Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Recent Journalism Awards Won By "Old," "New," And "Hybrid" Media, Robert H. Lande, Thomas J. Horton, Virginia Callahan

All Faculty Scholarship

This compares the quality of the "old" media to that of the "new" media by determining how often each type of media source wins major journalism awards. It divides media sources into three categories: old, new and hybrid. New media is limited to publications that were started purely as online news publications. Old media is classified in the traditional sense to include such newspapers as the New York Times. Hybrid media combines elements of both new and old media. Our research compares the number of Pulitzer Prizes and other major journalism awards won by these three types of media sources …

How Copyright Law May Affect Pop Music Without Our Knowing It, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Commissioned for a symposium on copyright law and the creation of music, this article explores five questions about popular music that can be illuminated by greater insights into copyright law and the music business. Why do popular songs usually last for fewer than five minutes? Why are professional songwriters dissatisfied with Pandora and Spotify? Why can we bring European CDs back to the United States? Why can't YouTube videos be created with ASCAP/BMI licenses? Are digital downloads sales or licenses? And as a bonus: Why did the royalty rate for sheet music stay at seven cents per copy?

It is …

Sharing Stupid $H*T With Friends And Followers: The First Amendment Rights Of College Athletes To Use Social Media, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

This paper takes a closer look at the First Amendment rights of college athletes to access social media while simultaneously participating in intercollegiate athletics. The question posed is quite simple: can a coach or athletic department at a public university legally restrict a student-athlete's use of social media? If so, does the First Amendment provide any restraints on the type or length of restrictions that can be imposed? Thus far, neither question has been presented to a court for resolution. However, the answers are vital, as college coaches and athletic directors seek to regulate their athletes in a constitutional manner.

Promoting Progress: A Qualitative Analysis Of Creative And Innovative Production, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter is based on data collected as part of a larger qualitative empirical study based on face-to-face interviews with artists, scientists, engineers, their lawyers, agents and business partners. Broadly, the project involves the collecting and analysis of these interviews to understand how and why the interviewees create and innovate and to make sense of the intersection between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity from the ground up. This chapter specifically investigates the concept of “progress” as discussed in the interviews. “Promoting progress” is the ostensible goal of the intellectual property protection in the United States, but what …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Antitrust Law Professors In O'Bannon V. Ncaa, Thomas C. Arthur, Amitai Aviram, Edward D. Cavanagh, Jorge L. Contreras, Daniel A. Crane, Susan Beth Farmer, Herbert Hovenkamp, Keith N. Hylton, Michael S. Jacobs, Alan J. Meese, Salil K. Mehra, William H. Page, Gary R. Roberts, D. Daniel Sokol, Alexander Volokh

Faculty Scholarship

On November 21, 2014, 15 professors of antitrust law at leading U.S. universities submitted an amicus brief in the O'Bannon v. NCAA 9th Circuit appeal in support of the NCAA. They have an interest in the proper development of antitrust jurisprudence, and they agree that the court below misapplied the “less restrictive alternative” prong of the rule of reason inquiry for assessing the legality of restraints of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. They are concerned that the district court’s approach to the antitrust rule of reason, if affirmed, would grant undue authority to …

Mlb Calendar 2014-2015, Edmund P. Edmonds

MLB Calendars

No abstract provided.

The Rooney Rule, N. Jeremi Duru

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Tinkering With Success: College Athletes, Social Media And The First Amendment, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

Good law does not always make good policy. This article seeks to provide a legal assessment, not a policy directive. The policy choices made by individual institutions and athletic departments should be guided by law, but absolutely left to institutional discretion. Many articles written on college student-athletes' social media usage attempt to urge policy directives clothed in constitutional analysis.

In this author's opinion, these articles have lost perspective-constitutional perspective. This article seeks primarily to provide a legal and constitutional assessment so that schools and their athletic departments will have ample information to then make their own policy choices.

Padres Players Arbitration Results, Edmund P. Edmonds

Team - Player Results

No abstract provided.

Gold, Marlene Arbitration Chart, Edmund P. Edmonds

Arbitrator Charts

No abstract provided.

Goldberg, Matt Arbitration Chart, Edmund P. Edmonds

Arbitrator Charts

No abstract provided.

Sands, John Arbitration Chart, Edmund P. Edmonds

Arbitrator Charts

No abstract provided.

Achieving Gender Equity Under Title Ix For Girls From Minority, Urban, Rural, And Economically Disadvantaged Communities, Kenneth D. Ferguson

Faculty Works

Unless middle school and high school girls in urban, rural, and minority communities are given the opportunities to participate in the emerging women’s sports, gender equity is being only facially achieved because Title IX requirements are implemented without specific regard to detrimental impacts on the aforementioned subgroups. This Article will consider the intersection of race, gender, economic status, and community characteristics with sports participation for girls in grades K-12 and will argue that there are two categories of intentional discrimination that are both actionable under Title IX. The first is direct discrimination by a perpetrator of the discrimination — the …

Stabilizing Morality In Trademark Law, Christine Haight Farley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Almost all of the commentary concerning the statutory prohibition on registering offensive trademarks lambasts it as a misguided attempt to enforce civility through trademark law. This Article carefully considers the challenges accompanying section 2(a) of the U.S. Trademark Act and defends it as good policy. There are, however, a few instances in which the jurisprudence under section 2(a) has created more problems than it has solved. To alleviate these problems, this Article proposes judging words per se and abandoning the traditional trademark notion of evaluating words in context. Judging words per se is warranted given the very different objectives underlying …

Concussions And Sports: Introduction, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Racial Upside: Deconstructing The "Merits" Of Jeremy Lin's Nba Contract, Stewart Chang

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Professor Stewart Chang disputes the common misperception that sports are a colorblind meritocracy that should serve as a model for the rest of society. The capacity of players to break into and succeed in professional sports is believed to be based purely on merit, with no consideration of race. Controversies that surfaced around the rise of professional basketball player Jeremy Lin, an Asian American not expected to succeed in a sport dominated by blacks and whites, challenged this popularly-held notion. He argues, not in a derisive way, that Lin's ability to secure a lucrative $28.8 million contract, …

Title Ix Feminism, Social Justice, And Ncaa Reform, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses social justice feminism as it applies to gender discrimination in collegiate and scholastic athletics in the context of Title IX requirements. Title IX activists today are primarily concerned with securing equal resources and opportunities for women in a college athletic environment. Today, that environment is becoming increasingly commercialized; this presents a Title IX problem because it creates an incentive to invest more athletic department resources into certain men’s athletic programs instead of distributing them equitably to women’s (and other men’s) programs. In addition, the NCAA is presently considering or has recently undertaken deregulation initiatives in a variety …

League Of Ownership Of Teams, Conflicts Of Interest, And Personnel Exchanges, Lewis Kurlantzick

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

A Regulatory Solution To Better Promote The Educational Values And Economic Sustainability Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Stephen F. Ross, Matt Mitten

Journal Articles

Currently there are several pending antitrust suits challenging NCAA rules restricting the economic benefits intercollegiate athletes may receive for their sports participation. Although remedying the inherent problems of commercialized college sports (primarily Division I football and men’s basketball) is a laudable objective, a free market solution mandated by antitrust law may have unintended adverse consequences. Judicial invalidation of these rules may inhibit universities from providing many athletes with a college education they would not otherwise receive, by eliminating or reducing the value of scholarships for many players whose economic value is less than the cost of an education. A wholly …

Judicial Review Of Ncaa Eligibility Decisions: Evaluation Of The Restitution Rule And A Call For Arbitration, Stephen F. Ross, Richard T. Karcher, S. Baker Kensinger

Journal Articles

Courts have held that the general principles of judicial non-interference with the decisions of private associations do not apply where a dominant organization’s decisions effectively prevent individuals from participating in an important activity, including a profession or sports. Although the bylaws of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) give it unfettered power, it remains subject to judicial review when its decisions violate constitutional or statutory limits, or principles of contract law, or when they are inconsistent with the organization’s own rules. As such, general principles of equity should freely permit an athlete to obtain injunctive relief where the applicable standards …

Twilight: The Unveiling Of Victims, Stalking, And Domestic Violence, 21 Cardozo J. L. & Gender 39 (2014), Susan L. Brody

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us: Defining The Line Between Personal And Professional Context On Social Media, 35 Pace L. Rev. 398 (2014), Raizel Liebler, Keidra Chaney

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow individuals and companies to connect directly and regularly with an audience of peers or with the public at large. These websites combine the audience-building platforms of mass media with the personal data and relationships of in-person social networks. Due to a combination of evolving user activity and frequent updates to functionality and user features, social media tools blur the line of whether a speaker is perceived as speaking to a specific and presumed private audience, a public expression of one’s own personal views, or a representative viewpoint of an entire …

The Empty Promise Of Vara: The Restrictive Application Of A Narrow Statute, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

The Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) was enacted by Congress in 1990 in order to bring our laws into compliance with Article 6bis of the Berne Convention and to acknowledge that protecting moral rights will foster “a climate of artistic worth and honor that encourages the author in the arduous act of creation.” The passage of this legislation is said to show Congress’s “belief that the art covered by the Act ‘meet[s] a special societal need, and [its] protection and preservation serves an important public interest.’”

Notwithstanding these lofty statements about artistic worth, honor and encouraging creation, VARA is a …

Football And The Infield Fly Rule, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ignorance, Harm, And The Regulation Of Performance-Enhancing Substances, Lisa Milot

Scholarly Works

There is a disconnect between how legal and sporting authorities, on the one hand, and many elite athletes, on the other, view the use of performance-enhancing substances. While official and popular narratives portray the use of these substances as isolated examples of deviant behavior, to the elite athletes who daily push their bodies beyond societally normal limits of pain and risk, enhancement is oftentimes an accepted part of the job. As a result, efforts to regulate and detect athletes’ use of these substances have consistently captured only a small fraction of the use that exists.

This Article describes the ways …

Do You Believe He Can Fly? Royce White And Reasonable Accommodations Under The Americans With Disabilities Act For Nba Players With Anxiety Disorder And Fear Of Flying, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the legal ramifications of Royce White, a basketball player with general anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, playing in the NBA. White's conditions cause him to have a fear of flying, thus making it difficult to play in the NBA. This subject is without precedent in sports law and, because of the unique aspects of an NBA playing career, lacks clear analogy to other employment circumstances. This dispute also illuminates broader legal and policy issues in the relationship between employment and mental illness.

This Article argues that White would likely fail in a lawsuit against an NBA …

Function Over Form: Bringing The Fixation Requirement Into The Modern Era, Megan M. Carpenter, Steven Hetcher

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the ways that contemporary creativity challenges copyright’s fixation requirement. In this Article, we identify concrete problems with the fixation requirement, both practically and in light of the fundamental purpose and policy behind copyright law, and argue for a change that would amend the fixation requirement to better function in the modern era.

Specifically, we conclude that a fair appraisal of the justifications for the fixation requirement provides little, if any, rationale for fixation except to the extent that fixation helps to separate idea from expression in determining the “metes and bounds” of creative expression. Recent case law …

We Need To Talk About Aereo: Copyright-Avoiding Business Models, Cloud Storage And A Principled Reading Of The "Transmit" Clause, Rebecca Giblin, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Businesses are exploiting perceived gaps in the structure of copyright rights by ingeniously designing their technologies to fulfill demand for individual access through a structure of personalized copies and playback engineered in ways intended to implicate neither the public performance nor the reproduction rights. The archetypal example is Aereo Inc.’s system for providing online access to broadcast television. Aereo allows users to tune into individual antennae to stream TV to themselves, near-live, online. Aereo’s activities look a lot like the retransmission of broadcast signals, an activity which Congress has made very clear must result in remuneration for rightholders. However, Aereo’s …

Market Structure And Political Law: A Taxonomy Of Power, Zephyr Teachout, Lina M. Khan

Faculty Scholarship

The goal of this Article is to create a way of seeing how market structure is innately political. It provides a taxonomy of ways in which large companies frequently exercise powers that possess the character of governance. Broadly, these exercises of power map onto three bodies of activity we generally assign to government: to set policy, to regulate markets, and to tax. We add a fourth category – which we call "dominance," after Brandeis – as a kind of catchall describing the other political impacts. The activities we outline will not always fit neatly into these categories, nor do all …

On Aereo And "Avoision", Rebecca Giblin, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Avoision describes conduct which seeks to exploit 'the differences between a law's goals and its self-defined limits' – a phenomenon particularly apparent in tax law. This short paper explains how the technology company Aereo utilised avoision strategies in an attempt to design its way out of liability under US copyright law. The authors argue that existing formulations encourage such strategies by applying differently depending on how the transaction is structured, resulting in a wasteful devotion of resources to hyper-technical compliance with the letter rather than meaning and purpose of the law.?