About

As a technology fan and big consumer of music and movies, Christian With concedes his career path became obvious from his early years at law school. His core subject areas were copyright, trademarks, media law and internet law when he graduated with summa cum laude from the University of Bergen, Norway. He commenced his career at The Norwegian Film and TV Producers Association where he started as a legal advisor and left as head of legal, representing about 120 film, TV and computer games producers. With solidified his entertainment industry experience during his time at DLA Piper Norway as a senior lawyer in the intellectual property and technology department, making him a widely respected lawyer in the industry. He was headhunted to his current position with Rubicon TV in March 2014, where sits as head of legal and business affairs – this role was later expanded to include Metronome Spartacus, a Swedish television production company. Both companies are part of Endemol Shine Group, a group of British and Dutch production companies. Prior to joining and establishing the in-house department Rubicon TV had instructed external counsel for a number of years. During his time at Rubicon TV, With has made it his priority to significantly reduce reliance on external counsel, encouraging legal department involvement and influence over decision making processes in the most crucial levels of the company, as well as creating an ‘open door policy’ to encourage early action in disputes. Amongst his most celebrated highlights, With has successfully settled a high profile dispute which involved Rubicon as well as public broadcaster Norsk Rikskringkasting, Netflix and Red Arrow International. The case raised questions as to the distribution of the third season of Lilyhammer, a Norwegian-American television series. Outside of his company, With believes he has successfully been involved in changing the current political view that creators need special protection against industry players, resulting in a more balanced proposition for a new Copyright Act which was recently put forward by the Ministry of Culture. ‘I have been heavily involved in this process, holding lectures including one on the recent annual Copyright seminar for lawyers here in Norway, and providing feedback to both the Secretary and Virke Produsentforeningen, our interest organisation, which represents about 100 production companies’.