Areas of Expertise

Music Publishing

Sukin Law Group represents songwriters, their estates, and music publishers in their transactional business, copyright, and trademark issues in the United States and globally. It is generally regarded as the firm for music publishing issues.

Recording Industry

Michael Sukin served in Business Affairs at CBS (now Sony) Records under the legendary Clive Davis, at that time the largest and most successful record company in the world. Sukin Law Group regularly counsels clients in every sort of transaction affecting recorded music throughout the world.

Catalog Sales

Sukin Law Group has been involved in significant sales of music publishing and recorded rights in the last 20-plus years, representing clients in the sales of EMI, Acuff-Rose/Opryland Music, Boosey & Hawkes, Bug Music, Windswept Music, Complete Music, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Bertelsmann/BMG Music to Universal and many others. The firm is one of few in the world with global expertise in this area. In representing a bidder for EMI and in acting for the Universal Music Group and its acquisition of Bertelsmann/BMG Music ($2.2 billion dollars) and Univision Records (the world’s largest Latin record company), SLG has acted in some of the largest sales in music publishing and recorded music. It has participated in transactions in the English, French and Spanish languages.

Musical Theatre

Sukin Law represents writers and other rightsholders in musical theatre for the United States and abroad, beginning with its representation of the creators of Les Miserables at the inception of that saga. It has acted for the Elvis Presley Estate, the George Gershwin Family Trust, Charles Aznavour, the Estates of Jule Styne, Comden and Green, Yip Harburg, Harry Warren, and the Heyward Trust, amongst others.

Rights of Publicity Name and Likeness

With its clients the Elvis Presley Estate and Elvis Presley Enterprises, SLG consulted for over three decades in their groundbreaking work in the areas of protection of image and likeness rights and related trademark areas.

Legislative Activities

Sukin Law Group has led the initiation, promotion, and enhancement of copyright legislation in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. It initiated the movement to extend the term of copyright in the United States (the Sonny Bono Copyright Act) and was intimately involved in a leadership role through the entire legislative process. The firm was a prime mover for implementation of extended term protection in the European Union, a process which took over 13 years and concluded with use of our draft of key elements of the European Union’s current Term Directive.

Language

Sukin Law Group seamlessly handles transactions in English, French, and Spanish.