O’Melveny & Myers LLP has provided a wide range of crucial pro bono legal services for the Sundance Institute Artist Services program, a groundbreaking initiative to showcase the work of Institute artists by offering access to top-tier digital distribution platforms as well as to creative funding and marketing ideas.
Led by partner Christopher Brearton and counsel Paul Iannicelli, a group of O’Melveny lawyers from the Firm’s Entertainment, Sports and Media Practice Group advised Sundance Institute on all aspects of the initiative, including negotiating and drafting trademark and marketing agreements with the distribution platforms; assisting in securing the services of a content aggregator to facilitate the digital delivery to each of the platforms and creating a master services agreement to govern the overall relationship; and preparing licensing agreements for Institute-affiliated artists to access the platforms.
“We’re proud to have assisted Sundance Institute in navigating the complex legal issues related to intellectual property rights, technology, and new media, and to have contributed to this important program that provides talented independent filmmakers, documentarians, and media artists with access to leading digital distribution channels that will bring their work to wider audiences,” said Christopher Brearton, who is also managing partner of O’Melveny’s Century City office. The O’Melveny team also included associates Gene Kang, Jacob Shapira, and Kelly Villamar.
In the first phase of the program, O’Melveny lawyers helped Sundance Institute construct a unique collaboration with online funding platform Kickstarter that will help Institute-affiliated artists build creative funding campaigns for production and distribution costs. The just-announced expansion of the program adds a partnership between the Institute and independent digital content aggregator and distributor New Video to provide opportunities for Institute-affiliated artists to make their films available online to consumer markets via iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, SundanceNOW, and YouTube, while still retaining ownership of their work and making independent decisions about strategies for each outlet. O’Melveny’s work on this most recent aspect of the program involved counseling the Institute in each step of the process with each partner, providing both general advice on deal structures and the new media landscape, specific guidance on negotiating and drafting agreements, and negotiating an arrangement with the innovative marketing platform Topspin Media to enable participating artists to more effectively target their core audiences.
