Digital Media Law

How Talent Loses if Aereo Wins

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:46:00 +0000

Follow the money and discover an unstated reason the Hollywood unions weighed in with briefs opposing the new service.

Several weeks ago, Fox, PBS and several other companies were hit with a 2-1 federal court of appeals ruling rebuffing their attempt to shut down Aereo, a new service backed by Barry Diller. Last week, they filed a petition for a rehearing en banc, in which all thirteen judges of the New York based court would rehear the case and potentially reverse the ruling, resulting in the preliminary injunction that the networks seek while the matter goes to trial.

Interestingly the Hollywood unions – DGA, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA and WGA – signed on to an amicus brief supporting that petition, as they had also done when the original appeal was heard. But why do the guilds care?

As a reminder, Aereo is a service that allows users to watch and record local TV for $8/month without a cable subscription. The service is available in New York and, soon, in Boston. It’s drawn the ire of broadcast networks because it would facilitate cord-cutting, reducing revenue to networks.

As a result, News Corp. president and COO Chase Carey has threatened to make Fox cable-only if Aereo prevails in court. There are potential downsides to this, and some analysts are skeptical that Fox would make the move, but the threat can’t be dismissed out of hand.

One reason the guilds are concerned ...

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets. -->

New book - Entertainment Labor: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:59:00 +0000

A must-have for academics, union staff and attorneys working in entertainment labor, ENTERTAINMENT LABOR: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography is a 345 page annotated bibliography of over 1,500 books, articles, dissertations, legal cases and other resources dealing with entertainment unions and guilds and various other aspects of entertainment labor.

The book is the product of hundreds of hours of research and of compilation of search results from almost twenty databases.

Also included are:
* Annotations (where necessary to explain the relevance of the book or article)
* Capsule descriptions of legal cases
* Page references (where only a portion of the book or article is relevant)
* URLs (for those full-text articles that are available online at no charge)
* A detailed chapter on materials available from the unions and guilds themselves
* A 90-page index

Email me (jhandel99 at gmail dot com) for sample pages, or just click here to purchase.

Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

VFX Town Hall Meeting Urges Trade Association and Union

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 17:28:00 +0000

However, panelists also acknowledged the difficulty of achieving either goal.

Pi Day – a multi-city international meeting of VFX artists – took place Thursday evening amid rising concern about the state of the industry.

VFX vet Scott Ross and others outlined a plan that involves the formation of a VFX union for VFX artists and of a trade association for visual effects facilities, all aimed at addressing the troubled VFX business model.

“Fear has stopped us because we have six clients [the studios],” Ross told them. “We are fearful of losing our jobs; [but] we are losing our jobs. … It’s going to get worse until we do something.”

Ross – a co-founder and ex-CEO of Digital Domain, a former GM of Industrial Light & Magic and a senior vp at LucasArts – also stated that through outreach “almost all” of the major facilities in North America “have agreed to investigate the possibilities of a trade association. … They seemingly want to effect change.”

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Canadian Talent Consultant Charged in Alleged Actor Visa Scam

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:01:00 +0000

Actor Andrew Boryski was charged with multiple criminal counts for cheating aspiring actors out of thousands of dollars in an immigration visa scam, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office said Thursday in a press release.

Boryski is charged with 32 counts; “this suspect, who’s an aspiring actor himself, has landed a role in a real life crime drama” says a federal agent.

The Saskatchewan native allegedly operated a Los Angeles-area immigration consulting business that sought O-1 visas on behalf of aspiring foreign actors.The O-1 visa is intended for established entertainment professionals with work pending in the United States – not for newcomers to the business without actual employment, as was the case with Boryski’s alleged victims.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

New! Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

'Hobbit' Affair Still Rankles NZ Unions

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 04:21:00 +0000

As fans of The Hobbit scanned the red carpet at the film’s premiere in Wellington last night, some New Zealand activists are still bitter about the outcome of a failed unionization attempt in 2010, even as NZ Actors Equity is finally making progress in negotiations with the country’s producers association.

Meanwhile, the government continues to resist publicly disclosing a key legal report, despite having apparently provided copies to Warner Bros. and producer/director Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films. That stance may change, as government officials are meeting on the matter December 5, according to a local press report.

“I’m bloody angry,” said NZAE vice president Phil Darkins at a conference last week at Victoria University. Referring to New Zealand’s uniquely non-unionized film industry, he said caustically “New Zealand is the only English speaking nation on the planet where professional performers ply their trade at the mercy of their lords and masters. And they are supposed to do this feeling nothing but enormous gratitude for the fact that there is even work available.”

In an email to The Hollywood Reporter, a NZAE organizer struck a different note. “We're having productive discussions with SPADA,” said Anna Majavu, referring to the country’s Screen Production and Development Association, “and look forward to reaching a mutually-agreeable conclusion.”

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

New! Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

new book - The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 10:14:00 +0000

My new book, The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis, is out on Amazon in paper (http://amzn.to/SiHUX2) and Kindle (http://amzn.to/UG7q7F). Check it out. Here's the description:

Essential reading for Hobbit fans and labor/globalization academics alike, THE NEW ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS looks back at an attempt to unionize actors on The Hobbit that blew up into a national crisis, driving down the NZ dollar and leading the Prime Minister and Parliament to dance to a Hollywood tune.

All was not well in Middle-earth . . .

After the third Lord of the Rings movie premiered in 2003, fans of the series eagerly anticipated production and release of its prequel, The Hobbit. It turned out they had a while to wait, as a series of troubles delayed production for years: lawsuits, studio bankruptcy, and ejection of producer/director Peter Jackson.

Then, in September 2010, when almost everything seemed resolved, U.S. and international actors unions issued a public alert advising their members “not to accept work on this non-union production.”

In THE NEW ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS (Hollywood Analytics; Nov. 22, 2012; paper USD $7.99; Kindle USD $4.99), entertainment attorney and Hollywood Reporter journalist Jonathan Handel shows how the two-month affair that began with local actors attempting to organize The Hobbit ended with a smackdown from U.S.-based Warner Bros. The studio managed to . . . well, let’s not spoil what for many will be a surprise. Suffice it to say that by the end, one member of Parliament said that Warners had “reduced New Zealand to a client state of a U.S. movie studio” while another said the country had become victim of a “shakedown.”

But how did an American multinational company all but subjugate a sovereign nation? THE NEW ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS tells the tale. Warner Bros. threatened to rip the troubled production from the country and events quickly spiraled out of control. New Zealand plunged into crisis. Saving the Hobbit was do or die for the local film industry, and the government scrambled to avoid disaster.

Protests and rallies erupted and the island nation’s currency fell on the possibility of losing the half-billion dollar project. Director Peter Jackson vowed to “fight like hell” to keep the shoot in New Zealand. But then studio executives flew in from Los Angeles like colonial masters ready to bring down the hammer.

What happened next was almost unbelievable – and proved, if nothing else, that not all Hollywood drama is on the screen.

Also check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets. -->

Lucasfilm Faces New Accusation of Pregnancy Discrimination

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 08:05:00 +0000

VFX artist Luis Pages says Lucasfilm Singapore promised inaccurately that he’d have broad medical insurance if he relocated to Singapore for a job with the company – but then fired him without explanation after his wife’s pregnancy turned medically difficult, and withheld salary.

“I think they fired me because of my wife's pregnancy and because of how upset sending her away made me and my co workers feel,” Pages told The Hollywood Reporter.

It’s not the first time Lucasfilm has faced an accusation involving pregnancy: in 2010, the company lost a pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit in Marin County. A company spokesman told THR the case is currently being appealed.

In addition, Pages says he’s heard even worse experiences than his own, of Lucasfilm Singapore employees going bankrupt due to pregnancy-related complications that ignite multi-hundred thousand dollar medical bills.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets. -->

Hollywood Sign Owner Cries Foul Over Ad Agency 'Infringement'

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 04:51:00 +0000

Visit the website for The Brooklyn Brothers, a New York ad agency, and you’ll find a splash page announcing their new Hollywood venture, called BB Hollywood. It’s a snazzy looking page – a photo of the Hollywood sign with “BB” photoshopped in, to form “BBHOLLYWOOD” in the iconic white staggered, blocky typeface.

But it turns out the splash page has already made more of a splash in Hollywood than the agency intended. When it showed up in a New York Times story identified as the new venture’s logo, at least one person in LA took notice.

“I’ve already sent it over to our attorney for a cease and desist (letter),” Jeff Lotman told The Hollywood Reporter. Lotman is the CEO of Global Icons, a licensing agency that represents the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The non-profit Chamber, as much of Hollywood knows, owns a trademark in the Hollywood sign – and they police it vigilantly.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Actors Union SAG-AFTRA and Industry Postpone Commercials Negotiations

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 06:46:00 +0000

SAG-AFTRA and the advertising industry have agreed to postpone their previously-scheduled early negotiations of the union’s commercials agreement, the union announced Saturday. The existing agreement remains in place through March 31, 2013. The parties need more time, said the union, to address “data challenges” regarding a study that may result in a revamp of the commercials residuals system, referred to as Gross Ratings Points (GRP).

No date has been set for commercials negotiations, but the calendar makes it unlikely these will occur before mid-January, raising the possibility of a nail-biter. Big issues are likely to be GRP, pension and health contribution levels, and the increase in non-union work.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Movie Academy Journeys to Mars and (Far) Beyond at Sold-Out Event

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:10:00 +0000

“What’s anything without a trip to Mars?,” asked NASA’s Eric De Jong Tuesday night on stage at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No one in the audience seemed inclined to disagree, but many no doubt felt “Why stop at Mars?”

The panelists were happy to oblige, taking the audience to the limits of the observable Universe. Hosted by producer Frank Marshall, the event showcased the relationship between NASA animation and Hollywood in such films as Transformers: Dark of the Moon (complete with a clip of Shia LaBeouf) and Hubble 3D.

On stage were NASA personnel and consultants and such Hollywood veterans as producer Tom Jacobson and visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar, while the audience included Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon, and June Lockhart, the co-star of Lost in Space.

Unions Investigating 'Liz & Dick' after Lindsay Lohan, Crew Allegedly Overworked

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 06:05:00 +0000

Two prominent Hollywood unions are investigating the Lifetime movie Liz & Dick, The HollywoodReporter (exclusive) has learned, with the moves coming in the wake of reports over the weekend that star Lindsay Lohan suffered from “exhaustion and dehydration” from overwork and that two crew members went to the hospital for the same reason.

The producer of the biopic about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton denies any violations or knowledge of union inquiries

In a statement to THR, actors union SAG-AFTRA said, “We're looking into this matter, but can't yet provide any verified information.” A spokeswoman added, “our people are on it.”

IATSE, the union that represents movie and television crew members, declined to comment. However, a source told THR that “the Business Agents are looking into long hours on the production.”

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Musicians Union Pickets Marvel Over Runaway ‘Avengers’ Score

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:47:00 +0000

Blasting Marvel Studios as “unfair” for scoring megahit The Avengers non-union in Europe, members and leaders of the American Federation of Musicians, including president Ray Hair, picketed the Disney subsidiary’s Manhattan Beach facility Friday morning, handing out leaflets that ask “how many billions must your companies earn before Marvel will score its film music here at home?”

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon in pb and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

SAG/AFTRA Members: Will your dues go up or down? Now you can tell ...

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 05:41:00 +0000

There's been a lot of discussion about how dues will change if SAG and AFTRA merge, but no one's made it easy for you to know exactly what will happen to your own. For a detailed breakdown -- and a graph that encompasses earnings from $0 to $250K, see The Hollywood Reporter. Whether you're SAG-only or a dual cardholder (or if you're AFTRA-only or even a broadcaster), the graph will show you exactly what will happen to your dues if merger passes.

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Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Snowe Rains on Republicans' Parade

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:50:00 +0000

Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican who's represented Maine in the Senate since 1994, announced today that she won't seek reelection in November, citing polarization in Washington as the reason. Her retirement, coming from a state where Democrats hold a registration edge, is a blow to the GOP and puts the seat in play.

What does this have to do with the subject of this blog? Nothing, but when you think up a headline too good to be true, you have to go with it.

You can read my Hollywood labor coverage at thrlabor.com.
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Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Live on Larry Mantle re SAG-AFTRA Merger

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:40:00 +0000

I'll be live on Larry Mantle (http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/) this morning at about 11:05 a.m. PT for a 14 minute segment on SAG-AFTRA merger. Tune in (is that still the verb?) if you have a chance. It'll probably be available archived as well.

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Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

AFTRA, Networks Reach New Three Year Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 07:38:00 +0000

AFTRA and the television networks reached agreement on a new three-year contract today, with the new pact featuring now-standard 2% annual wage increases and an unusually large 1% increase in employer contributions to health and retirement.

Notably, the union achieved the H&R increase without employers taking a bite out of the annual wage increase. Usually, a tradeoff between the two is required, which could have reduced one or more of the annual increases to a politically unpalatable 1-1/2% level. An AFTRA statement confirmed the issues’ importance, calling the 1% increase the union’s “primary objective” in the bargaining.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

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Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Health and Retirement are the Hangup in AFTRA Netcode Negotiations (Exclusive)

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:07:00 +0000

AFTRA’s negotiations with the networks and television producers resume this week and the big issue, according to a source close to the process, is the same one that’s bedeviled Hollywood labor for the past several years: health and retirement.

Negotiations began November 7 under a press blackout, but haven’t produced a deal yet. The contract under negotiation – AFTRA’s Network Code, colloquially referred to as the “front of book” – is the union’s largest, and generates more than $250 million a year in member earnings. It covers programs in all television day parts, except scripted network primetime and scripted basic cable.

The emphasis on health and retirement is probably heightened by the dynamic of SAG-AFTRA merger.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

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Check out my book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Homeless Military Widow: “My heart is sad for my teenager”

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Cindy Kureth just wants a job and a place to call home. She had both not long ago, but she got laid off, unemployment ran out, and the mortgage company took her home.

Now all the Richmond, Virginia mother has is a motel room for herself and her 16-year old son. That, and memories of her husband, former Army Major Elwood Kureth, Jr., who died eleven years ago, when his son was 5. He and Cindy had been married for nineteen years.

“Evan worshiped the ground his father walked (on),” Cindy told me in an email. “They were two peas in a pod.”

Yesterday was Veterans Day – a day for remembering people like Elwood, and also Cindy, who herself served in the military, as a First Lieutenant and flight nurse in the Air Force Reserves. But it was also the day Cindy and her son may have had to downsize again. They’ve lived in a series of motels over the last ten months, but last night they were due to begin sleeping in their van. Cindy owes the motel $90, and she won’t be receiving a military benefit check until next week.

Elwood served three tours of duty, including Desert Storm. Although he died in 2000 as a civilian – of a massive heart attack – there was nonetheless a military connection: according to Cindy, the coroner found that the attack resulted from heart disease so severe that it must have started while he was still in the service. Service members get a medical exam upon discharge, but Army doctors failed to detect the heart disease.

The reason for that, Cindy explained, was at least partially because they never asked about Elwood’s family medical history.

Elwood didn’t smoke or drink, and he stayed physically fit. He worked as a computer programmer – self-taught, Cindy noted proudly – in languages such as C++.

One day – in another sad irony, it was Memorial Day – he left the couple’s Michigan home to go dirt biking. He never came back. Cindy was at the house when she got a call and learned that ER doctors were working frantically to save her husband’s life. She told Evan only that doctors were trying to fix his daddy’s heart. He was too young to understand, and took the news matter-of-factly.

Later that afternoon, Cindy took Evan to the backyard, away from family members who had gathered and were trying to conceal their grief from the child. She pointed to the sky, and reminded him of the family pets that had died in the past, starting with the cat.

“Do you remember when God took Kimba?,” she asked. He did. “And Goldie?” Yes, he remembered the goldfish too. She told Evan that God also takes children sometimes, and even “big people.”

And then he began to understand: “Did God take my Daddy?,” he asked. Yes, she told him. A dam burst and the five-year old cried out, “Did my Daddy die?” Yes, she said. But then came the hardest question: “Are you going to get me a new Daddy?”

After three years of appeals, a Veterans Administration board held that Elwood’s death was service related. It awarded Cindy a $1,400 per month military pension. That just covers the $45 per day she’s been paying for the motel room she awkwardly shares with her now-teenage son.

Everything else – food for two, gas, insurance, doctors and dentists – has to come out of a $1,300 per month Social Security death benefit that Evan receives. That money will end in a year, when he turns 18.

Until earlier this week, even Cindy’s memories of her husband were at risk: almost everything she and Evan own is in storage, and the storage company threatened to auction the contents of her unit for non-payment. That would have been the end of her photos and mementos, Evan’s toys, the household furniture, pots and pans – and even Elwood’s uniforms.

He looked so handsome in those, Cindy told me, “but I couldn’t bear to bury them.”

To save their possessions, Cindy rented a truck and she spent six days moving them to a less-expensive unit at a different facility. The truck cost her $170. She did much of the moving herself – hard, physical work – and some of it in the rain.

She’s going to sell some of her miscellaneous possessions so they’ll have money to eat. She could sell the furniture too, but then they’d have nothing to sleep on and nowhere to sit when – if – she finally finds a new place to live. And it might mean acknowledging defeat, a prospect that agitates her.

Not Evan though. “I don’t freak out,” he told me in a disconcertingly flat tone. “It is what it is.”

Cindy and Evan had a home until nine months ago, but PHH Mortgage Services took it when she fell behind in her payments. Cindy wasn’t underwater: she owed about $142,000 on the mortgage, but PHH sold the house for $183,000.

A PHH spokesman declined to discuss foreclosure issues, calling it a “touchy subject” that he couldn’t address without consulting other company executives who were not available due to the holiday. However, PHH’s website isn’t shy about proclaiming the company’s commitment to bringing good to the world.

“The PHH Mortgage mission and values include treating everyone like family, always doing what is right, and leading by example,” PHH president Luke Hayden says on a page devoted to the company’s philanthropic efforts. “Our hope,” he adds, “is that society, in part, will be better because of PHH Mortgage leadership and contributions within the community.”

Ironically, among those contributions are care packages for the military, which “deliver the comforts of home to local troops deployed to Iraq or other locations around the world.”

Cindy said that her problems with the company started in 2009, when she began falling behind in her payments after losing her job. With a BA in nursing, she had been working at a local hospital in a cardiac support job, but lost it in 2008.

She asked PHH to modify her loan under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program. The company told her Fannie Mae rules made that impossible – but when Cindy contacted Fannie Mae, they told her the decision was PHH’s alone.

In Richmond, Cindy learned, PHH delivers foreclosure notices, not care packages.

She says that the company, which describes itself as “one of the top five originators of retail residential mortgages in the United States,” mishandled the foreclosure in various ways. Among other things, she charges, PHH strung her along by saying she was a good candidate for the HAMP program, then lowered the boom when she ran out of options.

“My mortgage company did me dirty,” Cindy told me.

The foreclosure proceeded as planned on January 6, 2011, with even the judge’s secretary in tears. Now, thanks in part to PHH, Cindy and Evan have no more “comforts of home.”

“It wasn’t a good feeling,” said Evan. “You lose a house – that’s a lot.” But he added, “I haven’t cried in forever. There’s no point.”

According to Cindy, the buyer that day was a local millionaire who trolls foreclosures for a living. He took Cindy to court and had her and Evan evicted in ten days. When he showed up at the house, Cindy begged for a month’s grace period so she could move out in an orderly fashion.

The buyer told Cindy he was a “good Christian,” but he was apparently not good enough to read Exodus 22:22 (“Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child”). So Cindy and Evan were out, and six months later the good Christian flipped the house for a good profit, selling it for $315,000, or $132,000 more than he paid for it. He no doubt put money into the place before unloading it, but I was unable to reach him for comment (which is why I’m not naming him or identifying the property).

Meanwhile, Cindy went to another financial institution, Wells Fargo, and asked for an $8,000 loan to consolidate her bills (or some of them at least). A loan officer refused, citing her shattered credit and lack of income. She pointed out that the bank and its employees had donated up to $1.5 million for disaster relief in Japan following that country’s earthquake and asked if they would help her too.

But the bank wouldn’t bite: the loan officer responded by asking, “Ma’am, don’t you know there’s a tragedy over there?” He seemed unaware of the part he was playing in a tragedy closer to home.

So Cindy went back to her motel room, where she’s spent her days using a borrowed laptop to look for jobs. She hasn’t found any, and she’s about due to return the laptop as well. Nor, she tells me, has she gotten help from the VA, social service agencies, legislators, community organizations or local churches.

The ancient Greeks said “God helps those who help themselves,” but it hasn’t worked out that way for Cindy. She enrolled in a trade school last year and told me that “receiving the President's Award for acquiring a 4.0 GPA was the epitome of my seven months of enrollment” – but the clock ran out on her schooling when her federal grant ended.

“I miss school so much,” Cindy said.

Her goal had been to “acquire certification in billing and coding in health information management so I could be more marketable and my son could have a better future in his college studies.”

“Now, sad to say, (education) is a pipe dream,” Cindy said. All she wants is to grab hold of the ladder of opportunity that once represented the American dream, but “it seems,” she told me, “like we are sinking in this country instead of having opportunities to better ourselves.”

She’d be happy just to teach herself – but at $140, even the textbook is out of reach.

So far, at least, Evan is receiving an education. After her husband died, Cindy scoured the country for good public schools in affordable neighborhoods. Evan had been labeled gifted, and – like most parents – Cindy wanted him to reach his full potential. They moved from Michigan in 2001 to suburban Richmond, where she bought the house that they lived in until PHH took it earlier this year.

Currently a junior, Evan is enrolled in an engineering studies program at his local high school. He made the honor roll and is on the Ultimate Frisbee team and in VEX Robotics club. “He’s thrived,” said Cindy, noting that Evan may qualify for a NASA internship next summer.

“I kind of want to be a chef,” Evan told me, a bit surprisingly, then added that engineering and biomedical science were his more practical choices.

“I couldn't be more proud of my son,” said Cindy, then added, “My heart is sad for my teenager. He doesn't deserve to be homeless; having friends and being able to invite them to a secure home is something he would like to do, but it isn't feasible at this time.”

Life was better once. When Elwood was still in the service, he and Cindy lived for a time in Germany. Back stateside, they traveled to Hawaii, Florida, California. Since Elwood’s death, Cindy’s son has been her focus; when she had the means, she sent him to a variety of camps (basketball, rock climbing, kayaking, Boy Scouts), got him acting classes and had him take lessons in guitar and saxophone. He became a Black Belt in karate when he was nine years old.

Now the holidays approach and, with them, Evan’s birthday (December 20) and Cindy’s as well (December 25). Gifts seem unlikely, and the larger questions are almost unbearable: where will they live? how will they eat? will Evan be able to go to college?

But more, why is this happening – not just to Cindy and Evan, but to millions of families, singles, couples, gay, straight, young, old, people of all races and religions, atheists and agnostics? It’s a question many people are asking. But perhaps not Evan.

“Sometimes you have to accept things as they are,” he told me, once again in a disturbing monotone.

Cindy tends to be more impassioned – but for all that she had shared with me, there was something she left out as well.

Elwood, as I discovered via Google, had co-authored a book a decade before he died: Reflections of a Warrior: Six Years as a Green Beret in Vietnam, by Franklin D. Miller with Elwood J. C. Kureth, Jr. The book was the autobiography of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner whom Elwood met while stationed in Seoul. Miller was a raconteur; Elwood became enchanted, and offered to help write the older soldier’s story.

The book was published in 1991 – on the day Elwood left for Desert Storm – then reprinted in 2003 with some added material: an Afterword that presented a timeline of both authors’ lives. The timeline concluded with Miller’s death on June 30, 2000 – and Elwood’s a month earlier, “of a heart attack while dirt bike racing.” Then came these words:

Elwood, you are sadly missed by your wife, Cindy, and son, Evan, and by many friends and family members. You accomplished many feats in your short life. The memories we acquired will forever be cherished. The love you gave to us will always remain in our hearts.

The Afterword was signed “Cindy Kureth.”

——————

You can contact Cindy at giftedoneboy@hotmail.com and on Facebook. Although she isn’t asking for charity, she needs it, and so (with her permission) I’m including her bank information for those inclined to contribute: Cindy Kureth, c/o KeyBank, 100 W. Michigan Ave., Saline, MI 48176. (She kept the account even after moving from Michigan to Virginia in 2001.)

Exclusive: WGA East and LA County AFL-CIO Endorse Occupy Wall Steet / Occupy LA

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:53:00 +0000

In exclusive statements to the Hollywood Reporter, the Writers Guild of America, East and the LA County Federation of Labor have endorsed the Occupy protests in NY, LA and elsewhere. The WGA East slammed a “system that has diverted capital (to) a tiny handful of people,” while the LA County Fed called out "corporate bullies, banks and investment firms."

Details: The Hollywood Reporter -- LA County Fed story; WGA East story.

__________

Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

New York SAG Election Becoming a Tinderbox

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:46:00 +0000

Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin endorse USAN, while OSU issues a bill of particulars and personal attacks fly in all directions. With both factions pro-merger, members wonder why they’re fighting.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

__________

Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

The Laurel Canyon Goats are Leaving!

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:49:00 +0000

There comes a point in everyone’s life when it’s time to gather one’s herd and leave the hustle and bustle of the big city. For Elaine and Michael Fresco, that time is now. And although the herd in question numbers only two, they’re much beloved – and they’re goats.

Yes, Laurel Canyon, long a home to musicians and other entertainment industry folk, is also the home of two Mini Mancha dairy goats, Snowflake and Pumpkin.

But not for long. “I like Laurel Canyon,” says Elaine, “but not LA.” So, after about thirty years of living at the urban-wilderness interface that’s characteristic of Laurel Canyon – including three years with the goats – the Frescos are moving to a rural area near Santa Cruz, and taking their petting zoo with them.

(Check back soon for photos of the goats.)

Animals of many types are common in the canyon, particularly coyotes, hawks, owls, rats, field mice, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, lizards and snakes – a veritable menagerie – as well as dogs and cats, both of the latter best kept indoors at night and away from the coyotes. No one wants to see a pet end up as a non-alpha link in the food chain.

Not that coyotes are always the enemy, though – at least, not in Laurel Canyon. A young one showed up a couple years ago, sick, hairless and at death’s door. Rather than letting the creature succumb, residents named her Rosie, set traps, and deployed “two animal control officers, a veterinarian and an off-duty cop who was armed with tranquilizer guns and wearing camouflage, with leaves and twigs poking out of his hat,” as the LA Times described it.

The cop heroically, or stoically, spent his off-duty hours sitting motionless in a lawn chair, dressed as a bush and waiting for Rosie to appear. It was ultimately a trap, though, not a tranq, that caught the coyote. She was sent off to Valley Wildlife Care (“dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife”), where they helped her to “bloom into the beautiful coyote that she was born to be.”

A coyote with a name is unusual, but wilder things sometimes appear here too, as if briefly transported from a Maurice Sendak dreamscape: a bobcat (sighted recently), a deer (a few years ago), and even a mountain lion (in the early 1990’s). All left as mysteriously as they arrived, wandering harmlessly back into the Laurel Canyon brushland – even the mountain lion, who slipped away just before the police arrived, and probably armed with more than tranquilizer guns.

Still, barnyard animals seem a different thing altogether – almost one-of-a-kind.

In fact, though, the Frescos are not alone in their love of goats. Not far from them lives a neighbor who also harbors a pair of the plant-munching animals. And that’s nothing compared to a resident who lived a ridge or two away – a stuntman who keeps, or kept, a goat, a sheep, a chicken and a peacock, as well as a monkey, of all things, in a two-story enclosure.

Then there was the case of the agonized apiarist: “My bees have swarmed away from their hive,” he or she wrote on a Laurel Canyon email list. “Has anyone seen them?” Somebody had. It took a Master Beekeeper to coax them back, but the story ended well.

Like the bees, the Frescos’ animals have a quasi-public profile. Elaine advertised a while back on the same email list for someone to do “goat chores.” The only pay offered was in-kind – “some fresh goat milk or cheese” – which may be why she found few takers. City folk don’t know what they’re missing.

Her 2009 email message also noted that the couple had “more milk and cheese than we can consume.” That was at a time when she was milking only one of the pair: “we will start milking the other in a few months,” she said – guaranteeing an even greater oversupply – “when her kids are big enough to wean.”

As if two adult animals weren’t enough? There’s really no choice in the matter: females have to be bred every year so they continue to give milk.

“I especially enjoy helping them birth,” said Elaine – previously a midwife by profession – “and I love the little kids. The saddest thing is finding homes for the babies.” That’s probably the hardest thing too. I imagine few city dwellers want goats, and even fewer neighborhoods would be hospitable.

That’s a pity though. The two Mini Manchas are quite charming. On a recent visit, Snowflake, pure white, was sociable, while Pumpkin – tawny brown, like pumpkin pie – was just slightly skittish. They come from San Diego; go figure.

I wondered why someone would decide to acquire goats in the city. Elaine’s initial motivation was to try her hand at making goat cheese – “fun to make, though time-consuming,” as it turns out – but now the little scamps are their own reward: “most of all, the goats are fun and I've grown very attached to them. I feel very peaceful when I milk or hang out with them.”

It does have to be “them,” Elaine told me. Goats are herd animals, so two adults is the minimum one should consider. Just so you know.

Mini Manchas, as the name implies, are conveniently small goats, which led one website to tout them as “simply the best choice for household milk production.” For grocery shoppers tired of crowded aisles and endless checkout lines, that’s advice worth remembering.

The Frescos’ companions are strictly residential, by the way, and shouldn’t be confused with municipal and non-profit goats employed to clear fire-prone brush by the likes of the cities of Los Angeles and Laguna Beach and the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve. Those ruminants are probably some McMansion-size breed in any case.

And do local authorities seek to maintain a monopoly on goats? It seems not. Asked whether the city had ever protested the Frescos’ unusual household – which also includes a dog and a cat, both of whom get on well with the goats – Elaine said that City Hall had never sent anyone to pay a call.

Good thing too. In addition to having the run of the Frescos’ hillside compound, the goats roam the neighborhood too. What would Traffic Enforcement think of that? During my visit, they went loping up the street past several parked cars and clambered onto the Frescos’ guesthouse roof, where they lay down amid the solar panels and relaxed in the hot Los Angeles sun.

In any case, the other goat owners down the street did have a run-in with the law after a local – some malcontent, no doubt – dropped a dime on them. Confounding the complainant, the city sent an animal control officer rather than a zoning inspector, and he turned out to be satisfied with the goats’ living conditions, and with the fact that there were only two in residence.

On the animal control maps, the neighborhood of single-family homes is apparently zoned G2 – no more than two goats per household.

Whether the zoning commission would agree is unknown. However, there is precedent for unusual land use regulations in Los Angeles: a couple years ago, in response to noise complaints, the City Council was forced to confront the issue of people keeping roosters that crow at all hours – and this in some of the city’s more urban neighborhoods. The Council’s response was a decisive compromise: by a 12-0 vote, the lawmakers decided that the limit would henceforth be one of the red-wattled birds per address.

“Roosters have their place in this city,” said Councilwoman (now Congresswoman) Janice Hahn – without explaining precisely what that place is – “but we think having more than one per property causes problems.” Yes indeed! The council nonetheless grandfathered existing multi-rooster households, leaving little but a moral victory for those aggrieved.

One is tempted to say “only in Los Angeles,” but the city’s fauna seem tame – literally – when compared to the 400-pound Bengal tiger found living in a New York high-rise apartment about eight years ago. Subduing the beast required the combined efforts of a police sniper, who rappelled down the side of the building and fired tranquilizer darts through an open window – this was received quite poorly by the tiger, who all but leapt out the window at the shaken officer – and of three Bronx Zoo employees, who entered the apartment with police a while later to ensure that the tiger was in fact fully sedated. A zoo curator verified this by poking the animal several times with a long stick, a procedure best reserved to professionals.

The big cat – whose name was “Ming” – turned out to be adequately drugged, so he was hustled down the elevator (just imagine it) and trundled away, shipped off to a conservancy in Ohio. A five-foot caiman crocodile was removed from the residence as well, and sent to Indiana. Unsurprisingly, the tiger got the lion’s share of the press during the whole affair. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for instance, was quoted as saying, “Clearly this tiger should not have been anyplace in New York City outside of a zoo.”

That might have been obvious to the mayor – and it applies equally well to the crocodile – but some New Yorkers seem to consider their city as wildlife friendly as, well, Los Angeles. Ming’s human neighbors, for instance, were reportedly not particularly alarmed by the presence of the tiger, let alone the toothy caiman or the hyenas, monkeys and snakes that they said had previously lived in the five-bedroom apartment.

And the Bengal in a bestiary wasn’t an isolated incident. Six months later, the city’s animal control agency seized six monkeys and a tarantula from a studio apartment where they lived – conveniently enough – with a veterinary assistant.

Helluva city, New York.

But back to Laurel Canyon and its more manageable farm animals. One wonders, have the canyon’s barnyards previously escaped notice?

Apparently so. If pigs could fly, Laurel Canyon porkers would do so under the radar. The literature about the neighborhood includes two histories, both of which focus largely on the legends who lived here in the area’s musical heyday, and a 2002 movie about troubled relationships between humans. It’s unlikely any of those address the issue of goats in the ’hood. And although there’s supposedly a character named Laurel Canyon in the recently-published novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, that story is set in post-apocalyptic Melbourne, not Los Angeles.

Equally unpromising as a chronicle of urban goat tending is a 1979 Steve Krantz potboiler called, simply, Laurel Canyon, the back cover of which describes the locale as a place where “it’s always hotter after the sun goes down” and where “depravity is its own reward.” This sounds less a tale of animal husbandry than of animalistic husbandry (and wifery).

Perhaps it’s just that times have changed since the days of free love: nowadays, “hotter after the sun goes down” might mean that the air conditioning gave out just before dusk. And at the Frescos’, I was rewarded with goat milk and cheese rather than depravity. (It was a welcome tradeoff.) The milk tasted much like cows’, but creamier, and the ash-encrusted cheese like cream cheese with a mild tang.

In any case, the Krantz book’s cover ends by warning breathlessly that “one beautiful, clever woman holds the power to bring the whole damned canyon down – on everybody!”

Even without plowing through 350 crumbling pages of an old paperback, it’s a safe bet that this novel has nothing to do with a woman who keeps goats. In real life, no one except fire marshals and building inspectors hold the power to bring the whole damned canyon down on anybody.

Not that Elaine Fresco has any interest in trying. On the contrary, in a recent canyon email, she said, “I am thankful for all my neighbors who have been so patient and tolerant of my goats. I will miss you all.”

And, no doubt, vice versa.

How to Settle the Viacom iPad Lawsuits Now

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 06:44:00 +0000

Back in April, Viacom and Time Warner Cable sued each other; then last month Viacom sued Cablevision. Interestingly, that came just a day after Viacom and TWC filed a standstill agreement so that they could negotiate without the pressure of ongoing court deadlines.

In both sets of suits, the issue is the same: under license and distribution agreements, can cable companies allow their customers to add another screen to their home viewing options: an iPad?

One way or another, the answer will ultimately be yes, because that's what paying customers want. With Viacom, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision mired in litigation over the issue, there is a possible path to resolving the disputes. It involves understanding just why these disputes arise in the first place, and what courts do when the cases don't settle.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

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Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Venture Capitalists and Rx Activists Speak Out Against the PROTECT IP Act

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:11:00 +0000

Opposition to the PROTECT IP Act – Hollywood-supported legislation intended to reduce content piracy and block counterfeit goods – is growing among the tech community, with a letter blasting the bill released Thursday by more than fifty venture capitalists from forty firms that have funded many top Internet companies.

Also speaking out in recent weeks against the law is a completely different constituency: groups concerned that the broadly-drafted act would endanger U.S. consumers’ access to lower-priced prescription drugs from Canadian and other foreign pharmacies.

In contrast, Hollywood trade associations and unions support the legislation, as do drug companies.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

__________

Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Read the Feed!

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:28:00 +0000

I won't be posting much directly to my blog for the time being. However, look on the right-hand column and you'll see a feed from the Labor page which I curate (and mostly write) on The Hollywood Reporter website.

You can also follow that feed directly at http://feeds.feedburner.com/HollywoodReporter-Labor or via Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/THR_Labor.

Thanks!

__________

Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

Broadway Musicians' Union Sounds Off About Recorded Music

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel) — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The fur – and feather boas – are flying in New York, where the Broadway musicians’ union is waging what the New York Times in a story Sunday calls “an unusually aggressive, political-style campaign” against the producers of the musical “Priscilla Queen of the Desert.” The dispute centers on the use of recorded music as a substitute for some of the 18 or 19 live musicians generally required under the union contract for Broadway musicals. And what's more, the fight echoes 1940’s disputes that helped result in modern-day residuals.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.

__________

Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available on Amazon (also in a Kindle edition). Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment law and digital media law. Check out my residuals chart there too. Go to the blog itself to subscribe via RSS or email. Or, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Forbes.com or Huffington Post articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.