Kenneth M. Kaufman

Kenneth M. Kaufman is a Senior Counsel at Moses & Singer LLP, where he practices in the fields of copyright, entertainment, digital media, and sports law.  He is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he co-teaches a seminar on “The Past and Future of the Music Business”.

Ken has a unique background as outside counsel, in-house general counsel, government attorney, and educator. Prior to joining Moses & Singer, he was a Partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and a Partner and Senior Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.  Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel of Showtime Networks Inc. in New York; as Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and General Counsel of PolyGram Records, Inc. in New York; and as General Counsel and Secretary of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.  In two of those positions, he was the first in-house attorney and organized the in-house legal department. Previously, he served as Assistant Counsel of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and as Law Clerk to Judge Warren J. Ferguson of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Ken has represented a wide range of clients in the entertainment, online, communications and sports fields, including music publishers, composers, recording artists, international media and publishing companies, television networks and producers, digital media and technology companies, private equity firms, telecommunications companies, not-for-profit organizations, photographers, visual artists, performing arts venues, copyright licensing organizations, a major regional sports network, Broadway theater producers, foundations, and authors.  Among others, he represented a major Silicon Valley technology company in the launch of the first successful commercial music downloading service; advised a major private equity firm in the acquisition of a Hollywood studio; represented a prominent music publisher in acquiring music catalogs and publishing companies; represented a leading composer in negotiating a long-term music publishing agreement; led a team in negotiating and preparing media rights agreements relating to the formation of the first regional sports network majority-owned by local teams; served as the first outside counsel for original content and copyright matters for a major social media network; represented a leading digital music service in the first regulatory proceeding in the U.S. Copyright Office to set rates and terms for webcasting of copyrighted sound recordings; and on behalf of a music performing rights society, played an active role in negotiations that led to passage of legislation including the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Ken is a recognized authority in the fields of copyright and entertainment law. He has been named the Washington, D.C. Copyright Law “Lawyer of the Year” by The Best Lawyers in America (where he has been listed in the practice areas of copyright law, entertainment law-music, entertainment law-motion pictures and television, and litigation-intellectual property). He has also been recognized by Who’s Who Legal (International), Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Washingtonian Magazine’s Washington’s Top Lawyers, and Legal Times.

In addition to his law practice and his current teaching, Ken has served as a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School, where he taught a course on “Music and the Law” for several years, and as a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University Law School, where he taught a course on copyright law. He has also been an Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow at Harvard, where he helped to prepare case studies of the digital music industry at the Business School, served as a law and media advisor in the College, and spoke on coalition building in education for gender equality at a Harvard conference on education.

Ken is a frequent speaker and author on copyright, entertainment law, and issues involving the convergence of the entertainment, communications and technology fields. He has chaired programs and spoken at legal and industry conferences for the Practicing Law Institute, the American Bar Association, the District of Columbia Bar, the Stanford Center for the Digital Economy, the Howard University Intellectual Property Law Seminar, the New York State Bar Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Recording Academy, and the South by Southwest Music Conference, among others. For many years, Ken co-chaired the annual PLI conference on Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry and has spoken on copyright and content licensing at the annual PLI conference on Advanced Licensing Agreements.

Ken currently serves on the Governing Committee of the ABA’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, on the Planning Committee for the annual Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices Conference, and as President of the Board of Directors of Lowell House Opera (the oldest opera company currently performing in New England, with a unique mission to create opportunities for students to work with music-industry professionals). He is a member of the Board of Advisors of American Repertory Theater and the Board of Directors of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts and has served as a Trustee and Chair of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.  As an undergraduate, Ken served as Chair of one of two student government organizations at Harvard College and launched an initiative, conducted a study and wrote a report on “Coeducation at Harvard and Radcliffe” that ultimately led to a coeducational residential House system, gender-neutral admissions, and other measures to ensure equal educational opportunities for female students.

Ken is also a composer who has been a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York and the ASCAP Pop Songwriters Workshop in Los Angeles and whose most recent composition, a string quartet, was performed by a Grammy Award®-winning ensemble in 2025.  He is a graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude) and Yale Law School (where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal), and is admitted to practice in New York, California and the District of Columbia.