Ryan Dibble
Law
Musician? Film Marker? Music Supervisor? Video Game Designer? Creative?
Our Entertainment Law services can help you meet your goals
Protecting Your Creative Assets in Media & Entertainment
In the entertainment industry, your intellectual property is your most valuable currency. Whether you are producing a feature film, developing the next hit indie video game, or composing tracks for commercial media, the legal foundation you build determines the success and longevity of your work.
A missed clearance, a vague split sheet, or a poorly negotiated publishing deal can halt a project in its tracks or strip you of your rightful royalties. We provide strategic, comprehensive legal representation for musicians, filmmakers, and game developers, ensuring your creative vision is protected from concept to distribution.
Choose an area to learn more:
Music Production & Licensing
The modern music industry moves fast, and the legal frameworks surrounding digital distribution, sampling, and placement are highly complex. We help artists, producers, and composers protect their work and maximize their revenue.
Common Problems We Solve:
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Sync Licensing Roadblocks: Missed opportunities in film, TV, or commercials due to stalled negotiations, fractured copyright ownership, or disagreements over master and publishing rights. We can also recommend a good music supervisor from our network to help with your music selection for your project
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Publishing, Split, or Other Disputes: Conflicts arising from informal agreements in the studio, leading to contested songwriting credits, unpaid royalties, and frozen catalog revenues.
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Unauthorized Sampling & Derivative Works: Defending against copyright infringement claims over uncleared samples, or taking action against third parties who use your original compositions without permission.
Our Music Legal Services:
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Sync & Master Use Licenses: Negotiating and drafting robust synchronization agreements to place your music in films, television shows, and video games while retaining your long-term rights. We an work with directors or music supervisors to get the sync licenses in place. We represent both licensors and licensees on either side of the deal.
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Producer & Composer Agreements: Structuring work-for-hire, royalty, and co-publishing agreements that clearly define ownership and revenue splits before the track is released. Representation from either the composer or director's position.
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IP Registration & Catalog Management: Ensuring your copyrights are properly registered and your administrative framework is set up to capture performance and mechanical royalties globally.
Film and TV Production
A successful production requires navigating a minefield of contracts, liabilities, and intellectual property rights. We act as your legal anchor, allowing you to focus on the screen.
Common Problems We Solve:
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Chain of Title Failures: Gaps in ownership documentation for scripts, underlying rights, or specific assets that cause distributors to walk away from a finished project.
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Uncleared Intellectual Property: The costly nightmare of having to edit, reshoot, or scrap scenes because a piece of art, a brand logo, or a background song was not legally cleared for use.
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Financing & Distribution: Ambiguous investor agreements or poorly worded distribution contracts that lead to budget freezes, union penalties, or halted production or distribution.
On our Film and TV Services:
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Comprehensive Production Counsel: Serving as your dedicated legal team from pre-production through post. We handle the daily legal logistics, including location releases, crew agreements, and vendor contracts.
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IP Clearance & Risk Assessment: Conducting rigorous script and asset reviews to identify and clear third-party copyrights, trademarks, and personal rights of publicity before the cameras roll.
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Option Agreements & Distribution Deals: Negotiating option-purchase agreements for underlying IP, and securing favorable terms with studios, streaming platforms, and international distributors.
Video Game Development & Publishing
Game development sits at the complex intersection of software engineering, visual art, and interactive storytelling. The legal strategy must be just as multifaceted to protect the final product.
Common Problems We Solve:
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Developer-Publisher Conflicts: Imbalanced publishing agreements that strip independent studios of their IP rights, enforce unrealistic milestone deliverables, or obscure royalty calculations.
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Privacy & Monetization Compliance: Regulatory backlash from improperly handling user data (such as GDPR or COPPA violations) or failing to comply with emerging laws surrounding in-game economies and virtual currencies.
Our Video Game Legal Services:
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Studio Formation & Team Agreements: Establishing the right corporate structure for your development studio and drafting airtight contractor, NDA, and employee agreements to ensure the company owns all code and art generated.
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Licensing, EULAs, & Terms of Service: Drafting the user-facing legal frameworks that dictate how players interact with your game, as well as negotiating inbound licenses for middleware, game engines, and embedded music.
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Intellectual Property Strategy: Registering trademarks for studio and game titles, and implementing copyright strategies that protect everything from the underlying codebase to the finalized audiovisual experience.
The Insider's Advantage
Ryan don't just review entertainment contracts; holding a degree in music composition from Berklee College of Music focused on composing for the visual media, Ryan understands the creative process for media from the inside out. Whether you are arranging tracks in a DAW, finalizing post-production sound, or building game mechanics, Ryan speaks your language. Ryan knows how modern digital assets are created, manipulated, and distributed. This practical, hands-on understanding of the production pipeline allows him to spot the technical and legal nuances that general practitioners miss, ensuring your work is protected without stifling your creative workflow. Ryan is a member of New York's Entertainment Law section.