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Casey Chisick

Casey Chisick is a partner in the firm’s Business Law Group and co-leader of the Fashion Industry Practice Group.

Having worked as a law professor, a jazz promoter and a musician – and even as artistic director of an internationally-renowned folk dance company – Casey offers his clients a rare combination of recognized expertise in copyright and other intellectual property matters and first-hand experience in the business of entertainment. His diverse practice spans a number of related areas, including intellectual property, entertainment law, communications, advertising and marketing and fashion and apparel. Casey provides transactional advice and litigation counsel to clients in the film, television, music, broadcasting, theatre, advertising, literary, visual arts, new media and fashion industries, as well as to general business clients with intellectual property needs. He also consults on negotiation strategy for businesses of all kinds.

Casey was the gold medalist in law at the University of Manitoba, earned a Masters of Law as a Fulbright and Frank Knox scholar at Harvard Law School, and served as law clerk to The Hon. Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. He began his professional career as a law professor, first at the University of Manitoba and later at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he taught copyright, intellectual property, corporate law, negotiation and dispute resolution to hundreds of students and was recognized by National magazine as a leader in introducing technology to the Canadian law school classroom. Through numerous writing and speaking engagements in Canada and internationally, Casey became, and remains, one of Canada’s best-known authorities on digital copyright issues. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the University of Toronto and is a frequent commentator on copyright and entertainment issues for CBC television and radio.

Casey is recognized as a leading practitioner by Chambers Global, PLC Which Lawyer?, the Legal Media Group Guide to the World's Leading Technology, Media & Telecommunications Lawyers and LawDay and holds a BV Distinguished™ rating from Martindale-Hubbell. Some of his notable cases, transactions and engagements include:

• Counsel to the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) and CMRRA-SODRAC Inc. (CSI) in the historic CSI Online Music Services Tariff proceeding before the Copyright Board of Canada, the first proceeding anywhere in the world to establish the royalties payable to songwriters and music publishers for the right to reproduce songs for distribution via the Internet
• Counsel to CMRRA and SODRAC in an Ontario class action involving royalties due and unpaid by record labels for the reproduction of songs on CDs and other physical media
• Counsel to Canwest Media, Canwest Publishing and the National Post in a host of transactional and litigation matters
• Executive Producer of Sophie Milman’s Juno Award-winning 2007 album, Make Someone Happy, as well as her acclaimed 2009 album, Take Love Easy, and her 2008 concert DVD, Live in Montreal
• Counsel to CW Media Inc. in the divestiture of its interest in The Score
• Counsel to Jennifer Meyer Inc., a leading California-based jewelry designer, in a dispute over the distribution of infringing knock-offs of its unique products
• Counsel to EMI Music Publishing in litigation involving the ownership of reversionary and substituted copyright in musical works
• Counsel to Setanta Sports North America Inc. in a successful motion for an injunction to enforce the terms of a broadcast licence for English Premier League soccer
• Counsel to CMRRA-SODRAC Inc. in the judicial review of SOCAN Tariff 22 before the Federal Court of Appeal
• Counsel to a Vancouver-based television producer in the defence of allegations involving the defamation and appropriation of personality of a well-known Canadian athlete
• Counsel to a Canadian branding agent in licensing transactions involving an A-list Hollywood celebrity and a leading web property
• Counsel to the creator of a successful television program in an action for infringement of the creator’s moral rights
• Counsel to leading television and radio personalities, and to senior executives in the concert and film distribution industries, with respect to the negotiation of employment agreements
• Counsel to major Canadian recording artists and songwriters in the negotiation of recording, management and publishing agreements
• Counsel to film and TV production companies in the development, financing, production and distribution of TV series, specials, and feature films
• Advising on the high-profile Concert for Toronto in June 2003
• Chief outside counsel to start-up companies in fields as diverse as IT outsourcing, interactive advertising, and functional genomics

Casey is active in the legal community, currently serving as co-chair of the biennial Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) Entertainment, Media & Advertising Law Symposium (generally recognized as Canada’s top continuing legal education program for entertainment lawyers) and a member of the Copyright-Technical Committee of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. He has also served on the executive of the Ontario Bar Association (Entertainment, Media & Communications Section) and the steering committee of the Entertainment Professionals Network, and is an active member of a number of professional associations, including ALAI Canada, the Copyright Society of the USA and the ABA Entertainment & Sports Law Forum.

An in-demand speaker at legal and business events, Casey has appeared at a host of conferences and seminars produced by organizations including:

• Canadian Music Week
• North by Northeast
• Copyright Society of the USA
• Beverly Hills Bar Association
• Association of Corporate Counsel – ACC Ontario
• Law Society of Upper Canada
• Canadian Newspaper Association
• Ryerson University (Ethics at Ryerson)
• National Screen Institute (NSI FilmExchange)
• The Canadian Institute
• InSight Information
• University of Toronto Technology and IP Group
• Osgoode Hall Entertainment & Sports Law Association
• Playback magazine
• International Association of Jazz Education (IAJE)

Casey's experience on the legal and academic stages has been complemented by stage work of a very different kind. At various times, he has served as the founding executive producer and host of Winnipeg’s Asper Foundation Jazz Performances; principal of Case Closed Productions, a concert and event promotion company; artistic director of the Chai Folk Ensemble, North America’s oldest and largest Jewish folk dance company; president of the Jazz Winnipeg Festival; vice-president of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre; and a director and officer of the Toronto Jazz Festival. Currently, he is proud to serve as outside counsel to the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

Education

LL.B. (Gold Medal), University of Manitoba
LL.M., Harvard Law School (Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholarship, Frank Knox Memorial Scholarship, SSHRC Research Scholarship)

Achievements

• The 2010 Legal Media Group Guide to the World's Leading Technology, Media & Telecommunications Lawyers (Media)
• Chambers Global 2010 (Intellectual Property)
• LawDay Leading Lawyers 2009 (Entertainment)
• PLC Which Lawyer? 2009/2010 (Media)
• Martindale-Hubbell, BV Distinguished™ rating

Call to the bar

Ontario
Manitoba

Associations

• ALAI Canada
• Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television
• American Bar Association (Entertainment, Dispute Resolution, and Intellectual Property Sections)
• Beverly Hills Bar Association
• Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS)
• Canadian Association of Law Teachers
• Canadian Bar Association
• Canadian Film and Television Producers’ Association (CFTPA)
• Copyright Society of the USA (CSUSA)
• Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC)
• International Trademarks Association (INTA)
• New York State Bar Association
• Ontario Bar Association

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