PLI PLUS Title Details

Ann Sweeney is Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy & Policy, for Warner/Chappell Music, where she focuses on worldwide digital revenue and policy, US legislative and industry matters, and global corporate strategy and business development. She has been at Warner Music since 2007, and spent two of those years managing the sale of Warner Music Group in 2010.

Prior to joining the Warner Music family, Sweeney served for seven years as Senior VP, Legal and Business Affairs, at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where she oversaw global legal matters and coordinated the acquisition of catalogs such as Leiber & Stoller, Famous Music, and Acuff-Rose. Ann’s previous jobs at Sony Music include VP of New Technology and Business Development, and VP in the Sony Music Law Department. Before joining Sony, Ann was Director of Business Affairs at Chrysalis Music, and her first music industry job was in a firm which was outside corporate counsel to SBK Entertainment, where she supported the sale of SBK to EMI Music Publishing.   Sweeney began her legal career in the corporate department of New York City’s Lane & Mittendorf.

Sweeney is a board member of The Harry Fox Agency, and serves on its Finance Committee. She is a member of the NMPA Negotiating Committee and the NMPA Legal Committee.   She earned her B.A. from the University of Vermont, and her J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Elizabeth McNamara has more than 30 years of litigation and counseling experience in media and intellectual property law, representing publishers (books, magazines, newspapers, and websites), television and radio broadcasters, cable companies, and motion picture producers and distributors. Her litigation practice includes all areas of sophisticated IP, media and entertainment litigation at the trial and appellate level of federal and state courts, in such areas as libel, privacy, copyright, trademark, prior restraint, and reporter's shield laws.

Liz's clients include: Associated Press, Bauer Publishing, Cablevision, CBS, CNN, Conde Nast, Financial Times, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, MTV Networks, NBC, Random House, Sesame Workshop, Showtime, Simon & Schuster, Time Inc., and Wenner Media.

Education
J.D., University of North Carolina School of Law, 1981
• Order of the Coif
• Law Review
B.A., University of Wisconsin, 1975
• Phi Beta Kappa

Admitted to Practice
New York, 1982
U.S. Supreme Court, 1998
U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit, 2000
U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit, 1996
U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, 1983
U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, 1983
U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan, 2004
U.S. Court of Appeals 3rd Circuit, 2008
U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit, 2010

Emerson Bruns is a founding partner of Bruns Brennan & Berry, an entertainment law firm with offices in New York. Mr. Bruns' practice involves all aspects of entertainment law and he specializes in the formation of investment vehicles for the production of independent films. He serves as counsel to numerous award-winning motion picture, television and video producers and regularly lectures on the motion picture and television industries at seminars and law schools throughout the metropolitan area. He has served as counsel on numerous motion picture productions, including, Arbitrage, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, Albert Nobbs, Begin Again, Cold in July, Face of Love, happythankyoumoreplease, Mother and Child, 10 Items or Less, The Hottest State, The Station Agent, Transamerica, Thirteen, Laurel Canyon, Nine Lives, Empire, The Believer, Big Eden, L.I.E., On The Ropes, Sling Blade, Star Maps, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Mr. Bruns has written articles for and contributed to numerous publications on the subject of independent film and has served as resource consultant and panel speaker for the Independent Feature Project, as well as a panelist for numerous seminars. Mr. Bruns has been practicing law in the entertainment field for 16 years and prior to establishing Bruns, Brennan & Berry, Mr. Bruns headed his eponymous firm, served as Of Counsel to Schreck, Rose, Dapello, Adams & Hurwitz. Mr. Bruns was a partner at Rudolph & Beer, an entertainment law firm with offices in New York, an associate with Warren Alpert & Beigelman, an entertainment law firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles and an associate with Williams, Mullen, Christian & Dobbins in Richmond, Virginia where he practiced securities and corporate law. Mr. Bruns received his law degree from William and Mary School of Law in 1991 and his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1987.

Gail is a partner in the law firm of Trister, Ross, Schadler & Gold, PLLC where she focuses on the legal aspects of publishing and media law.

Additionally, as the President of the Ross Yoon Agency, Gail represents important commercial nonfiction in a variety of areas and counts top doctors, CEO's, prize-winning journalists, and historians, and experts in a variety of fields are among her clients. In the last year alone, close dozen of her books have been New York Times bestsellers.

Gail writes and lectures frequently on publishing issues. She teaches CLE courses on publishing law for the D.C. Bar and the Practicing Law Institute. She is an contributor to The Essential Guide to Entertainment Law: Dealmaking (Juris Publishing, 2018), the author of The Writer’s Lawyer (Times Books, 1989) and has also been named numerous times as one of the Best Lawyers in America and Washingtonian’s Best Lawyers (for entertainment law).

Howard Siegel is a senior partner in Pryor Cashman's Entertainment Group. He has more than 40 years experience in representing clients in all aspects of the entertainment business, with a particular emphasis on the music industry, during which time he has served as counsel to many of the industry’s most prominent recording artists, songwriters, producers, managers, and executives.

Mr. Siegel has also been involved in a number of music publishing company sales and acquisitions, as well as having advised on a variety of transactions involving the sale and purchase of master recordings and other entertainment-related assets.

Mr. Siegel is the former Chair of the Section on Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law of the New York State Bar Association, former Chair of the New York State Bar Association Committee on the Music and Recording Industry, and an Associate Member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Siegel is a frequent lecturer for the Practicing Law Institute and serves as Co-Chair of PLI’s Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry. He is also a speaker for the New York Law Journal Seminar Press and the Continuing Legal Education Seminars of the New York State Bar Association. Mr. Siegel served as judicial clerk at the New York State Court of Appeals from 1970 to 1972. He is an adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School and a member of the Editorial Board of Entertainment Law and Finance and of Multimedia Web Strategist, as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the nationally distributed book Entertainment Law, currently in its fourth edition, and author of several articles dealing with the entertainment, music and copyright practice.

Every year since 2007, Mr. Siegel has been designated as one of the “Super Lawyers” – a ranking of the top 5% of all attorneys in the New York Metropolitan area. He also has been recognized by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the top 100 “Power Lawyers” in the entertainment industry as well as being named one of the "Top Media and Entertainment Lawyers" by Chambers USA for several years.

Mr. Siegel is a member of the New York, Nevada and California Bars and a summa cum laude graduate of Syracuse University College of Law where he was Order of the Coif, Editor-in-Chief of the Syracuse Law Review (1970) and a member of the Moot Court Board (1969-70).

Ian C. Ballon is Co-Chair of Greenberg Traurig LLP’s Global Intellectual Property & Technology Practice Group and represents internet, mobile, entertainment and technology companies in defending data privacy, security breach and TCPA class action suits and in other intellectual property and technology litigation. A list of recent cases may be found at http://www.gtlaw.com/Ian-C-Ballon-experience.

He is also the author of the leading treatise on internet and mobile law, E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise with Forms 2d edition, the 5-volume set published by West (www.IanBallon.net), which includes extensive coverage of security breach and data privacy issues. In addition, he is the author of The Complete CAN-SPAM Act Handbook (West 2008) and The Complete State Security Breach Notification Compliance Handbook (West 2009). He also serves as Executive Director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for E-Commerce, which hosts the annual Best Practices Conference where lawyers, scholars and judges are regularly featured and interact.

Ian was named the Lawyer of the Year for Information Technology Law in the 2019, 2018, 2016 and 2013 editions of Best Lawyers in America and was recognized as the 2012 New Media Lawyer of the Year by the Century City Bar Association. In both 2018 and 2019 he was recognized as one of the Top 1,000 trademark attorneys in the world for his litigation practice by World Trademark Review. In addition, in 2019 he was named one of the top 20 Cybersecurity lawyers in California and in 2018 one of the Top Cybersecurity/Artificial Intelligence lawyers in California by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal. He received the “Trailblazer” Award, Intellectual Property, 2017 from The National Law Journal and he has been recognized as a “Groundbreaker” in The Recorder’s 2017 Litigation Departments of the Year Awards. In 2010, he was the recipient of the California State Bar Intellectual Property Law section's Vanguard Award for significant contributions to the development of intellectual property law (http://ipsection.calbar.ca.gov/IntellectualPropertyLaw/IPVanguardAwards.aspx).

Mr. Ballon was listed in Variety's "Legal Impact Report: 50 Game-Changing Attorneys" and has been named by the LA Daily Journal as one of the Top 75 intellectual property litigators in California in every year that the list has been published (2009 through 2018) and as one of the top 100 lawyers in California. He is also listed in Legal 500 U.S., The Best Lawyers in America (in the areas of information technology and intellectual property) and Chambers and Partners USA Guide in the areas of privacy and data security and information technology. Mr. Ballon also holds the CIPP/US certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Ian can be reached at: Ballon@gtlaw.com, 310-586-6575 or via leading social media platforms (IanBallon).

John Schline worked in publishing for 31 years negotiating contracts, selling rights, editing books and supervising an online marketing and ebook program. As of January 2016 he is working as a consultant.

Joseph J. Dapello is a founding partner of Schreck Rose Dapello & Adams LLP, a boutique entertainment law firm based in New York and Los Angeles that is dedicated to serving the creative community throughout the world. The firm represents a variety of clients in all areas of the entertainment business, including film, television, theater, publishing, music and digital media. Currently, Mr. Dapello’s practice focuses on the representation of actors, directors and writers and the financing, production and distribution of motion pictures and television programs. Recent projects in which clients have been involved include the films “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” “Manchester by the Sea,” and “Nocturnal Animals” and the series “House of Cards,” “Transparent” and “Veep.”

Mr. Dapello has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Entertainment, Media and Technology program at the Stern School of Business at New York University, and has been a member of entertainment law panels at Harvard Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is also a frequent lecturer on entertainment law at organizations such as the Practising Law Institute, Independent Feature Project (IFP) and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and has been recognized as one of The Best Lawyers in America in the field of Entertainment Law.

Mr. Dapello received his Juris Doctor degree in 1988 from Harvard Law School and his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 from Columbia College. He is admitted to the New York State Bar and is a member of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.

Julie Swidler is Executive Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel for Sony Music Entertainment, where she oversees business, legal and governmental affairs for the company globally.

Julie has been a multiple recipient of Billboard’s Top Women in Music honor, Billboard’s Power 100 in Music list, and honored by the ELI Grammy Foundation and at the T.J. Martell Foundation’s New York Honors. She serves on the board of the T.J. Martell Foundation, Board of Trustees of Union College, and is a frequent speaker on Entertainment Industry issues.

Julie started her career in the music business in 1988 at PolyGram Records as Senior Attorney, rising to Assistant General Counsel and Vice President-Assistant General Counsel, North America, and Head of Business Affairs for Mercury Records before leaving to join Clive Davis at Arista and later J Records.

Julie holds a B.A. in Political Science from Union College and a J.D. from Cardozo Law School, where she was a member of the Cardozo Law review. She is married with three children and resides in New York City.

Kenneth M. Kaufman is Senior Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. His practice focuses on copyright, entertainment and media law, content and music licensing, digital media, and sports law. He represents a wide range of clients including international media and publishing companies, television networks and distributors, music publishers, digital media and technology companies, telecommunications companies, photographers, visual artists, copyright licensing companies, software publishers, Broadway theatre producers, private equity firms, foundations, composers, recording artists and authors.

Ken is a recognized authority in the fields of copyright and entertainment law. He was named the Washington, D.C. Copyright Law “Lawyer of the Year” in 2014 by The Best Lawyers in America (where he is currently listed in the practice areas of copyright law, intellectual property litigation, entertainment law-music, and entertainment law-motion pictures and television). He has also been recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers, Washingtonian Magazine’s Best Lawyers, and Legal Times. For several years he was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School, teaching a course on copyright, entertainment and Internet law, and has taught a course on copyright law at George Washington University Law School. In 2016 and 2017 he was an Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow at Harvard University, where he has spoken on coalition building in education for gender equality.

Ken has extensive experience as both in-house and outside counsel in the entertainment and communications industries. Immediately prior to joining Manatt, he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel of Showtime Networks Inc. in New York; as Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and General Counsel of PolyGram Records, Inc. in New York; and as General Counsel of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In two of those positions, he was the first in-house attorney and organized the in-house legal department. Previously, he served as Assistant Counsel of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee.

Ken co-chairs the annual PLI conference on Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry and serves on the Governing Committee of the ABA’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries and on the Planning Committee for the annual Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices Conference. He teaches an annual course on “Copyright Law and Litigation” for the D.C. Bar, is a member of the Board of Directors of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, and has served as a Trustee and Chair of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. He is a graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude) and Yale Law School (where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal), and is admitted to practice in New York, California and the District of Columbia.

Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal. He is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars and has practiced intellectual property, bankruptcy, and commercial law, including a decade in private practice with the international law firm of Coudert Brothers. Currently a member of the Advisory Council for the United States Court of Federal Claims and the BNA Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal Advisory Board, Professor Mtima has held the post of Distinguished Libra Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Maine School of Law, is a past President of the Giles S. Rich Inn of Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and was a member of the founding Editorial Board for the American Bar Association intellectual property periodical Landslide. Professor Mtima is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, an accredited Non-governmental Organization Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Linda A. Newmark is Executive Vice President – Head of Acquisitions and Strategic Projects for Universal Music Publishing Group. Linda obtains opportunities for Universal Music Publishing Group to acquire rights to musical compositions and music publishing catalogues, evaluates and negotiates acquisition, administration and subpublishing agreements, and promotes the general business development of the company. Linda is based in Universal Music Publishing Group’s Los Angeles offices.

Before joining Universal, Linda was Vice President, Business Affairs for PolyGram Music Publishing and handled the drafting and negotiation of songwriter and co-publishing agreements, as well as other legal and business affairs matters for PolyGram. Previously, Linda was a music attorney with the law firm of Cooper, Epstein & Hurewitz in Beverly Hills. She received her law degree from Stanford Law School.

Linda serves on the Music and Entertainment Industry Executive Committee for the City of Hope Medical Center, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP). Linda is also a member of the Board of Managers of Associated Production Music LLC (APM), and the Board of Managers of The Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company, LLC, and was a member of the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School (2007 - 2010). Linda has been recognized in Billboard’s Women in Music feature as one of the top 25 female executives in the music industry (2009 – 2013).

Since his undergraduate days at New York University in the early 1980's, Nicholas Ferrara has been actively involved in the music industry. Nick cites fellow NYU classmate Jason Flom (founder of Lava Records and former CEO of Atlantic Records} as being instrumental in Nick's initial entree into the business.

After earning his Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School in 1986, Nick practiced entertainment law and corporate litigation for three years. On the strength of relationships dating back to his college days, in 1989, Nick joined Atlantic Record's A&R staff. In 1992, Nick partnered with Joseph Lloyd Serling and Wayne Rooks in the new firm of Serling Rooks & Ferrara LLP. Over the next two decades, the firm grew in both size and stature becoming one of the industry's most prominent full service music business law firms.

In 2014, Nick relocated his practice to Nashville, Tennessee. Eager to embrace new challenges, in 2015 Nick and Robert "Riff' Pisarek founded Nicholas C. Ferrara & Associates PPLC.

Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry 2013