Brown Bag Lunch: Music Licensing 101

This event is sold out.

As the music industry continues to adapt to new technologies and formats, its traditional business practices and revenue streams have rapidly disappeared. One area that continues to thrive and propel the industry forward, however, is music licensing. Put together by the CSUSA New York Chapter, this panel features Joseph P. Salvo and Stephen J. Dallas, who will provide an overview of music licensing and give insight about the types of deals and terminology used during licensing negotiations.

New York Chapter Brown Bags are informal discussions on a range of copyright-related topics. In true brown-bag spirit, no food or drinks will be provided, so attendees are encouraged to bring their own. We keep the admission fee modest to encourage attendance by new or solo practitioners and law students, but all are welcome!

Speakers

Joseph P. Salvo is the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Sesame Workshop, the home of Sesame Street, where he has responsibility for all Business & Legal Affairs of the organization as well as for Government Affairs. Prior to Sesame Workshop, Joe served as General Counsel of HiT Entertainment, an international children’s entertainment company that owns such pre-eminent pre-school brands as Barney, Thomas the Tank, Bob the Builder and Angelina Ballerina, with responsibility for a combined Legal & Business Affairs team in NYC and London. Between 2012 and 2015, while serving as HiT’s General Counsel, he also served as Vice President & Associate General Counsel at Mattel, Inc., (which acquired HiT in February, 2012) with shared responsibility for the Mattel Legal & Business Affairs group.  Sesame Workshop, HiT and Mattel have been involved in all forms of audio and audiovisual production and licensing, including television, film, audio, digital services and home video, as well as licensing out brands for books, publishing and consumer products. 

Prior to becoming General Counsel to HiT, Joe spent 13 years working for a combination of Sony Music, Arista Records and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, where he was involved in a wide variety of contract, licensing and intellectual property issues and personally handled contract negotiations and drafting for such diverse artists as Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Yo Yo Ma and John Mayer. Joe started his career as a litigator at Weil Gotshal & Manges, where he specialized in copyright and IP litigation. He counseled many of the largest internet music service providers on international publishing and sound recording rights issues, including Apple, MySpace, Yahoo, AOL, Pandora, MediaNet and Sony, and coordinated the trial team for the UK Copyright Tribunal proceeding that set the first-of-its-kind UK publishing rates for internet distribution of music on behalf of a number of digital services. 

Joe was President of the Copyright Society of the USA from June 2012-2014 and has been an adjunct professor of law, teaching Entertainment Law at St John’s University School of Law since 2001.  He is a frequent lecturer at law schools, bar associations and colleges on copyright, entertainment law and entertainment law issues.  Joe is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and St. John’s University School of Law.

Stephen J. Dallas is Vice President, Digital Legal Affairs & Business Development, for Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Warner Music Group’s global music publishing company. In this role, Dallas is responsible for negotiating and drafting content license agreements with third party digital providers worldwide, exploring new digital business opportunities on behalf of Warner/Chappell songwriters and rights holders, setting digital strategy and policy initiatives for the company, working with music publishing rights organizations, and coordinating and assisting with digital litigation matters.

Prior to Warner/Chappell, Dallas served as Vice President, Legal & Business Affairs, for EMI Music Publishing, where he was responsible for negotiating and drafting various rights acquisition agreements, catalog sale and catalog acquisition agreements, joint-venture agreements and sample licensing agreements, and managing affirmative and defensive company litigations, in addition to playing an integral role in the worldwide due diligence and sale of the company to Sony/ATV and its investors.

Before EMI, Dallas was an Associate in private practice at Thelen, Reid & Priest, LLP, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, handling a variety of complex commercial litigation matters including copyright, antitrust, disputes involving commercial agreements, employment, securities, insurance and criminal defense.  During law school, Dallas served as a judicial intern for United States District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr., and New York State Supreme Court, Commercial Division Justice Charles E. Ramos.

Dallas earned his J.D. from New York Law School and a B.S. in Communications from Boston University. He is a member of the Copyright Society of the USA.

Cost

Members $10
Non-Members $20
Student Members FREE* (Please email rebecca@csusa.org for a promo code)

*Must be a full-time student who is also a current CSUSA Member. A student membership is just $25. Please consider joining! Visit www.csusa.org/join for details.

CANCELLATION POLICY

Refunds must be requested in writing at least three business days before the event. Refunds will not be issued after that point. Unfortunately, we will not be able to credit your registration payment toward a future event, but you may allow another person attend in your place.

New to the Copyright Society of the USA? 

To learn about the benefits of membership, please visit www.csusa.org.

Already a member but need to renew for the 2015-2016 season? 

Please visit www.csusa.org. All memberships expired on September 30, 2015. If you have already renewed, thank you!