Tomkiw Enwright, a law firm located in the heart of Royal Oak, Michigan, represents leading businesses in the areas of labor & employment, business formation, planning & transactions, corporate finance, entertainment & media, technology licensing, general corporate counsel, real estate, and litigation.
Our business clients are diverse in size and character. We represent entrepreneurs, investors, film productions, video game developers, financial institutions, software companies, internet companies, manufacturing facilities, retail establishments, entertainment venues, restaurants, consulting companies, advertising agencies, religious institutions and public bodies.
Monday, January 23, 2012 | Tomkiw Enwright Entries are currently being accepted for the 2012 Detroit Windsor International Film Festival (DWIFF), taking place June 20 - June 24, 2012. Submit your film to Withoutabox.com to participate in the fifth year of bringing world class films to the people of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.
Monday, January 23, 2012 | Tomkiw Enwright Attention filmmakers looking for new production opportunities in Michigan: The Michigan Film Office is currently accepting new applications for the 2012 Film and Digital Media Incentive.
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law Monday, November 21, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Independent Film Series - Entry #2
Copyrights are at the center of the film industry. In fact, copyrights are often the only “asset” that a production company owns. Thus, it is critically important for filmmakers to understand copyright basics and work closely with an entertainment attorney (and sometimes an intellectual property attorney as well) to protect their movie ideas.
It is important to understand, however, that copyrights do not protect ideas. Copyrights protect the expression of ideas “fixed in a tangible medium, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduces, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.” So, what should you do when you have a great idea for a movie? Right it down!
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law Friday, November 4, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright 
Congratulations to Andrey Tomkiw and Steven Enwright for being named Top Lawyers - 2012 by DBusiness magazine. The prestigious selection was made by polling more than 21,000 attorneys in Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, Washtenaw, and Livingston counties in 51 specialized areas.
Andrey T. Tomkiw was named a Top Lawyer in the categories of Business Law and Labor & Employment Law. DBusiness November-December 2011: 77, 81. Print.
Steven J. Enwright was named a Top Lawyer in the category of Entertainment and Sports. DBusiness November-December 2011: 79. Print.
Monday, October 24, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Michigan entertainment attorney, Steven J. Enwright, is quoted in "Michigan's Secret Evaluations for Film Incentives Questioned." Yung, Katherine. Detroit Free Press [Detroit] October 23, 2011.
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law Thursday, October 13, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Independent Film Series - Entry #1
As an entertainment attorney, I am frequently approached by first-time independent filmmakers who are surprised when potential financiers or distributors inquire into their film’s “chain of title.” Many, in fact, are not sure what the term means. “Chain of title,” as the term suggests, refers to the series of legal documentation that establishes proprietary rights to a film, including, but not limited to, the original copyright filing, option and purchase agreements for the underlying screenplay, work-for-hire agreements and releases from key contributors to the screenplay and the production. Investors, guilds, insurance companies, bond companies, sales agents, and distributors will all want to see the “chain of title” to your film. They simply want to make sure that you own all of the rights to the film.
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law Monday, October 3, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Read this article on Michigan Radio's website Here.
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law Friday, September 30, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright See Andrey Tomkiw's Super Lawyers Profile Here.
Accomplishments Thursday, September 15, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Federal Judge Finds Cloud Music Lockers Do Not Violate Copyrights (ReadWriteWeb, 22 August 2011)
A federal judge in New York ruled today in the defendant’s favor on a copyright infringement case brought EMI and 14 record companies against cloud music locker service MP3tunes.
Judge William H. Pauley III found that cloud-based music lockers are, for the most part, legally in the clear. The judge found that “MP3tunes did not promote infringement” by offering an open cloud storage service for music, meaning that it, as well as big-name services like Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive, are on the right side of the law. The record companies claimed that services like these duplicate files in ways that violate copyrights, that they don’t do enough to stop repeat infringers, and that playing back songs from a locker constitute a “public performance,” which would require a license for the material. The judge rejected all these claims, finding that MP3tunes is protected as a service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Michigan Entertainment Law | Tags Copyright, Entertainment, Law, Music Tuesday, August 23, 2011 | Tomkiw Enwright Crain's Detroit recently reported on our Michigan entertainment law client, Scientifically Proven, getting a Michigan Film Office incentive.
(Crain's Detroit) The Michigan Film Office has approved the latest project of Farmington Hills-based Scientifically Proven Entertainment for the state's digital media incentives program — a Detroit-centric video game called Ghost Game.
Ghost Game was awarded an incentive of $411,650 on $1,029,125 of projected in-state expenditures. The project is expected to hire 25 Michigan workers with a full-time equivalent of 15 jobs.
Michigan Entertainment Law, Michigan Film Law | Tags Entertainment, Film Credit, Tax Incentive 
