Monday, February 27, 2012

Tormey's Legal Advice

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to entertainment attorney, John J. Tormey, III in New York. Tormey specializes in intellectual property, copyright and trademark, liabilities within the music, film, and television industries. He not only makes sure these liabilities are avoided for his clients, but also offers them legal advice if they are searching for professional services in their line of work.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Industry Liabilities

My focus this month is returning back to entertainment law pertaining to music editing. After reading about different ways to protect your intellectual property to ensure your creations aren’t stolen, I found some articles online that show what could go wrong that I’d like to share with you.

The first is about a small firm that met the reality of trying to confront the big names in the business. “Sounding Off: Tiny Firm Accuses Disney, Warner, Other Studios of Patent Infringement on Film Soundtracks,” by Apodaca tells of Drexler Technology, Corp. and how they believed two patents of theirs were being infringed upon by “Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century-Fox Film Corp., Paramount Pictures Corp. and Savy Pictures Entertainment Inc.” These patents were for digital sound technology and data storage. As is turns out, the infringement happens to be the widely used, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) technology. In the end, a few companies offered to get the patent rights from them, but were declined. They also did not pursue any further after being ignored due to lack of funds.