Entertainment Law Research Guide

Federal IP law is codified and located in the U.S. Code, and includes specific sections that cover copyrights, and trademarks which pertain to Entertainment law.

• Title 35 of the U.S. Code contains protection of Intellectual Property Rights and Sports Agent Responsibility and trust. 
• Title 17 of the U.S. Code governs copyrights. Its 13 chapters lay out copyright requirements, as well as copyright ownership and transfer law, Copyright Office responsibilities, and industry-specific copyright issues.
• Trademarks are primarily governed by Title 15, Chapter 22 of the U.S. Code, which is the codified version of the Lanham Act of 1946. The Lanham Act sets forth requirements for valid trademarks and for trademark infringement. Trademarks are also governed by portions of Title 35 that involve the USPTO.

Print versions of the U.S. Code are located in the law library, and electronic versions can be accessed via Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg Law, govinfo.gov, and Cornell Legal Information Institute.

Litigation in Entertainment Law spans over several areas of law namely, copyright, contract, patent, right of publicity and contract law. 

While most cases are dealt with in both Federal State courts, they sometimes go on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Case law can be found on Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law, Google Scholar, FDsys and Cornell Legal Information Institute. When searching on Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg Law, results can be filtered to include Entertainment and Sports Law cases only.