Recent Articles

SAG, AMPTP to Meet

Jonathan Handel
November 17, 2008 19:43

SAG and the AMPTP will meet Thursday, their first official meeting in over four months, reports Back Stage magazine's BlogStage. This comes after three weeks of one-on-one meetings with the mediator, and four weeks after SAG first called for mediation.

Hollywood Under Siege

Jonathan Handel
November 12, 2008 21:15

California’s economy is at war with itself. Like the Civil War almost 150 years ago, the factions are split geographically, but this time, the two sides are Northern California and Southern California—more particularly, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. This battle turns on whether it’s true that “co...

SAG: The Mediation Express

Jonathan Handel
November 11, 2008 06:14

SAG met with the federal mediator last Wednesday, and now the AMPTP is meeting with him this Thursday, reports Variety. Meetings between the mediator and either one side or the other have been coming at a rate of one meeting per week over the last month. There haven't been any joint...

AMPTP, IA to Talk Monday

Jonathan Handel
November 10, 2008 06:24

Negotiations between SAG and the AMPTP (studios) are stalled, and the mediation process seems glacial, so the AMPTP is taking advantage of its free time to negotiate with IATSE, it seems. The two parties are sitting down for talks tomorrow (Monday) and have scheduled three days' worth of sessions,...

New Book on Music Litigation

Jonathan Handel
November 07, 2008 23:59

In-house announcement: My law firm colleague Ron Rosen has a new book out from Oxford University Press: Music and Copyright. It’s perhaps the only book to deal specifically with music litigation. The book provides a roadmap to the entire music litigation process, including an analysis of the s...

SAG Update: More Mediator Meetings

Jonathan Handel
October 31, 2008 23:51

SAG met last week with the federal mediator, as I previously blogged. The AMPTP, representing the studios, met with the mediator yesterday. SAG will be meeting with him again next Wednesday. That's a pace of one meeting a week. No word on whether the meetings will become more frequent.

Wardrobe Malfunction

Jonathan Handel
October 27, 2008 23:37

Yesterday, Sarah Palin inexplicably returned to the topic of her $150,000 makeover, asserting that “Those clothes, they are not my property. …  I'm not taking them with me.”  This set me thinking, and I realized that Palin hasn’t gotten a fair shake on this affair – not from the over-educated blue s...

SAG Update: Union Meets with Mediator

Jonathan Handel
October 27, 2008 06:32

SAG leaders met Friday with the federal mediator, and in a statement said that they discussed with him the union's request for mediation and "the possibilities regarding the resumption of negotiations." The AMPTP is set to meet with the mediator Thursday. It's hard to be optimistic though: the...

AMPTP Agrees to Mediate

Jonathan Handel
October 23, 2008 22:47

Not surprisingly, the AMPTP has agreed to attend sessions to be conducted by a federal mediator, as requested several days ago by the Screen Actors Guild.  However, in today's statement announcing their position, the studios also reiterate that they won't budge from their position that the new ...

Movie Review - Saving Marriage

Jonathan Handel
October 22, 2008 00:55

(Off-topic)“Saving Marriage” sounds like another name for the No on Prop 8 campaign – the effort to save gay marriage in California from the reactionary forces across the country that are trying to snatch back this right, granted just months ago by the state Supreme Court.  That’s  a Republica...