Unathi Malunga’s legal practice was shaped from the beginning by the creative industries. She studied Music and Law at Rhodes University, qualified as an attorney and pursued postgraduate legal study in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, completing an LLM at UCLA with further study at Georgetown University and Southwestern Law School.
Her career has since crossed the full life cycle of creative content: development, production, rights, acquisition, licensing, business affairs, broadcasting, distribution and institutional governance. That experience matters because entertainment law is rarely only about the document. The legal position sits inside a production schedule, a financing structure, a rights chain, a creative relationship and a market reality.
Her work has included commercial and intellectual-property practice, production legal services, content acquisition, licensing, rights negotiations, business affairs, copyright, performers’ rights, chain of title, contracting and strategic advisory work for organisations, producers and creative practitioners.
The legal approach is therefore both specialist and operational: understand the rights, understand the deal, understand the industry context, and translate complexity into decisions that a producer, artist, executive or institution can actually use.
Sample of Areas of work
Film & television • Music • Performing arts • Production & business affairs • Copyright & IP • Contracts & licensing • Content acquisition & distribution • Performers’ rights • Chain of title • Co-production • Governance