Robert C. Harris
Robert Harris is a founding partner of the firm and has been practicing entertainment and intellectual property law in New York City for three decades, representing clients in a broad range of entertainment media: counseling and handling transactional matters for theatrical producers and creative personnel on various Broadway and Off-Broadway productions; representing film studios with respect to the grant or acquisition of stage rights in various properties; and representing publishers, authors, and agents in the publishing and theatrical fields. Mr. Harris counsels clients regarding the protection, licensing, acquisition, use and misuse of content in a broad range of contexts and media and has substantial experience in copyright and trademark law, including clearance, prosecution and licensing, and advises clients regarding ownership of copyright, licensing of copyrights, and analysis of rights under copyright in both traditional media and new media. In the area of trademarks, Mr. Harris advises clients regarding the selection and use of trademarks, service marks, and Internet domain names, in prosecuting trademark applications, and in negotiating and drafting licensing agreements. He also ahas extensive experience negotiating and drafting programming and network affiliation agreements for cable television. He also offers counsel in the areas of the right of publicity, the right of privacy and defamation.
Mr. Harris has represented the heirs of both Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald with respect to trademark prosecution and merchandise licensing, and has supervised copyright and trademark enforcement and prosecution for a number of properties, including Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Miss Saigon. He has acted as production counsel or counsel to talent on numerous acclaimed Broadway productions including Beauty and the Beast, Crazy for You, Chicago, Cabaret, Monty Python's Spamalot, Spring Awakening, The History Boys, Frost/Nixon, August: Osage County, Hair and American Idiot. His renowned writer clients in various media include John Irving, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Dorothy Fields, Paddy Chayefsky and William Goldman, as well as other accomplished fiction and non-fiction authors. Mr. Harris counsels clients in independent film and television production and also has extensive experience representing advertisers of children's products.
Mr. Harris is a graduate of New York University School of Law, former Chairman of the Entertainment Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a member of the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, and a member of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. For a decade he served as special professor at Hofstra University School of Law, where he taught entertainment law; has been a lecturer for PLI; and has appeared as a guest commentator on Court TV. Together with his partner, Scott Lazarus, Mr. Harris authored the chapter entitled "Legal Aspects of Producing in the Commercial Theater" in "Entertainment Law, Third Edition," published by the New York State Bar Association (2004). Under his auspices as Chairman of the Entertainment Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the committee published "Music Rights Primer" (2003), explaining music and sound recording rights.