The entertainment attorneys at Weintraub Tobin represent individuals and companies in all aspects of the entertainment and media industries. Areas of emphasis include:
On September 8, Weintraub Shareholder Matt Sugarman will present as part of the American Bar Association webinar Comic Book Law 101. This panel will explore the comic book industry, its place in greater pop culture, and the key legal issues attorneys practicing in this area should know. Topics covered will include…
Summary of ProgramUnfortunately, both single-plaintiff and class-action wage and hour lawsuits continue to plague California employers. Often employers are sued because of technical violations that occur simply because the employer is unaware of its legal obligations. Come join the Labor and Employment Group at Weintraub Tobin as they discuss the…
Join us July 23!Weintraub Tobin and LAVA Digital Media Group will host a conversation with Ethan Applen, the executive director of Media Camp, a Turner/Warner Brothers Initiative, on Tuesday, July 23th. The conversation will focus on the opportunities and challenges with owning a startup company and will include a demo…
Join Us April 23! Weintraub Tobin and the LAVA Digital Media Group will host a panel discussion: “How Has Digital Media Changed the Way We Interact with Food” on Tuesday, April 23. Whether it’s finding a place to eat, sharing recommendations on your favorite dishes or ordering food online, investors…
Weintraub Tobin and Moss Adams are co-sponsoring the LAVA Digital Media Group’s panel discussion: “What’s Ahead for Digital Media in 2013” on Tuesday, February 26. Making predictions in digital media can be challenging. At this time last year who even knew what Pinterest was, let alone that it would explode…
The lifestyle podcast Pretty Basic, hosted by Remi Cruz and Alisha Marie, has been picked up by podcast network Dear Media. The Webby Award-winning series releases weekly episodes featuring celebrity interviews and conversations between the hosts. Pretty Basic joins more than 80 other podcasts under Dear Media’s belt. Remi Cruz is represented…
Weintraub Client Jess Varley (Phobias) makes her solo writing and directing debut with the sci-fi thriller The Astronaut, which begins filming in Ireland in October (under an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement). Kate Mara, Gabriel Luna, and Laurence Fishburne lead the cast. The Astronaut is produced by Brad Fuller and Cameron Fuller…
Weintraub clients screen several new projects during the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 7th through September 17th. The world premiere of AGC Studios’ true crime film Woman of the Hour is scheduled for Friday, September 8th. Directed by Anna Kendrick, the film retells the story of…
The digital media platform Wondermind is in development on a mental health docuseries that aims to shed light on some struggles within the tennis industry. Each one-hour episode will feature candid conversations with athletes as they discuss the challenges they face both on and off the court. The series will…
Creators and Weintraub clients Chris Olsen and Ms Rachel were winners at the 13th Annual Streamy Awards. Chris Olsen, a social media and TikTok star, won the Short Form Category. Ms Rachel, a YouTube creator with a highly successful learning channel for toddlers, won in the Kids and Family category.…
Weintraub client At Will Media launched the new thriller podcast series Possession on Audible, starring Lamorne Morris from New Girl, Ebon Moss-Bachrach from The Bear, and Kylie Bunbury from Big Sky. The series was co-written and co-created by Weintraub client Matthew Derby, and follows a pair of expecting parents as they…
The popular podcast series Moriarty: The Silent Order, set in the Sherlock Holmes universe, has announced a lineup of new actors joining the show for its second season. Helen Mirren, Anya Chalotra, Ross McCall, and Arielle Goldman will star alongside the mystery thriller’s returning cast, which includes Dominic Monaghan as Professor James Moriarty and Phil LaMarr…
Weintraub client Simon Kent Fung’s true crime podcast “Dear Alana” has been released, and is available to stream on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other podcast platforms. Created by Simon and produced with Tenderfoot TV, the podcast is about the life and tragic death of devout youth Alana Chen, whose…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 25 of its attorneys have been recognized in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, and eight attorneys have been named to the 2024 edition of the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. Three attorneys have also named “Lawyer of…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to welcome Andy Tan as Of Counsel in the Firm’s Entertainment practice group, where he focuses on providing comprehensive legal counsel and services to writers, directors, actors, producers, financiers, production companies, and distributors.
The new young adult podcast series “Academy,” from Weintraub client At Will Media and Wondery, is set to launch on Amazon Music and Wondery+ this summer.
In December 2019, Scott Hervey wrote about the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Taylor Swift by the writers of the song “Playas Gon’ Play.” The song was released by the girl group 3LW in 2001 and included the lyrics “Playa, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate.” In…
New York’s post mortem right-of-publicity statute recently came into effect. Its previous right-of-publicity laws were an extension of its statutory right of privacy which provided that “any person whose name [or likeness] is used within [New York] for advertising [or trade] purposes without . . . written consent” can sue…
In the 9th Circuit (as well as the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 11th Circuits), the test for determining whether the use of a third-party trademark in an expressive work (i.e., use of a brand within a movie, TV series, video game, etc., including as part of the title of an…
The motion picture Wolf of Wall Street was based on a book of the same title written by Jordan Belmont. In the book, Andrew Greene, who was director, general counsel, and head of the corporate finance department at Stratton Oakmont between 1993 and 1996, was discussed extensively. In the book,…
Virginia Vallejo, a well known Colombian journalist and media personality, authored the memoir “Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar”. The book is a factual account of her romantic relationship with Pablo Escobar and a chronicle of the rise of the Colombian drug cartel. Vallejo claimed that certain scenes in the television series Narcos infringed…
The USPTO recently refused legendary quarterback Tom Brady’s application to register the mark TOM TERRIFIC. If you’re like me, you’re wondering why Tom Brady would want to register such a trademark. Well, according to Brady, he wanted to obtain the rights to the mark to prevent people from referring to…
For those of you that watched the red carpet happenings at last year’s Golden Globe Awards, you may have noticed the “Fiji Water Girl”, a model standing ready to keep Hollywood glitterati hydrated with bottles of Fiji water, photobombing numerous shots of celebrities. Her presence on the red carpet created…
The Trademark Trial and Appeals Board’s recent ruling in In re Productos Verde Valle, S.A. de C.V. upholding a trademark examiner’s refusal to register the mark SONIA for “sauces; chili sauce; hot sauce” holds a lesson for those of us that regularly advise clients on the registrability (and usability) of…
Recently, a client asked why we included a short form option agreement and a short form assignment agreement as an exhibit to a long form literary option agreement. I am sure that many a corporate transactional attorney has similarly wondered why a short form copyright assignment agreement is included within…
Have you ever had the experience of attempting to register a social media account in the name of your business only to find that your preferred name is taken? Often, it’s just the case of another business with the same name having registered that account first. Other times, it’s evidence…
Often writers base characters on complete fiction, drawing from their imagination to build a character’s various facets. However, on certain occasions a writer may base a character on a living person. Sometimes such a portrayal is factual and other times it may be a combination of fact and fiction. Such…
