Nashville is known as Music City, a place where music and business come together harmoniously. As with any good business deal, songwriters, recording artists and musicians also need solid legal representation to protect their intellectual property and contract rights. Phil Kirkpatrick, a member in the firm’s Nashville office, has represented a broad range of record labels, music publishers, songwriters, artists and musicians involving disputes over intellectual property, exploitation rights, celebrity name and likeness rights, merchandising agreements and other music industry contracts. With over 33 years of practice, Phil has had the opportunity to work on many interesting cases involving the music and entertainment industry. A recent case involved a rich piece of Nashville musical history.
In the early 1960s, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee and legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix spent two years in Nashville absorbing the music scene. Over several years, documentary filmmakers have interviewed more than 30 people about Hendrix living in Nashville, including legendary artists BB King, Patti LaBelle and Solomon Burke. A dispute arose relating to ownership and exploitation rights to this material, and Phil represented one of the parties involved. With his experience in entertainment and intellectual property matters, Phil was able to get the matter resolved fairly quickly for the firm’s client.
The Hendrix Nashville documentary case is just one example of the work our media, entertainment and sports attorneys perform on a daily basis. If you are a writer, artist, producer, musician, or filmmaker, it is essential that you be aware of your rights and how to protect them. While Phil tends to focus more on the music industry, we also have attorneys like Kelly Frey, who is involved in the motion picture industry, and Trevor Whiffen in our Toronto office, who does legal work in the sports industry as well as music and film related legal work.
