UCLA<\/a> Law School, has a long and proud track record as a mentor, consiglieri and key industry strategist on thorny issues. One of his strongest legacies is UCLA Law\u2019s annual Entertainment Symposium, which Ziffren launched back in 1976 as a forum to expose students to the real-world challenges and opportunities for lawyers in Hollywood. The event is now produced by UCLA Law\u2019s Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law, which was established about a dozen years ago. What began as a modest gathering in a UCLA Law School conference room has grown into a daylong event with an array of top speakers and about 600 attendees. The golden anniversary edition will unfold Thursday at UCLA\u2019s Schoenberg Auditorium, with speakers including Imagine Entertainment\u2019s Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Tom Wolzien, Donald S. Passman, Linda Lichter and many more. <\/p>\n\n\tHere, Ziffren weighs in on the tumultuous state of entertainment law in the age of AI, streaming and media consolidation. And he reflects on how much has changed in the industry since the first symposium was held at the midpoint of the Me decade.<\/p>\n
\n\tI want to talk about hot-button legal issues but let\u2019s start with the UCLA Law symposium. Fifty years of anything is an achievement in academia. What do you remember about the first gathering? What was the burning issue of the day?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tIn \u201876 we had two things in the TV world that have disappeared. There was a federal tax credit underlying on film and TV. The other thing was [the FCC\u2019s] financial interest in syndication rule that prohibited networks from having a financial interest in any program that they telecast. I\u2019m hot to trot to try to bring back those two things, because the combination of those things I believe led to the best times in our history.<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you think something like fin-syn or some kind of programming set-aside for independent producers is workable in the modern content eco-system? The fin-syn rules began to sunset in the early 1990s. It\u2019s been a while<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\tYes. The idea would be that a streamer has to commit to carry X percent of its schedule for independents. Shelf space is one measurement, or another is budget. They would commit to carry X percent of the programming from independent production companies that have no interest in streaming. And then part two of that is that the only rights the streamer gets from the independent producer are first-cycle. Not rights going out 20 years, but something that is more standard. In the old days, back in \u201876, it was four or four and a half years, which at that point in time meant 88 to 100 episodes.<\/p>\n
\n\tSo all of that favorable regulatory and tax policy in 1976, that was a catalyst that put wind in the sails of filmed entertainment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tYes.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat do you think are going to be the most vibrant topics at this year\u2019s 50th anniversary symposium?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI\u2019m on a panel with two very luminous luminary types. Don Passman and Linda Lichter and I are going to do a look back and look forward on what\u2019s changed in 50 years. We\u2019ll have an AI presentation, we\u2019ll have an ethics presentation. And then our guest speakers are Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.<\/p>\n
\n\tOver the years that you\u2019ve been involved with UCLA and with students, what are your observations about what has changed about their knowledge and understanding of the industry. Do law students today know more about how the entertainment business works than they did 50 years ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tLet me do a then and now comparison. I was able 50 years ago to have a two minute conversation where we covered all the issues of a network pickup of a pilot to series, because the only issues that then existed were how much for the pilot, how much for the series and how much for the [license fee] bumps each year. Everything else, because of fin-syn, was in essence a published agreement from each of the three networks, and nobody changed a word.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt was totally templated? As if written on a stone tablet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tYes, yes. Today, it\u2019s impossible. We spend months negotiating that deal because the streamers want these rights, but they\u2019ll give away those rights. They\u2019ll have this issue and that issue. It\u2019s much more complex, and the students don\u2019t understand the weeds, but they do understand the kind of substance of it all. They are much more attentive in terms of knowing that there\u2019s tech issues on top of tech issues on top of financial issues and rights issues. It\u2019s a broader horizon than it was.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat is going to happen with AI?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAI to me is in what I\u2019ll call Phase 1. Phase 1 in our industry is in essence cost control. That\u2019s where AI plays the most prominent role right now. On the one hand, it gets the unions excited because, in theory, there are fewer opportunities, and there\u2019s less production than there was in a broader sense. The number of series and programs has been declining over the last four years, and that\u2019s unfortunate, but also there\u2019s more opportunity than there was before for an indie producer to be able to compete.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd what is Phase 2?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tPhase 2 gets us into a more complex situation. My view right now is that the only discipline that\u2019s really using AI are the writers and the below the line unions are trying to figure out how they can position themselves so that they can take advantage of the cost savings instead of losing on the cost savings. But the directors and actors are basically have solved the major problem, which is that AI, in essence, doesn\u2019t count against them. You\u2019ve got to be human to be copyrighted, which seems like something that levels the playing field a little bit for studios and talent.<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you think that\u2019s precarious, the idea of having a mandated level of human direction on a project in order to copyright it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tPut it to you this way \u2014 if you were presented tomorrow with a non-human program, would you go to the theater or would you turn on the set to watch it, other than for curiosity\u2019s sake? And the answer is probably no. And this isn\u2019t necessarily limited to the U.S., so I think there is a worldwide belief that human H-I instead of AI is still under control, and what we try to do is improve it and make it work for us. That\u2019s the tool argument \u2014 that it\u2019s an enhancement, and not something to defeat us.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are a couple of big AI copyright cases in litigation right now. Is there one that you think is going to be most impactful for entertainment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWhat I\u2019m hopeful is that in the next two years we have federal legislation that solves the judicial issue. We will have a cacophony of decisions, all of which relate to how we\u2019re going to let AI progress, and we\u2019ll have different views depending upon who the judges are. They will all be looking for answers, which they will find in their own souls, because they can go in either direction. The solution has to be legislation at a federal level, both here and elsewhere, and we\u2019ll have to reach some kind of worldwide compromise on how AI can continue.<\/p>\n
\n\tKen, zeroing in a on an issue closer to home. We are both Golden State natives. Los Angeles feels like it\u2019s in rough shape right now. We\u2019ve never seen so much trash on the streets, we\u2019ve never seen such widespread homelessness, encampments and related issues. Do you think the entertainment industry\u2019s struggles are part of L.A.\u2019s problem, and maybe part of the solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tIt\u2019s yes and yes. the answer in the end is we need strong leadership, and I think that could be in the offing. I don\u2019t want to get into [L.A. Mayor] Karen Bass\u2019 politics one way or another, but whether she will be stronger in her second term than her first, or whether [Democratic challenger] Nithya [Raman] will be a stronger mayor \u2014 I think it\u2019s possible. And we need to take still another look at our tax policies. It\u2019s old-fashioned to say we\u2019ll throw money at it and it\u2019ll all get solved, but there has to be some intelligent approach that will require capital. But it\u2019s absolutely necessary, so that we all have better standard of living.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnything else about legal trends or plans for the symposium that you\u2019d like to add?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWe\u2019re in a dynamic situation. I still have hope that we can get more diversity in the industry, and that we aren\u2019t going to be run by a machine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ken Ziffren has logged more than 50 years in Los Angeles\u2019 legal community. He\u2019s represented a wide range of players from the late great showrunner entrepreneur Stephen J. Cannell to the Television Academy to the Directors Guild of America. He\u2019s been on every industry commission imaginable, including a stint as L.A.\u2019s film czar under former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2464039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[484669,484670],"class_list":["post-2464038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ken-ziffren","tag-ucla"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ken-Ziffren-on-50-Years-of-UCLA-Entertainment-Law-Symposiums.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2464038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464040,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464038\/revisions\/2464040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2464039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2464038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2464038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2464038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}