Rocking the Vote: 
How Musical Artists Have Used Copyright, Trademark, and Right of Publicity Claims to Challenge the Use of Their Music in Political Campaigns

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:

Join us for a timely discussion of disputes involving the use of musical artists’ works by politicians in campaigns and elections, and the right of publicity, trademark, and copyright issues that arise when used without artist permission. Musicologist Judith Finell will moderate, and attorney Lincoln Bandlow and others will discuss recent disputes between Warner Bros. and Donald Trump over the use of Hans Zimmer’s music from The Dark Knight Rises; as well as litigation involving Aerosmith, Jackson Browne, and John McCain’s presidential campaign. 

Program will satisfy 1.5 CA CLE credits pending approval by the State Bar of California.

SPEAKERS:

Judith Finell (moderator) is a musicologist and president of Judith Finell MusicServices Inc., a music consulting firm in New York and Los Angeles. She has served as consultant and expert witness involving music copyright infringement. Most recently, she was the testifying expert for the Marvin Gaye family in the “Blurred Lines” case in Federal Court. She has testified in many other notable copyright infringement trials over the past 20 years. She regularly advises HBO, Lionsgate, Grey Advertising, Warner Bros., Disney, and Sony Pictures on musical works for their commercials, films, video games, and television series. In 2018, she was the guest speaker at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Commencement. She also frequently advises attorneys, advertising agencies, entertainment and recording companies, publishing firms, and musicians, on copyright issues arising from electronic technology, digital sampling, and Internet musical usage. She has spoken at the law schools of Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, and others on music copyright. She is a professor of musicology at UCLA, where she teaches the first forensic musicology course in the country. For fuller information see www.jfmusicservices.com. 

Lincoln Bandlow is the founder of The Law Offices of Lincoln Bandlow, PC and focuses his practice on sophisticated media, First Amendment, intellectual property and other entertainment-related litigation matters. He represents clients in the motion picture, television, publishing, broadcasting, Internet and advertising fields. In addition, Lincoln represents several of the principal underwriters for the media and entertainment industry.  He has tried cases in both state and federal courts for matters involving copyright infringement, defamation, right of publicity, right of privacy, trademark infringement, breach of contract and related matters.  He has litigated political campaign music use cases from both sides:  he was counsel to Senator John McCain in an action brought by musical artist Jackson Browne regarding use of Browne’s music in a political spot and also was counsel for a well-known musical composer in an action brought against the Club For Growth in a political spot the Club produced to attack Senator Russ Feingold.  

Will Ritter is the Co-Founder POOLHOUSE. An award-winning strategist, Will develops and executes winning political and corporate media campaigns. Taking a fiercely data-driven approach, Will oversees all polling, market research and media buys for the agency, while his co-founder Tim O’Toole leads creative.
Will has served as a key strategist on campaigns from presidential to mayoral, including the 2012 Romney-Ryan campaign.
Deftly able to deliver stand-out sound bites, Will has addressed political campaign advertising strategy on such outlets as TODAY, CNN and MSNBC as well as POLITICO, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. He can speak to a variety of topics including:
• Political campaigning and the media landscape – the good, the bad and the ugly 
• How to do digital in politics
• How to successfully target your audience in political advertising 
• What is Twitter’s place in politics?
• Virginia politics, Richmond issues
• Humor in politics (joke writer, former stand up comic!)
Based in Richmond, VA, Will maintains a lively Twitter account and is a diehard Red Sox fan.

Members: $25
Non-Members: $45
Student Members: $20  |  Must present valid student ID at the door

Please note: Affordable parking is available across the street in the Westfield Mall’s Constellation/Solar parking lot. Fox Rothschild cannot validate parking.