Entertainment Articles

copyright lawyer
The Problem with Patents
1000 648 David Hoppe

Markus “Notch” Persson, owner of Swedish game developer Mojang, has attracted a lot of attention for his lo-fi but relentlessly addictive game Minecraft. Most has probably been welcome: glowing reviews from respected gaming outlets like Eurogamer, Giant Bomb, IGN, and, er, Conan O’Brien, “game of the decade” plaudits from legendary developer Peter…

Anatomy of a Pre-Sale, Part 1: Introduction
1000 648 David Hoppe

A pre-sale is technically a licensing of certain specified distribution rights for a film. Simply, a producer conveys some of his rights to a distributor, who is responsible for marketing and releasing the film to the public to generate revenue.

media lawyer
Hollywood Goes Corporate — Show Me The Money
1000 648 David Hoppe

The last two decades have seen epic centralization of power in the media, particularly in the film industry. A handful of conglomerates now own all the major studios, with publicly traded parent companies, broadcast and cable channel siblings, distribution subsidiaries, and at each respective helm, a seasoned and polished corporate executive. It…

media lawyer
China’s Golden Era of Film
1000 648 David Hoppe

As Chinese consumers decide how to allocate their growing disposable incomes, movies are attracting increasingly large audiences, to the benefit of the American film industry. In the past five years, the number of movie theaters in China has doubled to almost 11,000, with several thousand more expected to open by 2013. Chinese…

video games lawyer
Let the Music Play … Games
1000 648 David Hoppe

Over the last three decades, scores of musicians have experimented with and elevated tiny blips of electronic noise to chart topping records. But the concert hall of bleeps and bloops does not only host the likes of Daft Punk, Justice, and the Blue Man Group, this stage also belongs to video game…