Areas of Expertise

Music Publishing

Sukin Colton Law Association represents songwriters, estates, and music publishers in every aspect of their transactional business, copyright, and trademark issues in the United States and globally. SCLA has a unique knowledge of statutory and contractual termination law throughout the world. It is generally regarded as the firm for music publishing issues.

In addition to the firm's decades of legal practice, Doug Colton served as president of a successful independent publishing company.

Recording Industry

SCLA counsels clients in every sort of transaction affecting recorded music, domestically and globally. Bolstering their decades of legal practice in this area, Michael Sukin also served in Business Affairs at CBS (now Sony) Records under the legendary Clive Davis, at that time the largest and most successful record company in the world.

Catalog Sales

Sukin Colton Law Association's principals have been involved in significant sales of music publishing and recorded rights over the last 30-plus years, representing buyers, sellers, and financing entities. SCLA has represented clients in the sales of EMI, Acuff-Rose/Opryland Music, Boosey & Hawkes, Bug Music, Windswept Music, Complete Music, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Shapiro Bernstein, Universal Music, and many world-famous writer and artist catalogs. The firm handled some of the largest sales in music publishing and recorded music, including representing a bidder for EMI and acting for the Universal Music Group in its acquisition of Bertelsmann/BMG Music ($2.2 billion) and Univision Records (the world’s largest Latin record company).

SCLA is one of few firms with global expertise in this area. It has the capability to lead and handle transactions in the English, French, and Spanish languages.

Estates' and Heirs' Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Management

Sukin Colton Law Association has protected and managed the rights of large estates, trusts, foundations and individual heirs, including those of Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, George Gershwin, Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, Yip Harburg, Comden and Green, Jule Styne, Charles Aznavour and many others. SCLA has decades of experience handling all related issues including music publishing; recordings; musical theatre; film; artist and songwriter rights; trademarks; rights of publicity and name and likeness; neighboring and related rights; union rights; audit rights; moral rights and all other rights throughout the world.

Collective Management Organizations (CMOs)

Our firm has worked with collecting societies and trade organizations in Eastern and Western Europe, the United States and the Far East, having represented many of these CMOs: ASCAP (representation), BMI (representation), SESAC (representation), Global Music Rights, the Performing Rights Society (UK), PPL-UK, British Music Rights, SACEM (France-representation), GEMA (Germany), SGAE (Spain-representation), STIM (Sweden), National Music Publishers Associations (Japan, UK, Germany), GESAC (Brussels), The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP, Brussels), IFPI (London-Brussels), JASRAC (Japan), SAMRO (South Africa), ZAIKS (Poland), and SAZAS (Slovenia). 

Musical Theatre

We represent writers and other rightsholders in musical theatre in the United States and abroad, a practice that began with representation of the creators of Les Miserables at the inception of that saga. We have acted for the Elvis Presley Estate, the George Gershwin Family Trust, Charles Aznavour, the Estates of Jule Styne, Comden and Green, Yip Harburg, Harry Warren, and the Heyward Trust, amongst others.

Rights of Publicity Name and Likeness / Trademarks

With clients including the Aretha Franklin Estate, Elvis Presley Estate, and Elvis Presley Enterprises, SCLA has consulted for over three decades in groundbreaking work in the areas of protection of image and likeness rights and related trademark areas.

Legislative Activities

Sukin Colton Law Association has spearheaded the initiation, promotion, and enhancement of copyright legislation in the United States, the European Union, and Japan.

We initiated the movement to extend the term of copyright in the United States (the Sonny Bono Copyright Act) and were involved in a leadership role with every detail through the entire legislative process. Michael Sukin was a prime mover for implementation of extended term protection in Japan and the European Union, a process which took over 13 years and concluded with use of our draft of key elements in the European Union’s current Term Directive.

Language

SCLA has seamlessly led transactions in English, French, and Spanish.