Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Keynote: Five Omar Mualimmak, Five Omar Mualimmak

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The Nba Lockout: Union Democracy, Public Support, And The Folly Of The National Basketball Players Association, Matthew Parlow

Oklahoma Law Review

By most accounts, the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA)—the union representing the players in the NBA—conceded a significant amount of money and other contractual terms in the new ten year collective bargaining agreement (2011 Agreement) that ended the 2011 NBA lockout. Player concessions were predictable because the NBA’s economic structure desperately needed an overhaul. The magnitude of such concessions, however, was startling. The substantial changes in the division of basketball-related income, contract lengths and amounts, salary cap provisions, and revenue sharing rendered the NBA lockout—and the resulting 2011 Agreement—a near-complete victory for the owners. Several interpretations have been offered to …

Nigeria And Mali: The Case For Repatriation And Protection Of Cultural Heritage In Post-Colonial Africa, Elizabeth A. Klesmith

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

Writing in early 2013, Elizabeth A. Klesmith explores the challenges of African nations in protecting their cultural heritage in the post-colonization era. She identifies two major challenges to the preservation of African cultural heritage: the multi-billion dollar global trade in illicit heritage and, in certain parts of Africa, the threat of destruction of cultural treasures during bouts of sectarian violence. Klesmith discusses these challenges utilizing case studies concerning the cultural treasures of Nigeria and Mali. In the case of Nigeria, the country is striving to reacquire artifacts looted from the Benin Kingdom in the late nineteenth century and recently purchased …

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 …

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 …

Football And The Infield Fly Rule, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The International War Against Doping: Limiting The Collateral Damage From Strict Liability, Thomas W. Cox

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Anti-Doping Code are largely considered the model for an effective and well-coordinated antidoping regime. This model has allowed numerous sports and various countries to secure the same rules for domestic and international athletes. Within this regime, strict liability for prohibited substances stands as the "cornerstone." Strict liability has allowed antidoping officials to prosecute doping violations through an effective testing regime. However, this principle occasionally implicates innocent athletes with no intention of performance enhancement. This Note proposes that WADA modify its criteria for including substances on the Prohibited List and suspend strict liability …

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.?

Stabilizing Morality In Trademark Law, Christine Haight Farley

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & 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 …

Fumbling The First Amendment: The Right Of Publicity Goes 2-0 Against Freedom Of Expression, Thomas E. Kadri

Michigan Law Review

Two circuits in one summer found in favor of college athletes in right-of-publicity suits filed against the makers of the NCAA Football videogame. Both panels split 2–1; both applied the transformative use test; both dissenters predicted chilling consequences. By insisting that the likeness of each player be “transformed,” the Third and Ninth Circuits employed a test that imperils the use of realistic depictions of public figures in expressive works. This standard could have frosty implications for artists in a range of media: docudramas, biographies, and works of historical fiction may be at risk. This Comment examines the tension between the …

Private Copyright Reform, Kristelia A. García

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The government is not the only player in copyright reform, and perhaps not even the most important. Left to free market negotiation, risk averse licensors and licensees are contracting around the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content, and achieving greater efficiency via private ordering. This emerging phenomenon, herein termed “private copyright reform,” presents both adverse selection and distributive justice concerns: first, circumvention of the statutory license goes against legislative intent by allowing for the reduction, and even elimination, of statutorily mandated royalties owed to non-parties. In addition, when presented without full term disclosure, privately determined royalty rates can …

Getting Down To (Tattoo) Business: Copyright Norms And Speech Protections For Tattooing, Alexa L. Nickow

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

What level of First Amendment protection should we afford tattooing? General public consensus formerly condemned tattoos as barbaric, but the increasingly diverse clientele of tattoo shops suggests that tattoos have become more mainstream. However, the law has struggled to adjust. The recent proliferation of municipal near-bans on tattooing has brought tattooing to the forefront of First Amendment debates, with cases such as Anderson and Coleman leading the way toward recognizing tattooing as pure speech. Tensions between formal and informal copyright norms in the tattoo industry further highlight the collaborative and expressive nature of the artist-customer relationship and its resulting products, …

The Regulation Of Mixed Martial Arts, Angelo Schildhauer

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Effects Of A Professional Sports Lockout On A Regional Economy, Brandyn Hinnrichs

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A Channel Worth Changing? The Individual Regional Sports Network: Proliferation, Profits, Parity, And The Potential Administrative And Antitrust Issues That Could Follow, Stephen Dixon

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Call To The Bullpen: How The 2012 Mlb Draft Shows Why The Ncaa Must Make A Change To Its Bylaws, James F. Reid

Published Works

Major League Baseball (“MLB”) revised its amateur draft rules in 2012, which had a significant effect on how much of a signing bonus MLB teams could offer their draftees. Accordingly, it is no surprise that signing bonuses for first round draftees decreased by almost $12 million in 2012, as compared to 2011. The new rules, and their subsequent effect on MLB teams, demand that baseball student-athletes, now more than ever, not only be educated in all facets of the MLB Draft before deciding to turn pro or become/remain college student-athletes, but also retain a competent attorney or agent to represent …

Dear Olympic Medalists, Thank You For Representing Our Country In The Olympics, But It's Time To Pay Up!, Dena Guttmann

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note argues that Olympic medalists should not be exempt from paying taxes on their cash prizes and that Senator Marco Rubio's proposed bill to eliminate taxes on these prizes should not be passed. The author contends that taxing Olympic cash prizes aligns with the principle of fairness in the U.S. tax system and that such exemptions would create inequities and loopholes. The analysis draws on comparisons with how other countries, such as Australia and Canada, tax Olympic prizes and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a uniform tax system.

The Lanham Act And Why Studios Are Right In Being Cautious, Devan Orr

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Nfl's Stance On Gambling: A Calculated Contradiction, Daniel Bernard

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hero With A Thousand Copyright Violations: Modern Myth And An Argument For Universally Transformative Fan Fiction, Natalie H. Montano

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Copyright law is designed to protect the ownership and financial rights of the original author of a literary work. However, the internet has created new opportunities for amateur writers to create their own fan fiction based on such literary works. Borrowing from the ideas and characters of a work, fan fiction authors build upon and re-imagine these stories. Such fan works should be protected under the Fair Use Defense, but the power imbalance between amateur fan fiction authors and successful published authors often leads to the eradication of fan stories from the public domain.

This Comment argues that fan fiction …