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Book Review: Contract and Control in the Entertainment Industry

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 December 2000
AuthorMark James
Date01 December 2000
DOI10.1177/096466390000900413
Subject MatterArticles
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596
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 9(4)
hierarchies and it is this aspect that directly applies to many equality laws both inside
and outside of the USA.
MARK BELL
Department of Law, University of Leicester, UK
STEVE GREENFIELD AND GUY OSBORN, Contract and Control in the Entertainment
Industry. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, 210pp., £40.00.
At a time when sport and music are experiencing massive juridification of contractual
disputes, this book is a timely reminder of some of the surrounding social and policy
issues involved with performance contracts in the entertainment industries. In both
the sporting and the music industries, there is regular talk of a lack of loyalty from
players and artists to the clubs and record companies who are their employers. What
Greenfield and Osborn do is to explain how that loyalty has long been tested by the
often oppressive and restrictive nature of the contracts imposed on young and under-
informed performers.
The main theme of the book, as the title suggests, is of the control of these players
and artists. Although the most common manifestation of that control is through the
performer’s contract with their employer, other less obvious controlling influences on
entertainers’ professional careers are also described. For example, in the three sport-
ing areas considered, these include restrictions imposed by the governing bodies, such
as the banning of violent players in football, the licensing of professional boxers and
the control of cricketers’ dealings with the media.
The book begins with an overview of how the law of restraint of trade developed
in the film industry. From a legal perspective, this is the most developed of the enter-
tainment industries and in many ways the blueprint for how the law may develop in
sport and music. The scene is set for exploring how the law has developed and will
continue to advance through football, music, boxing and cricket. Each of the chap-
ters on these subjects...

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