We provide a wide range of legal services to clients active in the media and entertainment industries, including film production and music production, film and video distribution, publishing companies, and digital content distribution, as well as to clients entering or investing in these industries. The support we provide in these areas includes contract drafting and negotiations, as well as legal support for new business schemes.
In recent years, entertainment content, including movies, music, broadcasting, publishing, animation, games, video streaming and events, has undergone major transformation in response to accelerating technological innovation and social change. These industries are no longer contained within a single country but continue to develop around the world, and the legal issues arising in relation to the production and trading of entertainment content are becoming increasingly complex. In addition, entertainment content trading is subject to regulations and transactions that are unique to the industry and often give rise to industry-specific legal issues that are different from other businesses. Our firm has many years of experience in providing assistance with intellectual property rights, such as copyrights, trademarks, and the right of publicity. In recent years, we have also been providing legal advice in new fields, such as AI, NFT and Metaverse, and we are able to provide a wide range of legal services, including contract drafting and negotiation, as well as the legal review of new business schemes. At our firm, our carefully selected attorneys and patent attorneys will utilize their extensive practical experience to sort out increasingly complex legal issues and industry-specific legal issues, taking into account industry-specific customs. In addition, when a client's business extends outside of Japan, we support the client by making full use of our global network.
Due to the rapid evolution of information technology and the rapid development of communication equipment infrastructure, telecommunications carriers, the broadcasting industry, and various media industries have undergone structural transformation and are now facing new challenges. As a result, businesses are being required to properly comply with increasingly complex laws and regulations. In particular, in recent years, as awareness of personal information and data protection and the protection of young people has increased, there have been many cases where businesses have suffered significant damage to their reputations due to violations of regulations. Amid this trend, discussions and legislation on regulating social media have been progressing worldwide in recent years, and businesses are being asked to be flexible in responding to ever-fluctuating legal regulations. Our firm provides comprehensive services relating to media regulations on an ongoing basis, leveraging our extensive practical experience in major laws and regulations, such as the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, and the Copyright Act, as well as our extensive knowledge of data regulations in a variety of countries and our global network. We not only provide legal review of new business schemes, but also have extensive experience in dealing with defamation and privacy violations, which are inevitable in the media industry, as well as dealing with the authorities, handling litigation, and crisis management response, and therefore are able to provide practical solutions according to the needs of our clients.