Contracts and Copyright 101 for the Film Industry

WALA Presents: Contracts and Copyright 101 for the Film Industry: Understanding Your Rights and Creative Ownership

Join WALA attorneys for a macro level discussion about contracts, copyright, fair use, work for hire, licensing, registration, releases, trademarks, and other legal topics of importance for creative professionals.

Speaking Attorneys:
Professor Lolita Darden, Darden Betts, WALA Education Committee
Samantha Levin, Esq., WALA Education Committee
Loletta (Lolita) Darden: Ms. Darden is a SAG-AFTRA actor, content creator, published author and a registered patent attorney. Ms. Darden’s legal work includes all aspects of IP creation, exploitation, and protection, including patent, trademark, and copyright matters. She has participated in several legal precedent setting patent and trademark cases, as well as copyright cases that have led to positive outcomes from a social justice perspective.

Currently, Ms. Darden is general counsel on the feature film production, Deciding Danny. She is also a founding partner of Darden Betts Strategic Intellectual Property Counselors, a boutique IP law firm focusing on trademark, patent, copyright, and entertainment law. Ms. Darden is also a Visiting Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the IP and Technology Law Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, which provides IP legal services to clients from communities that have been historically and intentionally excluded from access to economic opportunity.

Prior to GW Law, Ms. Darden was a partner at the law firm of Sachnoff & Weaver, where she led the patent prosecution department, assisted with IP litigation, and represented small and emerging businesses in asserting and protecting their IP rights. Prior to joining Sachnoff & Weaver, Ms. Darden was Chief IP Counsel for a small consumer products company, where she managed the company's IP prosecution and litigation portfolios and pioneered a strategy for strategically using and creating IP assets that enhanced the company's competitive strength.

Samantha Levin is a corporate associate attorney at Rees Broome, PC, in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Select internship and clerkship experience includes the International Game Developers Association Foundation, the Entertainment Software Association, the National Music Publishers’ Association, the United States Copyright Office, the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the Copyright Alliance, and as a video game and entertainment law attorney.

Samantha’s work includes research for a Google v. Oracle Supreme Court amicus brief, editing the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Music Law and Policy, and providing research and editing support for Senate hearing testimony and various law journal articles. Samantha authored a law review article which received Second Prize in the 2020 Berkeley Technology Law Journal Student Writing Competition and was subsequently published by the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology. In addition to her legal work, Samantha is a streamer, maker, and content creator.

Samantha earned her J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law, and her B.A. in economics and B.A. in biology from Emory University.

Photos by Cytonn Photography and Chris Murray on Unsplash

Host or Publisher DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF)