Media & Entertainment

The world is going digital. Fuelled by the rapid spread of high-speed connectivity and standards, information and entertainment today is increasingly delivered in digital formats. Digital solutions combine traditional content (entertainment, product information, marketing collateral, process components and application software) with the personalised services that deliver what customers need, when they need it, to the devices and channels they specify. Not only is every organisation competing on content, but in this new world of digital bits and bytes, all organisations are becoming content companies. The real issue is how fast your organisation can capture the new value that digital content solutions create.

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the music industry today. It is estimated that 12.5 billion dollars are lost due to file sharing and music piracy, and 5 billion of that is profits lost from the music industry directly.

Piracy: Protecting your products against counterfeited and pirated goods can help maintain legitimate sales and market share; ensure customer satisfaction; safeguard your distribution network; and protect your brand image. Trademark owners of rights can ask Customs to intervene when suspect goods are under customs control. The goods can be held for a limited time while the owners of the intellectual property right or trade mark can take the question to the national courts under national law to seek redress. We can assist clients by advising on the process and strategies to be followed and completing and lodging applications to intercept counterfeit and pirated products.

Royalties: We can prepare an unbundling argument to address on-going customs valuation obligations and to pre-empt potential investigations by the customs authorities. A proactive approach would involve, for instance, reaching agreement – on those elements of the royalty that are dutiable – with the customs authorities where potential duty exposure is greatest.

Please note that we always welcome the opportunity to work with intellectual property lawyers.