For many years, the Golden Globes were the kickoff awards event of each awards show season. With its relaxed party atmosphere and awards only in high-profile categories, the Globes were an audience favorite and a fixture on NBC. The Globes retained this perch despite persistent questions regarding the selection of winners.
The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood Foreign
In
a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court has brought to a close an 83-year quest by the family of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to recover a stolen painting.
Lilly Cassirer was a member of the family of a prominent German-Jewish art dealer. She inherited a painting entitled Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain, by the Impressionist
IATSE, the union representing below-the-line production workers from cinematographers and editors to grips and hair stylists, has moved a crucial step closer to its first strike since 1945. In a strike vote with over 90% turnout, over 98% of members agreed to authorize union leadership to call a strike if negotiations fail.
Although wage increases are definitely on the table,
We are not out of the woods yet.
Just as Hollywood was coping with the early effects of the pandemic, it barely avoided a Writers Guild strike. After a long year of extensive shutdowns, things just seemed to be getting back on track after unions and management hashed out COVID protocols for productions to follow. But now a serious
The lawsuit brought by Scarlett Johansson against The Walt Disney Co. has struck Hollywood like a thunderclap. The litigation arises out of Disney’s decision to release Black Widow concurrently in theaters and on Disney+. Johansson claims that the streaming release deprived her of compensation she should have received otherwise. The fact that this dispute was not settled but ended up
A group of over 100 feature film producers have announced their intention to form a labor union. The group is led by producer Rebecca Green (“It Follows”), who says the time is right for this move. She notes that survey data revealed that 25% of US producers earned less than $2,500 from producing work in 2020. The goal of the
Copyright in characters is not a new concept but it can take interesting twists. We saw this recently when litigation over the Netflix movie Enola Holmes raised the question just how far the term of copyright in Sherlock Holmes could be extended. A strictly 2020’s application of the doctrine has emerged recently as comic book art meets blockchain technology.
Comic
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court voted to uphold a decision by the FCC to deregulate ownership of television broadcast stations. The Commission proposed the rule change in 2017 under Trump-appointed FCC chair Ajit Pai. The changes included an elimination of a rule that barred common ownership of stations in a market if the result would be fewer than
In light of the ubiquity of cable and satellite, a controversy over the ownership of terrestrial broadcast stations may seem like a sideshow. The reality is, however, that an increasing number of American households are receiving broadcast stations by means of over-the-air transmission, either exclusively or together with a subscription video service.
The Supreme Court recently heard arguments over moves
While most of us look back on the last twelve months as a horrible dream, Hollywood’s labor unions can actually point to a string of successes. Early in the pandemic, all three of the above-the-line guilds closed new three year deals that among other things included significant increases in residuals for high-budget streaming programs. Just this month, the WGA finally