Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Bcs Europa: An Analysis Of The Bowl Championship Series Under The European Commission White Paper On Sport, Deanna Brock

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Moving All-In With The World Trade Organization: Ignoring Adverse Rulings And Gambling With The Future Of The Wto, Paul Rothstein

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

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 …

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 …

The Law Professor As Faculty Athletics Representative: Some Random Thoughts After Two Years, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

It is a pleasure to write an essay about something I really enjoy, and it is especially pleasing not to worry about footnotes. I have been a law professor since 1977, and in August 2012, I started my 35th year of teaching. It is still fun to be in the classroom; my students energize me, teaching remains a challenge and being a productive scholar is important. I am one of those professors who likes his law school, university and professional service commitments. I am fortunate to have the best job in higher education: being a tenured law professor. My service …

Darkness On The Edge Of Town: How Entitlements Theory Can Shine A Light On Termination Of Transfers In Sound Recordings, Matthew Vincent H. Noller

Georgia Law Review

When Congress overhauled the Copyright Act in 1976, it
created the device of termination of transfers to protect
authors of copyrighted works from unremunerative
transfers. The scheme seemed straightforward, but
technology has created problems the Act's drafters never
could have anticipated. In particular, the application of
termination of transfers to sound recordings in 1976 was
little more than a shadow of uncertainty not worth dealing
with at the time. But that shadow has become a creeping
darkness, and no one seems sure how to clear it.
Now the darkness is here. Next year, artists like Bruce
Springsteen and Bob Dylan …

The Story Of Us: Resolving The Face-Off Between Autobiographical Speech And Information Privacy, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

Increasingly more “ordinary” Americans are choosing to share their life experiences with a public audience. In doing so, however, they are revealing more than their own personal stories, they are exposing private information about others as well. The face-off between autobiographical speech and information privacy is coming to a head, and our legal system is not prepared to handle it.

In a prior article, I established that autobiographical speech is a unique and important category of speech that is at risk of being undervalued under current law. This article builds on my earlier work by addressing the emerging conflict between …

Intellectual Property Law And Entertainment Law Issues, Martin Kretschmer, W. Bruce Burch, John L. Turner, Bertis E. Downs Iv

Other Lectures and Presentations

The University of Georgia School of Law's Dean Rusk Center hosted an intellectual property law lecture featuring Martin Kretschmer, professor of information jurisprudence and director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management at Bournemouth University, U.K. Kretschmer discussed his groundbreaking work in artist compensation in the European Union as well as the contractual structures that drive creative industries on April 6 at 1:30 p.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall. His lecture was followed by comments from W. Bruce Burch, UGA director of Interdisciplinary Certificate in Music Business; Bertis E. Downs IV, Georgia Law adjunct …

Keeping Them Down On The Farm: The Possibility Of A Class Action By Former Minor League Baseball Players Against Major League Baseball For Allowing Steroid Abuse, Patrick S. Baldwin

Georgia Law Review

Over the past five years, allegations and admissions of steroid abuse by professional baseball players have tarnished the image of "Our National Pastime." Although the players are ultimately responsible for using performance-enhancing drugs, they are not solely to blame. Major League Baseball and its franchise owners knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it-mostly because the threat to home run records had begun refilling the seats that had been lost from the 1994-1995 labor strike. But this steroid scandal has called into question many of those new records and caused outrage among the media, the fans, and even …

Big Entertainment Needs A Sequel To The Highly Anticipated Flop: Mgm V. Grokster, Anuj Desai

Georgia Law Review

The entertainmentindustry's attempts to police copyright infringement by targeting technologies that enable copying of protected works remain unworkable. More than twenty years ago, Hollywood initiated this strategy when it sued Sony, claiming users copied protected broadcast TV shows using Sony's Betamax, thus branding Sony a contributory infringer. The Supreme Court, however, rejected this argument in Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc. and found that Sony was not liable as it had no knowledge of the infringement and its product was capable of substantialnoninfringing uses. The Sony doctrine was revived in the late 1990s when it was successfully …

Habeas Corpus And Baseball, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Scholarly Works

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries playing baseball on Sundays was a criminal offense in many states, where police often aggressively intervened to prevent or stop baseball games from being played on the Sabbath. In 1894, “the police of the city of Brooklyn took it upon themselves to chase, club and lock up all boys and men found playing ball on Sunday,” People ex rel. Poole v. Hesterberg, 43 Misc. 510, 89 N.Y.S. 498, 499 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Kings County 1904); on two consecutive Sundays in July 1910, two professional baseball teams attempting to play in Chemung County, …

Video Games As A Protected Form Of Expression, Paul E. Salamanca

Georgia Law Review

Video games, like motion pictures, failed to qualify for First Amendment protection until well after they emerged as a medium. Today, a number of courts have held that such games constitute a form of expression and do not fall into any recognized category of unprotected speech. Nevertheless, a number of commentators have called for limited constitutional protection for video games, predicating their arguments on a variety of grounds, including the alleged deleterious effects of such games on children. This Article responds to these commentators and defends recent decisions extending protection to video games.

Cable Traffic And The First Amendment Must-Carry Under A Diversity Approach And Antitrust As Possible Alternative, Bruno Vandermeulen

LLM Theses and Essays

Recent technological progress in the field of telecommunications has greatly changed the competitive structure between broadcasters, cable operators, and telephone companies. The legal and economic environment for these media participants has shifted, and new problems have arisen. One major problem is the enhanced threat of concentration of media corporations, as corporate bigness becomes desirable and the number of diversified owners of media outlets continues to decrease. This paper analyzes broadcasting regulations and subsequent case law to show the concern by the legislature and regulatory agencies to preserve diversity in opinion and media-ownership through emphasis on “localism” and a “marketplace of …

Three Strikes And They're Out At The Old Ball Game: Preemption Of Performers' Rights Of Publicity Under The Copyright Act Of 1976, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

Presently, broadcasters and cable television companies deal directly with the two baseball leagues and the individual clubs, which in turn purport to sell all of the rights regarding the televising of the games. The players wanted to be a part of those contracts to get a bigger share of the television revenues. In the Baltimore Orioles case both sides sought a judicial resolution of their rights in the telecasts. The baseball players' demand was based on their rights of publicity in their performances. This common law right allegedly precluded the clubs and the leagues from contracting with the broadcasters for …

Publicity Never Dies; It Just Fades Away: The Right Of Publicity And Federal Preemption, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

This Article explores the nature and developing boundaries of the state law doctrine of the right of publicity. It investigates the doctrine's conflict with the 1976 Copyright Act and federal policy concerning intellectual property, and concludes that the 1976 Act precludes publicity actions aimed at protecting certain types of publicity interests. In other situations, the overriding objectives of federal copyright policy preempt the right to the extent that the right defined as perpetual; moreover, such protection in perpetuity violates the supremacy clause of the Federal Constitution. Many types of publicity actions, however, should escape preemption either because the asserted rights …