Kelli L. Sager

Sager’s national entertainment and media intellectual property practice has seen her representing a wide range of clients, including the Motion Picture Association of America and an instructor at Chicago’s DePaul University. Her practice has grown in scope in part because of the internet’s reach.

That expansion does not just mean locations, but also new legal frontiers.

“It’s an international practice now. These days, everything is published internationally, so now my practice has grown with clients in other countries. It’s also different from what my practice was years ago. The tech moves very quickly, so there’s lots of interesting legal issues,” she said.

One of those issues was over the ownership of words said in a live interview, when Gene Kelly’s widow sued a media studies instructor at DePaul for expressing interest in editing a book of the actor’s interviews. Kelly v. Marshall et al., 2:16-cv-02960-PA-GJS (C.D. Cal., filed April 29, 2016).

“She hadn’t even written anything yet,” Sager said.

“It was an extremely aggressive lawsuit, and we never got to the merits because the judge threw it out on the grounds that there was no book. It’s really an interesting legal issue on who owns an interview. Their claim was that he owned it because he said it, and was “creating” the words,” she said.

Sager has also won suits claiming similarity to a number of popular movies like “The Purge,” “Get Out,”and 2010 Oscar Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker.”

In the case of “The Hurt Locker,” the plaintiff claimed the film was based on his life experiences. The case was dismissed largely on First Amendment issues. Sarver v. Chartier, 56986 (9th Cir. 2016).

“He said it was very close, and in the case everyone was assuming that was true. Our point was it didn’t matter. You can’t stop people from writing things about you that are truthful and don’t invade your privacy. The 9th Circuit applied the strictest test for constitutional protections under the First Amendment,” Sager said.

The infringement claims against “The Purge” were more tenuous yet.

“The plaintiff wrote a screenplay that he pitched, and he claimed that because the author of “The Purge” also has an agent at [United Talent Agency], somehow his screenplay must have gotten into [the defendant’s] hands,” she said.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion to strike a claim for breach of contract, but defendants don’t have to pay plaintiff damages or attorney fees. Benel v. Universal Pictures et al., 15-56045 (9th Cir. 2017).

Sager said that the internet, while a growth factor for her practice, also raises new legal issues, a need for constant technological updates, and a deluge of suits.

“We’re getting a lot of claims against publishers putting content online. It’s grown by leaps and bounds, and it can be hard sometimes because there’s so much content,” she said.

“There’s always something new that I have to be learning about. It keeps it very interesting. I’m constantly trying to figure out how the law fits new platforms. The law doesn’t really change; the platforms constantly do.”

— Andy Serbe