Ken Basin

Entertainment & General Business Litigation

D: 310.785.6883
F: 310.201.2398
Email Ken Basin

PROFILE

Ken Basin’s practice focuses primarily on litigation and transactional work for entertainment clients.  He also specializes in intellectual property issues, including copyright and trademark issues specifically related to the entertainment industry.

In 2011, Ken was named by Variety as one "the best and the brightest . . . attorneys that stand above the crowd and represent the next generation of sharp legal minds in the entertainment business" in its 2011 "Hollywood Law: Up Next" feature.

Ken also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Firm's entertainment blog, Law Law Land.

ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE

  • Served as lead production attorney on major studio film, drafting and negotiating all major cast, crew, location, lease, and production agreements
  • Represented established and up-and-coming screenwriters in negotiation of writing and option agreements with motion picture studios and producers
  • Negotiated acquisition of motion picture remake rights from major studio
  • Negotiated agreement for short-film producers to create series of advertising shorts for advertising agency and its client
  • Negotiated television hosting agreement for major international stage performer
  • Negotiated agency agreement for a television producer client
  • Reviewed and revised form production, acting, and directing services agreements on behalf of movie studio
  • Represented major video game publisher in licensing negotiations with major studio for video game adaptation of motion picture

 

LITIGATION EXPERIENCE

  • Part of a two-person team that obtained an arbitration award of over $5 million in a dispute between a motion picture distributor and a film producer
  • Part of a three-person team that obtained a favorable settlement and license termination for the aggrieved licensor in an international trademark licensing dispute
  • Represents a major U.S. entertainment company and motion picture producer in numerous audits, profit participation matters, and other general litigation
  • Part of a three-person team that obtained an arbitration award of nearly $6 million in a dispute between motion picture co-financiers
  • Researched and drafted discovery motions in complex international litigation on behalf of foreign social networking website

PUBLICATIONS

  • "Pure entertainment: Five cases to watch because you can't help yourself," Los Angeles Daily Journal, January 3, 2012
  • "Five important cases you should watch in 2012," Los Angeles Daily Journal, December 21, 2011
  • "Not as easy as A-B-C," FoxSports.com, February 2011
  • "What all of Hollywood can learn from Warner Bros.' loss," The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., June 1, 2010
  • "I Could Have Been a Fragrance Millionaire:" Toward a Federal Idea Protection Act, 56, Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 731, 2009
  • "The Bloody Case That Started From a Parody: American Intellectual Property Policy and the Pursuit of Democratic Ideals in Modern China," UCLA Entertainment Law Review 237, 2009
  • "YouTube litigation: Google’s tough DMCA tests," The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., August 7, 2007

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