Attorney Michael Reinert

Attorney Michael Reinert

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2018 Entertainment Law Initiative To Honor Michael Reinert During GRAMMY Week

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The preeminent gathering for entertainment attorneys will take place Jan. 26, 2018, in New York City
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Nov 14, 2017 - 7:00 am

Fox Rothschild, LLP partner Michael Reinert will receive the 2018 ELI Service Award at the milestone 20th Annual Entertainment Law Initiative Event during GRAMMY Week in New York City. Taking place Jan. 26, 2018, at New World Stages at Worldwide Plaza, the event will also see Allen Grubman, partner at Grubman, Shire, Meiselas, & Sacks, P.C., receive the Recording Academy President's Merit Award in recognition of his many years of work protecting the interests of creators.

The ELI Service Award is awarded to an attorney who has demonstrated a commitment to advancing and supporting the music community through service. Past recipients include Don Passman, Elliot Groffman, Joel Katz, Julie Swindler, and Russell Frackman.

The winner of this year's Entertainment Law Initiative Writing Competition (to be announced in January) will also be present at the event.

The Entertainment Law Initiative is the nation's preeminent gathering for entertainment attorneys and it provides a forum for the industry to honor its own practitioners, hear from legal thought leaders, and support promising law students interested in entertainment law.

Be sure to tune in to the 60th GRAMMY Awards, broadcast live on CBS from New York City's iconic Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.

When Will The 60th GRAMMY Nominees Be Revealed?

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, 2017

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

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Eric Schneiderman: N.Y. Attorney General To Speak At Entertainment Law Event

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New York state Attorney General will speak at official GRAMMY Week event on Jan. 26 in New York City
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Dec 15, 2017 - 4:52 pm

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will make a special appearance as a featured speaker during the 20th annual Entertainment Law Initiative Event & Scholarship Presentation on Jan. 26, 2018, two days prior to the 60th GRAMMY Awards.

As Attorney General, Schneiderman has led the fight to protect New Yorkers by suing to block the travel bans, leading a coalition to defend the Clean Power Plan, intervening to defend the Affordable Care Act, and defending the rights of sanctuary cities. His efforts curtailed ticket scalping in New York, protecting artists and fans and securing nearly $7 million in settlements from ticket brokers thus far. He is also an avid jazz enthusiast and music preservation advocate.

The event will also recognize this year's recipient of the ELI Service Award, Fox Rothschild LLP partner Michael Reinert, who is being saluted for his commitment to advancing and supporting the music community through service. Alongside Reinert, attorney Allen Grubman, partner at Grubman, Shire, Meiselas, & Sacks, P.C., will receive the Recording Academy President's Merit Award in recognition of his many years of work protecting the interests of creators.

Also honored at the 20th annual event will be two student winners of the annual ELI Writing Competition, which challenges students attending an ABA-approved law school to write a 3,000-word paper analyzing a compelling legal topic facing the music industry. The winning student will receive a $10,000 scholarship, airfare/hotel accommodations for two and two tickets to the 60th GRAMMY Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018, and two tickets to GRAMMY Week activities including the MusiCares Person of the Year Gala honoring Fleetwood Mac, the official GRAMMY Awards after-party, and more. The student runner-up will receive a $2,500 scholarship. The results of the competition will be announced in January.

Individual tickets for the Entertainment Law Initiative event are now on sale. For more information on sponsorship and multiticket packages, contact Neil Crilly at neil.crilly@grammy.com.

Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow

Neil Portnow

Photo: Michael Kovac/WireImage.com

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2018 GRAMMY Week: Entertainment Law Event Selects Scholarship Winners

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Rebecca Pollack's paper on the DMCA and runner-up Megan Abner's on the FCC win the 20th annual ELI writing competition and scholarship
Philip Merrill
GRAMMYs
Jan 18, 2018 - 12:37 pm

On Jan. 18, the Recording Academy announced the winners of the 20th annual Entertainment Law Initiative writing competition.

Entertainment Law Initiative Luncheon Highlights

Rebecca Pollack of Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., wrote the winning paper for this year's competition, titled "Innovation Or Exploitation: Is It Time To Update The DMCA Safe Harbors?" Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors were meant to protect passive internet hosts but fail to address repetitive uploading of infringing material to online platforms. Pollack receives the scholarship's top award of $10,000.

The runner-up is Megan Abner from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City. Her paper was on "Effects Of The FCC's 'Internet Freedom' On The Music Industry And Potential Collaborative Solutions." She will receive a $2,500 scholarship.

The GRAMMY Week event will be held on Jan. 26 at Worldwide Plaza in New York and is the nation's preeminent gathering for entertainment attorneys. It provides a forum to explore important legal issues, honor outstanding practitioners and support the next generation of arts lawyers through the ELI writing and scholarship competition.

Both Abner and Pollack will attend GRAMMY Week's Entertainment Law Initiative event, which will include a keynote from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and service award presentations to attorneys Allen Grubman and Michael Reinert. The former will receive a Recording Academy President's Merit Award from Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow in recognition of his many years of work protecting the interest of music creators. A small number of tickets remain available for the luncheon.

The ELI writing competition is co-sponsored by the American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries.

Eric Schneiderman: N.Y. Attorney General To Speak At Entertainment Law Event

Allen Grubman, Neil Portnow, Michael Reinhart, 2018

(L-R) President's Merit Award winner Allen Grubman, Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow, 2018 Entertainment Law Initiative Service Award recipient Michael Reinert

Photo: Michael Kovac/WireImage.com

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Entertainment Law Initiative Event Honors Music Advocates, Present & Future

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Amidst a critical moment in the fight for music creators' rights, the Recording Academy celebrates the difference-makers in entertainment law
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jan 26, 2018 - 5:29 pm

The Recording Academy's Entertainment Law Initiative event and scholarship presentation turned the focus of GRAMMY Week toward today's crucial creator's rights issues. As the nation's preeminent gathering for entertainment attorneys, this event provides an annual opportunity to unite a community of professionals, honor those doing excellent work in the field, and award scholarships to outstanding law students via a writing competition.

2018 ELI awards presentation
2018 Entertainment Law Initiative Event

"I think Entertainment Law Initiative manifests, generally, what we do as an Academy," says Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow. "We look retrospectively, and we honor our past, we study our past, and we learn from our past. But we also are there to nurture and develop the next generations of music makers, but also everybody that's in the infrastructure of the music business."

This year's event honored two such difference-makers in the entertainment law community. First, Michael Reinert, a partner at Fox Rothschild, LLP, received the 2018 ELI Service Award for advancing and supporting the music community through service. Reinert's award presentation served as a highlight of the ceremony, complete with a hilarious mock biopic movie trailer (Michael Reinert is "Michael Reinert") and a personalized congratulations video from GRAMMY-winner Stevie Wonder. Who says lawyers don't know how to have fun?

"It's very humbling and very overwhelming to be considered in the group of names of these people who have come before me, so many of whom I've grown up admiring, almost in awe of," Reinert says, mentioning previous honorees Julie Swidler and Elliot Groffman as predecessors whom he respects.

Additionally, Allen Grubman, a partner at Grubman, Shire, Meiselas, & Sacks, P.C. received the Recording Academy President's Merit Award in recognition of his many years protecting the interests of creators.

"I want to thank the Recording Academy for this honor," Grubman said humbly, before joking, "Most of what I get are complaints." He also lauded the support the Academy provides to young aspiring lawyers by way of the writing competition scholarship program.

Grubman also put his money where his mouth was, pledging $25,000 toward a scholarship, a generous contribution and proof that his diligent service on creator's behalf aligns beautifully with the Entertainment Law Initiative.

"We do something very important… We bring joy to the world," Grubman said, closing his remarks. "This is a very special thing that I do, that we all do. And I just want to say, I believe the entertainment area is just beginning for lawyers."

Sure enough, this declaration is more than validated by the entrants to this year's writing competition, who all exemplify the possibilities of progress.

Chosen as this year's writing competition winner, Rebecca Pollack, a law student at Lewis & Clark School of Law, received a $10,000 scholarship for her winning paper titled "Innovation or Exploitation: Is It Time To Update The DMCA Safe Harbors?"

"The copyright office is dealing with the big debate going on between copyright holders and online service providers about the big safe harbors and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and whether they are effective," Pollack explains. "My paper basically looks at one of the big issues underlying it, which is these technical measures and finding some clarity around those."

Renowned attorney and Entertainment Law Initiative Program Chair Ken Abdo invited Pollack to the stage to discuss the core problem addressed, as well as the proposed solution, outlined in her paper.

Runner-up Megan Abner, a student Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship for her paper, "Effects Of The FCC's 'Internet Freedom' On The Music Industry And Potential Collaborative Solutions."

The imaginative work of bright students intimates a smiling future for entertainment law. However, no one says it will be easy. Reinert had some simple yet powerful advice to add for aspiring entertainment attorneys:

"When you hit a brick wall, keep going."

As a testament to this spirit of perseverance, New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the event's keynote speaker, spoke of how his deep passion for jazz music has driven him to go the extra mile on the legal front to support music creation, protection, and preservation, including preserving and digitizing a collection of Louis Armstrong recordings and cracking down on live concert ticket scalping, ultimately reforming the system to add criminal consequences to high-volume ticketbot offenders.

The Recording Academy echoes this support and drive to enact change and has been working tirelessly to enact legislative change to modernize creator's rights policies.

"We've been working for years to get a bill that will work that can pass, that addresses our issues and contemporize the whole process of licensing and all the attendant elements," says Portnow.

In fact, those efforts are coming to fruition in real time. Immediately following the event, Portnow joined a group of music creators at a judiciary committee meeting to testify at a hearing titled "Music Policy Issues: A Perspective From Those Who Make It." Portnow will be backed at thearing's continued deliberations by GRAMMY-winning performers Booker T. Jones and Dionne Warwick, GRAMMY-nominated artist Aloe Blacc, GRAMMY-nominated songwriter Tom Douglas, and platinum-selling producer/engineer Mike Clink.

Now, more than ever, is a critical time in the fight for music creators' rights, and the Entertainment Law Initiative continues to remind the music community of both the difference one devoted individual can make and the great strength we have when we join our voices together.

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GRAMMYs

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'2018 GRAMMY Nominees' Album: Pre-Order Now

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24th edition of the best-selling series to feature music by top nominees from the 60th GRAMMY Awards; pre-order the album to enter a chance to attend Music's Biggest Night
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Nov 20, 2017 - 6:30 am

The 2018 GRAMMY Nominees Album commemorating the 60th GRAMMY Awards is officially set for release on Jan. 12, 2018.

Featuring music from the nominees in consideration for the 60th GRAMMY Awards, the album will be compiled by the Recording Academy in partnership with RCA Records.

The album will be available for pre-order starting on Black Friday, Nov. 24, during the Recording Academy’s "GRAMMYs Greatest Stories: A 60th Anniversary Special" on CBS, starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Music fans can log on to 2018grammyalbum.com to secure their pre-order, and also enter for a chance to win a trip for two to the 60th GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018, at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Proceed from the album sales with benefit the charitable efforts of the GRAMMY Museum and MusiCares.

"We are pleased to partner with RCA Records to showcase a unique collection of GRAMMY-nominated tracks on one album," said Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow in a statement. "This is always a rewarding project for the Academy, as we not only offer one lucky winner a chance to attend the 60th GRAMMY Awards in New York City, but we also donate a portion of album sales to music education programs and music people in need through MusiCares and the GRAMMY Museum.”

When Will The 60th GRAMMY Nominations Be Announced?