likenesses, and biographical information in connection with “group licensing programs” involving six or more players (e.g., fantasy sports, video games, etc.).  NFLPA assigned this right to Players, Inc. in exchange for royalties.  Players, Inc. in turn licenses this right to companies like CBS to use in programs such …read more

With the emergence of Michigan’s burgeoning film industry comes a new wave of so-called talent agents and managers in the state.  In the entertainment industry, the role of a “talent agent” (or “agent”) is to get his artist-client work, like a personnel agency.  The role of a “manager” (or “personal manager” or “business manager”) is restricted to only giving business and career advice.  The reason for this distinction is that, in California and New York, agents must be licensed and are heavily regulated, whereas managers need not be licensed and are largely unregulated.  Persons acting as legitimate managers in these states, in order to avoid licensing and regulation, are very careful not to procure employment for their clients, even if …read more

Our very own Don Baker is quoted in an article on the sometimes tricky implementation of royalty triggers in license agreements in this month’s edition of Technology Transfer Tactics, a publication on best practices in tech transfer (paid subscription required).  Here’s the quote:

Basing a royalty on annual sales, as Alder discovered, is one of those areas with a distinct grayish tint. “You have to deal with defining ‘annual,’” explains Donald H. Baker Jr., a principal at Safford & Baker PLLC, Bloomfield Hills, MI. “Does that mean calendar year sales? Sales during a rolling 12-month period? And do you measure it when it’s collected or when it’s accrued? You have to be very careful to be sure the terms …read more

The subject of copyright has become increasingly complex and confusing as technology has advanced over the past quarter century, and the law has attempted to keep up.  Today, …read more

The following is the introduction to my article, “The Law of Content Sharing: YouTube and Beyond,” published last year, available through the Institute of Continuing Legal Education (or just contact me and I’ll send you a copy):

With the advent and popularity of websites such as YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and most recently Microsoft’s Soapbox, more and more entrepreneurs are looking to develop their own social, content-sharing websites with dreams of vast advertising revenue or, better yet, Google-sized buyouts. But, while this emerging online industry has many notable success stories, and a growing legion of followers, it has also caught the attention of content owners who claim that these websites permit and facilitate massive infringement of their copyrighted works.

Even so, the large …read more