Bird Marella Principal John Berlinski is quoted in the July 12, 2022 Wall Street Journal article, “Netflix in Talks With Hollywood Studios to Facilitate New Ad-Supported Platform.”
In the article, Mr. Berlinski offers insight into the possible legal risks facing Netflix as it attempts to renegotiate its content license agreements with Warner Brothers, Sony, and other studios. Mr. Berlinski is well versed in how streaming licenses can be manipulated to the detriment of profit participants. He was previously lead counsel for Scarlett Johansson in her lawsuit against Disney regarding Black Widow’s day-and-date release on Disney+, as well as the profit participants on the hit series Bones in their arbitration against 20th Century Fox involving Hulu that resulted in a $179 million award against Fox. According to his quote in the Journal, the renegotiation of these Netflix licenses could present similar issues:
“Every major profit participant is going to be very interested in how additional consideration paid to the studios for these rights gets allocated to specific titles,” Mr. Berlinski said.
Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal here (subscription required).
