Do I Need a Lawyer for My Entertainment Licensing Agreement?

If you are a creative professional who wants to let others use your work, it’s important to have a licensing agreement that establishes your interests and can be used to enforce your rights.

Many gifted young creatives and athletes enter professional ranks without understanding their legal rights.

This article will introduce licensing agreements and why it’s a good idea to have an entertainment and sports law attorney involved when drafting or negotiating these legal documents.

What Is Entertainment and Sports Law?

Entertainment and sports law is, in a sense, a misnomer. “In law school, on the first day of my entertainment law class, the professor said, ‘There’s no such thing as entertainment law,’” recalls Ethan Y. Bordman, an entertainment lawyer in White Plains, New York.

“The professor meant that there are no specific laws of entertainment. Rather, it’s taking any area of law — whether that’s contracts, wills and estates, tax law, or intellectual property law — and applying it to the entertainment field.”

Sports and entertainment law is about how different legal issues impact a person’s work in various facets of the sports and entertainment industries, including:

• Athletes
• Social media influencers
• Authors and playwrights
• Actors, producers, directors, and screenwriters
• Performers, musicians, songwriters, and dancers
• Painters, graphic designers, photographers, and other visual artists

Protect Your Rights and Image as an Artist or Athlete

Whether you are an actor, athlete, singer, writer, or model, use the Super Lawyers directory to find a top attorney who can protect your name and creations.

Find a lawyer today

Common Legal Issues Facing Entertainment and Sports Professionals

Common legal issues for creative professionals include:

• Protecting intellectual property rights, including copyrighted material and trademarks
• Contract law issues, including contract negotiation and litigation if there is a breach of contract

Intellectual property law (IP) protects your creative works from unauthorized use. IP law enforces your legal rights as to how your name or image is used for various purposes. Contract law ensures that you protect your legal rights in a breach of contract.

Find an entertainment lawyer for entertainment matters… There are a lot of unique things related to entertainment law as well as the business of entertainment that only an experienced entertainment lawyer will know to consider.

What Is a Licensing Agreement?

A licensing agreement is a type of contractual agreement between two or more parties. One party, called the “licensor,” agrees to let another party, the “licensee,” use their intellectual property under certain conditions as spelled out in the agreement.

For example, a licensor could be a painter granting an art gallery the right to display, or make and use, copies of their artwork. Another example of a licensor is a songwriter who allows a company to use their song in an advertisement.

Contracts, including licensing agreements, are all about details. It’s crucial to hammer out the precise obligations beforehand to avoid misunderstandings later. For example, the fine print of a sponsorship agreement may create more obligations than the athlete realizes, such as requiring a specific number of personal appearances that take a big chunk of the athlete’s free time.

Exclusive vs. Nonexclusive Licensing Agreements

Licensing agreements can either be exclusive or nonexclusive:

• Exclusive licensing agreements. These grant the licensee exclusive use and ownership of the intellectual property. It effectively transfers ownership of the work from the creator, or licensor, to the licensee. If someone else uses the intellectual property without authorization, they can sue for IP infringement.
• Nonexclusive licensing agreements. In contrast to exclusive agreements, these only give the licensee a limited interest in the intellectual property. The original licensor retains intellectual property ownership and allows the licensee to use it. Other parties, including the licensor and other licensees, can also use the work.

Which type of license is better entirely depends on what the parties want to use the intellectual property for. A seasoned entertainment and sports law attorney can advise on what would work best for your particular situation.

In addition to specifying whether the license is exclusive or nonexclusive, licensing agreements will also address the issue of compensation and royalties. What does the licensor get for letting the other party use their intellectual property? What percentage of the earnings do they receive?

Licensing agreements also provide terms and conditions for what happens if there’s a legal dispute in the future. For example, an agreement may specify that the parties will engage in some form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Social Media and Morals Clauses for Athletes

Successful athletes operate in a 24/7 media bubble, and their every action is often covered by the press and social media.

But be warned: Anything you say or do in public could trigger a morals clause in your sponsorship deals. The terms of these clauses can vary wildly, but the basic idea is that the sponsor reserves the right to terminate the agreement if you engage in conduct that may poorly reflect on the company.

What Does a Sports and Entertainment Lawyer Do and Why Do You Need One?

Sports and entertainment lawyers can help clients with many legal issues that arise from working in these industries. Every lawyer will have a different set of issues they specialize in. Some focus on litigation, while others focus on transactional work:

• Litigation. A lawyer represents their client in a legal dispute with another party. Litigation may go to court, but it often settles through negotiation out of court.
• Transaction. More behind-the-scenes legal work, such as drafting contracts and licensing agreements or negotiating legal documents and merchandising with other parties. Transactional work aims to avoid future litigation by creating a sound legal framework between the parties. If legal disputes arise, legal planning can help make those disputes much less time-consuming and expensive.

Whatever the case, “Find an entertainment lawyer for entertainment matters,” says Bordman. “I really believe that’s important. Don’t just contact your neighbor next door who does real estate or your friend of the family who does wills and estates.”

If a lawyer doesn’t understand the nuts and bolts of the sports and entertainment industry, that only puts the client at a disadvantage. “We all need experts to help us, even if it is just to strategize or take the burden off of ourselves,” says Jeremy M. Evans, an entertainment and sports lawyer in Los Angeles. “It’s great, because you’re bringing experts into the field to help negotiate deals.”

How Do Entertainment Law Attorneys Charge Their Clients?

Cost is one of the more important topics you’ll want to discuss with a lawyer when you first meet. Making sure the lawyer is affordable, given your circumstances and legal needs, is essential in picking the right one.

Several factors go into how much a lawyer will charge, including:

• Their experience as an attorney
• The sort of entertainment law issues they handle
• The size of their law firm and practice
• The complexity of your case or legal matter

“As to the type of billing structure a lawyer will use, every lawyer is different,” says Bordman. “It could be a flat fee or an hourly fee, depending on the legal service. Or it could be a percentage of the deal if a lawyer works on a contingent fee. In that case, they take a reasonable percentage of the deal if the project is a success.”

Find an Experienced Entertainment and Sports Law Attorney

Look for an entertainment and sports law attorney in the Super Lawyers directory for legal help.