Browse the articles I've written on entertainment and technology.

Articles

Journalism Portfolios

Trademarking Movie Titles

The courts and the Trademark Office say you can't trademark a movie title. I say you can. See how in Mark My Words, which was selected as a cover article by Los Angeles Lawyer magazine.

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

My law review article Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown: Why Content’s Kingdom is Slipping Away discusses the struggle between content and technology. If you'd like a shorter take, read my HuffPo post "Is Content Worthless?"

Puck Articles 

I was a contributing writer at Puck from October 2022 to December 2023, analyzing entertainment labor issues.

Hollywood Reporter Articles

I wrote over 1,400 articles in The Hollywood Reporter on entertainment labor issues (particularly relating to AFTRA, the Directors Guild (DGA), IATSE, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild (WGA)) and other topics: entertainment law, high profile legal cases, business, technology and more.

Other Articles

I've written a news article, an Op-Ed piece (and another) and a book review for the Los Angeles Times, about a dozen articles for the Daily Journal, a piece in Variety, an article for Campaigns & Elections, a piece for Billboard and three Op-Eds for the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Newsletter / Blogs

I have a Substack newsletter at jhandel.news that deals with residuals, entertainment law, poetry&politics, gadget reviews and other flights of fancy. Sign up! I used to blog on the Huffington Post on various subjects: gadget reviews, politics, entertainment labor or other topics. I also blog occasionally on the News page on this site, and on my own blog (and for several years blogged there heavily), which is syndicated to IMDb.com. I also wrote on Medium from time to time.

Academic Articles

You can check out my Google Scholar and SSRN pages.

Reverse Chronological List of Articles

Puck articles (October 2022-pres.).

Film school’s ties with Matthew Modine face scrutiny in heated SAG-AFTRA election, Los Angeles Times (August 21, 2019).

Hollywood writers need their guild and agents to get on the same page, Los Angeles Times (March 13, 2019).

Making for the Exit: Poli-Tech Firms are Waiting on a Lucrative, Silicon Valley-Style Exit that Could Change the Industry Forever, Campaigns & Elections (July 2014).

Over 1,400 articles for The Hollywood Reporter (July 2010 to Aug. 2020; 2023).

Book Review, Los Angeles Times (October 23, 2009) (review of William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars); "There's a Lot of Residual Pain Ahead if Current System Isn't Remedied," Hollywood Reporter (July 23, 2009); "SAG Contract is Ratified, but Drama is Likely to Return Quickly," Daily Journal (June 30, 2009); "New-Media Distribution Giving Hollywood a Makeover," Los Angeles Business Journal (June 15, 2009); "Why the Film Biz Still has Far to Go," Variety.com (June 11, 2009); "SAG Contract Ratified; Now What?," 15 Century City Lawyer no. 15 (June 2009); "The Struggle Over Content and Technology Will Define Hollywood's Future," Daily Journal (June 9, 2009); "Why Content's Kingdom is Slipping Away," TVWeek.com (June 9, 2009); "SAG's Strange Voyage," 15 Century City Lawyer no. 14 (May 2009); “Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown: Why Content’s Kingdom is Slipping Away,” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law (Spring 2009, v. 11, no. 3, p. 597); “Actors Strike a Deal, but Is a New Compensation System on the Horizon?,” Daily Journal (April 7, 2009); “Economy, New Media Are Conspiring to Make Things Tough on Actors,” Daily Journal (March 24, 2009).

"Hollywood Under Siege," American Bar Association Entertainment and Sports Lawyer, vol. 24, no. 3 (Fall 2008) (excerpted in "Hollywood Under Siege," Daily Journal (October 22, 2008)); "Actors' Labor Plan in Need of a Rewrite," Los Angeles Business Journal (September 15, 2008); “Curtain Call,” Daily Journal (June 20, 2008); “With One Union Already Done, SAG Auditions for an Actors Deal,” Daily Journal (June 4, 2008); “No Time for Drama In Contract Talks For Studios, Actors,” Los Angeles Business Journal (May 26, 2008); “Entertainment Industry Could Be Headed for a Scary Sequel,” Daily Journal (May 15, 2008); “To Look and Sound Great On Air, Lawyers Should Be Prepared,” Daily Journal (April 8, 2008); “Fete the Press: Lawyers, Make the Most of Media Interactions,” Daily Journal (April 1, 2008); “Mark My Words,” Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine (April 2008); “Write On,” Daily Journal (March 10, 2008); "DGA as peacemaker: If the directors cut the right deal, it could save Hollywood from civil war," Los Angeles Times (January 16, 2008) (Op-Ed piece).

Blogger, Huffington Post (2007–2018); author, Digital Media Law blog (2007-2014); author, Script Magazine column, "Ask the Lawyer" (January 2007-October 2008); "Ask Super Lawyers," Los Angeles Magazine (February 2007); "Attorneys," chapter of Final Draft Presents Ask the Pros: Screenwriting (May 2004) (primary author); "When Worlds Collide—'Take Me to Your Lawyer'?" (in UCLA Extension Entertainment Studies, Fall 2002); "AFMA [now IFTA] International Censorship Rider: Some Suggested Revisions," American Film Marketing Association (February 1994) (co-author) (in The AFMA Model International Licensing Agreements, 2d ed.).

"Machine Readable Passports," Nexus: The Journal for Computer Users in the Public Interest Community (review) (September/October 1984); The MSG Frame System, BBN Labs report (April 1984); Zmail Concepts and Techniques, Symbolics reference manual 990096 (January 1983) (co-author); "The New Literacy: Programming Languages as Language," BYTE (March 1981); Short review of Godel, Escher, Bach, in The Knight Letter (newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America) (March 1981); An English Parser, IBM Systems Research Institute Technical Report TR-73-005 (January 1980). 

Academic Citations

My articles and books have been reviewed and repeatedly cited:

• Entertainment Labor: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography was reviewed:

  • on the American Association of Law Libraries’ Spectrum Blog (Ingrid Mattson, July 23, 2014) and

  • in 39 Labor Studies Journal 323 (Sheree Gregory, December 2014).

  • See quotes from the reviews here.

• The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis was:

• cited in Michelle Carolyn, Davis Charles H., Hardy Ann L., Hight Craig, Unexpected Controversies Cast a Shadow Over Middle-Earth, in: Fans, Blockbusterisation, and the Transformation of Cinematic Desire 83-108, at 88, 89, 91, 95, 102 (Palgrave Macmillan, London 2017), https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-59616-1_4.

• cited in Carol Jess, ‘The Hobbit Dispute’: Organizing Through Transnational Alliances, 5(2) Global Labour J. 196-211, at 206 (2014).

• cited in Carolyn Michelle, Ann L. Hardy, Charles H. Davis & Craig Hight, An Unexpected Controversy in Middle-Earth: Audience Encounters with the ‘Dark Side’ of Transnational Film Production, Transnational Cinemas 1-18, at 3, 4, 5 & 11 (2014).

• discussed in Bryce Edwards: Political Round-Up: The Politics of The Hobbit, NZ Herald (11/27/2012) and Book Slams NZ Over Hobbit Union Crisis, NZ Newswire (11/26/2012).

• My Hollywood Reporter coverage of the New Zealand Hobbit unionization dispute was quoted twice during debate in the New Zealand Parliament. See 668 Hansard 14954 & 14993-94 (Oct. 28, 2010). For video, see https://youtu.be/LWpsZSQ0jLc?t=201 and
  https://youtu.be/B-OZ23KGCKY?t=218.

• Hollywood on Strike! was cited in:

  • Catherine L. Fisk, The Writer's Share, 50 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 621, 623 & nn. 12, 15 (2017).

  • Hal Vogel, Entertainment Industry Economics (9th ed. 2015).

  • Kate Fortmueller, The SAG–AFTRA Merger: Union Convergence in a Changing Media Landscape, 17(3) Television & New Media 212-227 (2015).

  • Ryan P. Fuller & Ronald E. Rice, Lights, Camera, Conflict: Newspaper Framing of the 2008 Screen Actors Guild Negotiations, 91(2) Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 326–343 (2014).

  • Writers and Organized Labor in Robert E. Weir, Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia (2013) (listed as suggested reading).

• No More Sounds of Silence on the Musical Composition Front was cited in Robert Alan Brookey, Hollywood Gamers: Digital Convergence in the Film and Video Game Industries 16, 143 n. 51-52 (2010).

• Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown: Why Content’s Kingdom is Slipping Away was reprinted in Program Syllabus, USC Gould School of Law - Beverly Hills Bar Association, 2014 Institute on Entertainment Law and Business; and cited in:

  • Hal Vogel, Entertainment Industry Economics (9th ed. 2015).

  • Caitlin Kowalke, How Spotify Killed the Radio Star: An Analysis on How the Songwriter Equity Act Could Aid the Current Online Music Distribution Market in Failing Artists, 6 Cybaris 193, 231 n. 149 (2015).

  • Phil Portantino, Finding the Treasure Without Walking the Plank 1: The Critical Need for Properly Tailored Anti-Piracy Laws, 11 Rutgers J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 664, 675 n.51, 676 nn. 57, 60, 684 n.102 (2014).

  • Jennifer Holt, Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980-1996 at 180 n.15 (2011).

  • Catherine L. Fisk, The Role of Private Intellectual Property Rights in Markets for Labor and Ideas: Screen Credit and the Writers Guild of America, 1938-2000, 32 Berk. J. Employ. & Lab. L. 215, 277 n.241 (2011).

  • Jessica Wang, A Brave New Step: Why the Music Industry Should Follow the Hulu Model, 51 Idea 511, 533 n.118 (2011)

  • Priti Trivedi, Writing the Wrong: What the E-Book Industry Can Learn from Digital Music's Mistakes with DRM, 18 J.L. & Pol'y 925, 940 n.98, 955 n.197, 956 nn. 200, 201 (2010).

  • Lauren A. Rieders, Old Principles, New Technology, and the Future of Notice in Newspapers, 38 Hofstra L. Rev. 1009, 1029 n.144 (2010).

  • Zahr Said, Embedded Advertising and the Venture Consumer, 89 N.C. L. Rev. 99 (2010), http://nclawreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Said.wptd.pdf, at 114 n. 62.

  • Jon M. Garon, Content, Control and the Socially Networked Film, The University of Louisville 2nd Ann. Conf. on Innovation and Communication Law (August 21-22, 2009), http://ssrn.com/abstract=1480160, at 13n.108; 48 U. Louisville L. Rev. 771 (2010).

• Hollywood Under Siege and my blog were cited in:

  • Lisa Lapan, Network Television and the Digital Threat, 16 UCLA Entert. L. Rev. 343, 346, 359, 389-90 (2009).

  • Christian L. Castle and Amy E. Mitchell, What's Wrong with ISP Music Licensing, 26 Ent. & Sports L. 4 (2008).

• Hollywood Under Siege was cited in:

  • Gerd Leonhard, Friction is Fiction: The Future of Content, Media & Business (2010).

  • Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section, State Bar of Cal., Cal. State Antitrust & Unfair Compet. L. § 10.02(C) n.19 (Cheryl Lee Johnson, ed.) (2010).

  • Kevin C. Hormann, Comment, The Death of the DMCA? How Viacom v. Youtube May Define the Future of Digital Content, 46 Houston L. Rev. 1345, 1346 nn. 4, 6, 1374 nn. 189, 190 (2009).

• Is Content Worthless? was:

  • discussed in Federico Telmo, Modelos de negocios para la prensa digital (Universidad de San Andres, 2012).

  • discussed in Malin Ekman, Tidningskrisen i USA ”Where are we going?” (Stockholms Universitet, 2011).

  • cited in 張倍齊,視頻網站及其著作權問題研究 (Research on Copyright Issues of Internet Video Websites) (2011), http://nccur.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/55044.

  • discussed in the book Free: The Future of a Radical Price 140-142 (2009), by Chris Anderson, the then-editor of Wired.

  • cited in Michael S. Sawyer, Filters, Fair Use, and Feedback: User-Generated Content Principles and the DMCA, 24 Berk. Tech. L. J. 363, 364 n. 3 (2009).

  • cited in Seth A. Metsch, Setting the Stage: New Technologies and New Entertainment Challenges, 943 PLI/Pat 11 (Practising Law Institute, Sept. 2008).

• Reflections on Residuals: Go Forth and Multiply, The Huffington Post (11/23/07) was cited in Miranda Banks and Ellen Seiter, Spoilers at the Digital Utopia Party: The WGA and Students Now, 7.04 FlowTV (12/7/2007).

• Memo to a client regarding a film library acquisition was cited favorably in Santa Monica Pictures, LLC v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2005-104 (United States Tax Court 2005), at 67-69.

• Howard M. Frumes and Jonathan Handel, Commentary on the IFTA International Censorship Rider was:

  • reprinted in Donald E. Biederman Entertainment & Media Law Institute and Beverly Hills Bar Ass'n, Entertainment Without Borders: Practicing Entertainment Law in a Global Environment, 30, 31- 32 (Nov. 1, 2005) (program materials).

  • cited in Robert Lind, et al., 1 Entertainment Law 3d: Legal Concepts and Business Practices § 3:44.

  • cited in Thomas D. Selz, Entertainment Law 3d at 3-110.