Sports Law encompasses a multitude areas of law brought together in unique ways. Issues such as antitrust, contracts, and torts are quite common. Sports Law can be roughly divided into the areas of amateur, professional, and international sports. The distinction between a professional and amateur athlete is somewhat tenuous. So-called “amateur” student/athletes at universities often receive scholarships and other forms of compensation. Also, keep in mind that even though an athlete may be defined as an amateur by one organization, he or she may not be an amateur according to another. Of course, this leads to even more confusion. A simplistic, yet useful definition is that amateur athletes participate in sports as an avocation while professional athletes are involved in sports as a vocation.

Entertainment law is a term for a mix of more traditional categories of law with a focus on providing legal services to the entertainment industry. The principal areas of Entertainment Law overlap substantially with the will-known and conventional field of intellectual property law. But generally speaking the practice of entertainment law often involves questions of employment law, labor law immigration, securities law, security interests, agency, intellectual property (especially trademarks, copyright and the co-called “right of publicity”), and insurance law. Much of the work of an entertainment law practice transaction based, i.e. drafting contracts, negotiation and mediation. Some situations may lead to litigation or arbitration.

Entertainment law is generally sub-divided into the following areas related to the types of activities that have their own specific trade unions, production techniques, rules, customs, case law, and negotiation strategies:

• Film: covering option agreements, finance, chain of title issues, talent agreements (scriptwriters, film directors, actors, composers, set designers), production and post production and trade union issues, distribution issues, motion picture industry negotiations distribution, and general intellectual property issues relating to copyright and, to a lesser extent, trademarks;
• Music: including talent agreements (musicians, composers) producer agreements, and synchronization rights, music industry negotiation and general intellectual property issues relating to copyright;
• Television and Radio including broadcast licensing and regulatory issues, mechanical licenses;
• Theatre: including rental agreements and co-production agreements, and other performance oriented legal issues;
• Multimedia, including software licensing issues, video game development and production;
• Publishing and print media issues, including advertising, models, author agreements and other copyright related issues;
• Visual arts and design including fine arts, issues of consignment of artworks t art dealers, moral rights of sculptors regarding works in public places; and industrial design, issues related to the protection of graphic design elements in products.