​Bruce David Eisen

​Veteran Entertainment Attorney and Media Executive

Bruce Eisen’s legal practice focuses on the intersection of new and traditional media and the technology powering them. Eisen’s current and recent clients include AMC Networks, Comcast,  Fuse Media, Shout! Factory, RLJ Entertainment, Cineverse, Brainstorm Media, OTT.X (f/k/a Entertainment Merchants Association), Nagra, FlixFling, and Xumo as well various independent producers and production companies, among others.

Recent Services

​Eisen’s services include structuring, drafting and negotiating film and television development agreements, content acquisition and distribution agreements, film finance agreements, technology agreements, production legal services as well as providing general legal/business affairs services for film, television, new media, technology and other clients. Other recent activities include M&A legal work on multi-million dollar deals representing the seller of a music library, representing the Hollywood Film Awards in its sale to dick clark productions, and representing Shout! Factory and Ace Film HK Company Limited in their acquisition of Roger Corman’s library of films and television shows.

​​Eisen serves as general counsel to Fuse, LLC, owner of the Fuse pay-television network and related FAST channels. In that capacity Eisen is responsible for all of the company’s legal matters including negotiating bank loans and lease agreements; providing production legal services for all of Fuse’s in-house television productions; and negotiating and drafting virtually all of the company’s agreements including talent agreements, content development agreements, content acquisition agreements, US and international content licensing agreements, technology agreements, and advertising sales/ad tech agreements, among others.

Eisen has recently provided production legal services for films for Legendary Pictures, Hallmark Channel, Shudder, Focus Films, BET, Paramount, Hulu, Lifetime, UPTV and PBS. Individuals and companies that Eisen has recently negotiated with on behalf of his clients include Ewan McGregor, Allison Janney, Sean Hayes, James Cromwell, Bruce Dern, Bret Easton Ellis, James Franco, Netflix, Fandango, Vudu, Hulu, Redbox, inDemand, Vubiquity, Verizon, Amazon, Showtime, Starz, HBO, Brightcove, DISH, Oracle, ComScore/Rentrak, TiVo, T-Mobile, TCL, and Tubi. 

​Eisen has negotiated music agreements with many of the major and independent publishers and labels including Warner Music Group, Sony Music, Universal Music, and US performing rights organizations including ASCAP and GMR as well as many of the leading music talent agencies.

DISH Network

From 2009 through 2012 Eisen was the Vice President Online Content Development & Strategy for DISH Network where he negotiated agreements with most of the major television networks on behalf of DISH, licensing over 20,000 television shows for distribution and acquiring on-demand rights from the major Hollywood studios including VOD/EST/SVOD rights for distribution of their content across multiple platforms including set-top boxes, DishOnline.com, iPad, iPhone and Android devices. In addition, Eisen negotiated agreements with various partners for DRM and other technology services including Synacor and Adobe.

CinemaNow

​Eisen was one of the principals who started CinemaNow in 1999 and, as the company’s general counsel, negotiated financing for the company in excess of $40 million, negotiated CinemaNow’s agreements with over 200 content licensors including all of the major Hollywood studios as well as agreements with local ISPs, portals and film distributors to bring CinemaNow to the U.K., the Netherlands, Taiwan, Philippines, Latin America, and Singapore. In addition, Eisen was instrumental in creating CinemaNow Japan, Inc., an affiliated entity that raised over $15 million in funding.

Eisen structured the strategy and business aspects of CinemaNow’s technology requirements to enable the efficient, cost-effective distribution of content on a worldwide, video-on-demand basis and, in that regard, licensed all required technology including agreements for content delivery network services, data services, data hosting, geo-targeting, recommendation engines, web analytics, network storage and customer relation management with companies such as Akamai, Limelight, Savvis, Intel, Microsoft, EchoStar, Qwest, RightNow Technologies and WebSideStory.

​Trimark Pictures

Eisen started his career as the head of Legal and Business Affairs for Trimark Pictures where his responsibilities included negotiating the company’s distribution agreements with companies including the Walt Disney Company, Miramax, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, Columbia Pictures, HBO and others.   Eisen also negotiated and drafted Trimark’s development agreements as well as its production legal agreements including those with such talent as Samuel L. Jackson, Renee Zelweger, Peter Jackson and Jim Belushi. In addition, Eisen structured the company’s relationships with the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America and was instrumental in negotiating Trimark’s $25 million line of credit with Bank of America and Trimark’s $75 million line of credit with The Chase Manhattan Bank as well as numerous production financing agreements with various lenders and bond companies.

​Education And Appearances

Eisen received his J.D. from the University of Southern California and his B.A. cum laude with high honors in Philosophy from Clark University.

Eisen is a frequent speaker and has lectured at U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. and has spoken at conferences organized by institutions including Digital Hollywood, iHollywood Forum, Streaming Media, the California State Bar Association, the Beverly Hills Bar Association, NATPE, NAB, USC, UCLA, Piper Jaffray, Cowen and Company, the Independent Film and Television Alliance, the Entertainment Merchants Association, the British Screen Advisory Council, the Bangkok Film Festival, MultiChannel News and Broadcasting & Cable magazine.