Sports, media and entertainment law
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In the Danish society, regulations concerning media, entertainment, culture and advertising must balance between the freedom of expression and the need to respect other fundamental rights and freedoms, e.g the right of privacy, personality rights and property rights.
The legal area of media and entertainment deals with this balance in combination with the general Danish legislation and sets out the legal framework for practicing commercial activities within these industries.
Especially with regard to the sports industry in Denmark, this has developed remarkably within the last decade. The continuing increase of the professionalism, the size of transfer fees and the size of sponsorships calls for close attention to be paid to contracts and licenses. The increasing regulation from the federations, e.g. regarding doping, match fixing and disciplinary behaviour, also makes this legal area complex and sets out new requirements for the professionals within this industry.
Often seen legal issues to be handled by the commercial actors within this industry are the placements of rights, preparation of contracts and the unification of conflicting interests between e.g. freedom of expression, right of privacy, personality rights, intellectual property rights and economic and commercial interests.
An overall principle in this legal field is freedom of contract which allows the contracting parties to agree on how to organize their cooperation. However, certain regulations, market practices, and particularly within the sports industry, regulation from the relevant national and international federations, impose restrictions on the freedom of contract.
A wide range of market practice, case law and general legal principles have been developed, all taking the characteristics and special considerations of these activities into consideration, among these e.g. the social beneficial effects of sports allowing certain restrictions to be imposed on the actors in the industry not seen elsewhere. As a consequence of this diversity in regulation, acting and controlling this legal area calls for detailed knowledge of the industry in combination with legal knowledge in general.
The above does not constitute legal counselling and Moalem Weitemeyer Bendtsen does not warrant the accuracy of the information. With the above text, Moalem Weitemeyer Bendtsen has not assumed responsibility of any kind as a consequence of a reader’s use of the above.