Legal Topics

Music Rights And Athletic Competitions

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A recent Slate piece covered the music rights issues being faced by athletes who use music in competition – among them figure skating, gymnastics, artistic swimming, cheer, ballroom dance, and competitive dance. Essentially, pretty much no athlete at any level all the way up to the Olympics, has been securing the rights to use the music they perform to and the rights holders are bringing lawsuits against them.

To some extent it was surprising to me to learn that while Olympic athletes had been submitting a list of the songs being used in their routines, NBC wasn’t making sure the rights had been secured prior to broadcast despite the scads of lawyers that work for the network. Either that or they made sure there as language in their agreements with the different countries and athletic federations putting the onus on them to ensure the rights had been secured for the Olympics.

Complicating the situation is the fact an athlete not only has to secure the rights to the music, if they are going to perform choreography to it they will also need to secure synchronization rights. If you have ever watched any of these competitions you may have noticed that athletes often use a medley of dozens of songs which means securing the rights for each.

Not to mention, some songs have multiple rights holders who might have agreements with multiple licensing agencies. For example, for the Eagles “Hotel California,” Don Henley, Glen Frey, and Don Felder all have rights to the song. Henley and Frey’s are administered by Global Music Rights and Felder’s are handled by ASCAP.

There are songs in the public domain that may be used, but there is a desire to have the competitions feel relevant to audiences by using recognizable, contemporary music.

A quick fix, some have suggested, would be for athletes to just use classical music, which, when not fully in the public domain, often has fewer—likely less litigious—rights holders. Romain Haguenauer, coach to the 2018 and 2022 world and Olympic ice dance champions, said that if figure skating had to stop using popular music, it would be “catastrophic.”

“I think modern music is good for the audience, and especially for younger fans who can relate more to Beyoncé than [the opera] Carmen,” Haguenauer said. “If that would have to change, it’s like we will go back to the past. And that’s never good for sport.”

There are companies that have been formed to negotiate the rights for athletic competitions, but the process is slow and the available catalogue from which to choose is not extensive according to the article’s author.

AI May Not Be The Best Tool For Writing Personnel Reviews

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We are constantly told about the hazards of inputting sensitive personal data into unsecure websites. That is pretty much what you are doing when you provide information to an AI bot and ask them to create something for you. For this reason there are some significant concerns associated with using AI to write annual reviews and evaluations. Anything you provide the AI is being used to train the AI to do a better job and has the possibility of being retrieved by third parties.

I recently had a post on ArtsHacker discussing these issues in greater detail. In that post I note using AI for annual reviews is a viable option as long as you steer clear of identifiable information like names, don’t reference things like medical conditions, or use discriminatory language related to protected classes like age, race, national origin, etc.

Dangers Of Using AI For Annual Reviews

 

What Is Behind Philly’s University of the Arts Abrupt Closure?

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You may have heard the disconcerting news that the 150 year old University of the Arts (UArts) in Philadelphia abruptly announced their closure last week, less than a year after Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced they were discontinuing their bachelor and master of fine arts degrees.  What is particularly galling about the closure is that faculty and students weren’t informed that the school would be closing a few days later and heard about it via media sources.

In addition, the manner in which they made the announcement resulted in the school immediately losing its accreditation.  Apparently, the accrediting agency told them on May 28 that their accreditation was renewed for another few years. The next day UArts told the agency they were going to close in a few days and the agency pulled accreditation pretty much immediately in response to the fact the school was giving such short notice and had not arranged for teach out agreements to help students transfer to other schools.

This reminded me of the closure of Sweet Briar College that I wrote about in 2015.  There were all sorts of questions about how that decision came about, especially since the school had accepted a million dollar gift two weeks before the board decided to close the school. In that case, the alumnae rallied to call for the resignation of the president and board for not properly exploring options to keep the school open.  The school continues to operate today.

I am not suggesting UArts is in a position to be saved. A number of universities have been closing in recent years. Last week Marymount Manhattan merged with Northeastern University due to declining enrollments.  The merger was a result of discussions over the course of a number of years.

Clearly the difficulties UArts faced didn’t just emerge over the course of a week. The faculty just ratified its first contract in February after three years of negotiation, but according to a recent article on the closure, there was no indication of financial problems at that time.

“Part of what makes this so shocking and outrageous is that at no point was there any indication from the senior leaders at the university … that the university’s finances were this precarious,” faculty member and union representative Bradley Philbert told Hyperallergic, adding that within the last three months, the university has hired between four and six staffers.

“This is not just something that happened overnight,” Philbert said.

Others have mentioned the abrupt closure is likely a violation of the WARN Act which requires large employers to provide 60 days notice of layoffs and closures.

Instances like these make me wonder what sort of legal advice and guidance these boards have been receiving. Likewise, who was making decisions about internal and external communications that none of this information was shared with any of the school’s constituencies.  In the end, I wonder if there are parallels with Sweet Briar in that the UArts board may have decided to shut everything down without due consideration about the process.

More Untruth In Advertising

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Over the course of the years, I have written on the practice of chopping up reviewer quotes and fitting things back together to make it sound like the critic enjoyed the show. It is called contextomy, by the way.

Thanks to Rainer Glaap who sent me another great example written by reviewer and columnist David Benedict for The Stage.

Benedict cites one example where Ben Brantley, former critic for the New York Times and Jesse Green, the person who replaced Brantley, were both recently had reviews of a show quoted even though Brantley left the paper over three years ago.

Beneath the words “True art sparks debate”, the ad quoted opposing one-liners from two Times reviews: “A stirring blockbuster” – Ben Brantley and: “An overeager blur” – Jesse Green.

….But Schulman smelt a rat, not least because Green succeeded Brantley as the Times’ theatre critic more than three years ago. Brantley’s review was for an earlier incarnation of the show way back in 2018.

It gets worse. None of the words quoted from either critic appeared in print consecutively. Those phrases were assembled from words that weren’t originally even in the same paragraph, let alone sentence.

Benedict recounts an instance when he was having lunch at a friend’s house and told the other guests about how he was misquoted in an advertisement for a show in which he wrote:

“The Sweeney Todd sequence is built around the rhyme: ‘He’s got a chopper/ Oh, it’s a whopper.’ If schoolboy innuendo is your bag, book now.” Passing the Duchess Theatre a little later, I was less than pleased to see my name outside accompanied just two words from my review: “Book now.” After my complaint and much-feigned innocence and wringing of hands, the producers finally took it down.”

The twist to this story is that apparently that specific anecdote was used in the development of truth in advertising law for the European Union–only now that the UK has left the EU, it isn’t applicable.

To my astonishment, one of the lunch guests piped up: “It’s you! I know that story because I drafted the EU directive on false advertising. You’re cited in European case law.” The trouble is that post-Brexit, EU directives no longer apply.