Customer Reviews

Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries, 5th Edition (Law & Business of the Entertainment Industries)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Besides my day job, I teach entertainment law at the University of Washington. As such I receive lots of free books from publishers who want me to assign them as textbooks. I paid actual money for this one, and I agree with William Wilson's review: this book is an absolutely top-notch overview of a complex field. In particular, the review of music publishing is very helpful. Music publishing is an absolute nightmare of a business and the legal issues can leave you totally lost. This book covers them in a way that makes them as intelligible as possible. The only chapters I'd think are lacking are the ones on video games, but that's a very new field from a legal perspective and actually many of the issues are the same as in other entertainment fields so there are analogies aplenty.

Depending on the length of your course, I would seriously consider assigning this textbook.

I would basically have to agree with Jen's review about this book. There are too many cases, the book is huge and the font is small...especially in the notes sections. The inclusion of various types of contracts has its plusses and minuses. I feel as if the contracts are stuck in the book in their entirety, but they're not necessarily explained. Thus, even if you're in law school, you're reading the contracts, not understanding the language and then not getting an explanation of the contracts. It's almost the same as reading the contracts as a complete layperson. The worst part is that there are tons of these contracts. Someone who taught this course as an adjunct at my law school assigned pretty much all the contracts in the book to read.

Obviously, they are not captivating reading, so if you're in this position you can get stuck reading boring contracts that you don't understand and a professor who assigns all these contracts to read but doesn't explain them well enough--either because he's a lawyer in this field and it makes way more sense to him than to you and/or because he's a practicing attorney rather than a real law professor and, thus, doesn't really know how to teach. I think both applied in my situation, and, unfortunately, people teaching entertainment law oftentimes will be practicing attorneys and/or completely over your head with knowledge.

I don't feel as if this book is well-written, and sometimes the contracts aren't the only things that don't make sense or aren't explained well enough. Terms are thrown out or descriptions/explanations of the industry are given sometimes in ways that don't help someone who knows nothing about it...or at least doesn't know about the areas being covered by a particular chapter. I'm not just talking about the legal aspects; I am also referring to the actual industry itself and the way things work in it. That makes this book much worse than the average legal casebook. And with the size of this book--and, as a result, the amount of material covered in it--a lot of stuff that doesn't always make sense is thrown at you, and that's hard to deal with, even for a law student. And with other books I've seen and/or read on the market that explain the entertainment industry, this book could easily be less in-depth/complicated and shorter, even including the same amount of cases.

In other words, this book is just not brought down to a dummy's level enough, or even enough to be taught in law school. And it takes what should be an interesting subject and makes it completely devoid of intrigue. For people who are interested in this book outside of school reading and want to know more about the intersection of business, entertainment and/or law, this is not the book to read or refer to. What I did like about this book is when I could understand it, it presented a lot of interesting cases and information about the industry, even in its complicated contracts. Still, professors and teachers, please find a better textbook if you're using this to teach...or arrange your class lectures in a way that breaks the book down in English!

1. There are too many cases to illustrate the same point. For example, the Remedies section does not nearly need to be as long as it is. The bankruptcy section would be just as adequate and informative with 2-3 cases and more commentary. The agency rules chapter and the chapter on literary publishing also have this same problem: it is repetitive and there are too many cases with the same point. Some of the cases would have been been just as effective as a note case.

2. The size of the font for the note cases are too small and sometimes, an eye strain to read. I understand that there is a concern for the length of the book, but with the first suggestion and using thinner pages may fix this. (this book uses paper that is considerably thicker than your average law book). Also, sometimes, with the center justification alignment for the note cases, it squeezes the sentences together, it's almost impossible to read. (see page 199, note 3, the third line --the entire line is practically one word).

3. On the plus side, I do like how the book goes through entertainment agreements. For example, the detailed discussions on music publishing agreements with comments after each provision were very helpful.

I ordered the Entertainment Law book from the amazon store becasue I wanted to purchase a new book, without highlights or writing in it, but I received the book with the bind holding on by the seams (literally)! Because I was so pressed for time and did not want to wait another 4-5 days to return it, I kept the book. Other than the unraveling book, the delivery was prompt and book appeared to be in good condition

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
Global Overview 1
Standards Governing Preliminary Injunctions, Motions for Summary Judgment, and Attachments 6
Ch. 1 Representing Talent 13
Ch. 2 Talent Contracts 67
Ch. 3 Acquisition of Rights: Rights of Personality and Identity 157
Ch. 4 Acquisition of Rights: Ideas and Other Property 281
Ch. 5 Contract Performance, Exploitation Obligations, and Limitations on Exploitation 353
Ch. 6 Remedies 431
Ch. 7 Literary Publishing 525
Ch. 8 Music Publishing 549
Ch. 9 Sound Recordings 581
Ch. 10 Films 625
Ch. 11 Television 657
Ch. 12 The Internet, Multimedia, and Emerging Technologies 689
Ch. 13 Theatre 773
Table of Cases 803
Index 831