Based in: Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Industry Segment: Transformative Licensing
Occupation: Managing Partner, Christian L. Castle, Attorneys (Los Angeles, San Francisco)
Contact: chris@christiancastle.com

Biography

Chris Castle is frequently involved in the more complex and difficult issues at the nexus of music and technology.  He specializes in transformative licensing—taking illegitimate online companies and helping them to become legitimate under the laws and business practices of both the US and ex-US jurisdictions.

Chris is one of the handful of attorneys who have held senior in-house positions at both music and technology companies: Chris was Senior Vice President, Business Affairs at Sony Music Entertainment, Inc., Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs at A&M Records, Inc., and was recruited by Shawn Fanning to join SNOCAP, Inc. as its Senior Vice President of Business & Legal Affairs and General Counsel.  Chris was the lead negotiator of SNOCAP’s groundbreaking p2p licensing agreements with the major labels, and a contributor to the dialog in most of the recent p2p settlements.  His contribution to technology and content was recognized in 2005 when Chris was made a fellow of the World Technology Network at WTN’s annual induction dinner in San Francisco.

Chris spent four years at the epicenter of the digital music explosion at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California where he represented early influencers in the digital music space: Liquid Audio, Napster, Atomic Pop, Gigabeat and Musician.com among others.  From 1999-2001, Chris negotiated venture capital financings in excess of $200 million for content related venture backed technology companies (roughly the budgets of the major labels on digital distribution over the same period). He returned to Los Angeles in 2002 where founded Christian L. Castle, Attorneys in 2004, opening the San Francisco office in 2006.

The firm is comprised of three senior attorneys with experience in both the traditional music business, online content and transformative licensing.  In addition to advising clients in these areas, Chris spends time in Washington, DC consulting on public policy matters.

Chris maintains an active speaking schedule and has moderated or been a panelist at Congressional seminars at the U.S. House of Representatives, the All Parties Internet Group of the UK Parliament, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canadian Music Week, the Copyright Society of the United States, SXSW, and legal education programs of the State Bars of California, Minnesota and Texas.  His most recent activity as a commentator was his interview of U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library’s Future Forum.

He is a contributing editor to Entertainment Law & Finance and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas.  Chris currently serves on the board of the Austin Music Foundation and its Austin Music Incubator as well as the Central Texas Angel Network.  Chris is an occasional guest lecturer on copyright and digital distribution at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin and the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA where he is a member of the alumni advisory board of AGSM’s Entertainment and Media Management Institute.

Chris attended Palo Alto Military Academy, Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Gordonstoun School in Elgin, Scotland.  He was graduated magna cum laude from UCLA in 1983 with a BA in political theory, and from the UCLA School of Law and AGSM in 1987 with the Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees.  While in UCLA’s JD/MBA program, Chris was twice elected an Olin Fellow in Law & Economics and was awarded Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp’s Norma Zarky Prize (best published student paper on an entertainment law topic).  He was National Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and a member of the UCLA Law Review.  After graduating from UCLA’s JD/MBA program, he worked at Los Angeles area entertainment firms before joining A&M Records.

Before college, Chris was a working musician for many years, performing or recording with artists such as Yvonne Elliman, Jesse Winchester and Long John Baldry.  His first recording session in Los Angeles was with Jay Graydon and Wilton Felder for A&M Records’ artist Randy Bishop.

A son of Texas, but a long-time Angelino and a childhood San Franciscan, Chris divides his time between Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco.