Find Lawyers in Hamburg, Germany for Entertainment Law

The entertainment industry is increasingly shifting towards interactive and mobile content, with blockbuster video games snatching the title of top grossing entertainment products from movies. The convergence of media channels is a huge opportunity for actors of more traditional entertainment to branch out into the interactive sphere, and for creators of games to put a new twist on existing movie, TV, and music IP and franchises. With the rise of virtual reality devices and new types of interfaces between physical toys and video games, the entertainment industry is at the cutting edge of technology development. Online and mobile games adhere to novel business and revenue models with considerable legal and technological complexity that turn some online game companies in veritable clusters of excellence in data science.

The developments afford huge opportunities for growth for artists, video game developers, studios, publishers, but also traditional entertainment and media companies, and manufacturers of hardware, peripherals, and toys. 

Lawyers in this practice area help structure and negotiate agreements between all those actors, including:

• Game development and publishing agreements

• Distribution agreements

• Marketing and channelling agreements

• IP license agreements

• Research and development agreements

The creation and exploitation of entertainment content, in particular in online and mobile environments, is subject to a number of regulatory restrictions, most importantly in the domains of data privacy, youth protection, and consumer law. Involving specialized lawyers in the game design and production process and getting early advice on planned new business models can help industry participants steer clear of the associated legal pitfalls.

Entertainment lawyers are also savvy when it comes to strategically procuring, protecting, and enforcing intellectual property rights, such as trademarks and copyright in media content – a particularly important aspect in the digital realm. Entertainment content is often created through collaboration of many individuals contributing different parts of the whole, and publishing and marketing deals can involve multiple tiers of sub-licensees, all of which requires careful drafting and monitoring of the chain of rights. 

Finally, attorneys in the entertainment industry, with a keen eye on the specific legal risks and challenges, help structure and negotiate successful corporate deals where the target company or the concerned assets involve entertainment content or hardware.