Ivan J. Parron
Encyclopedia
Ivan Jose Parron, Esq. is an American entertainment law
Entertainment law
Entertainment law or media law is a term for a mix of more traditional categories of law with a focus on providing legal services to the entertainment industry. The principal areas of Entertainment Law overlap substantially with the well-known and conventional field of intellectual property law...

 attorney and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 often referred to as the inventor of the Online music store
Online music store
An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...

. He is the founder of and principal attorney for PARRON LAW, an entertainment, media and sports law firm based in Miami Beach, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Washington D.C. He also founded and served as CEO of the online music store
Online music store
An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...

 and distribution company Ritmoteca.com
Ritmoteca.com
Ritmoteca.com was an online music store and early pioneer in the online downloadable music space. Founded in Miami, Florida in 1998 during the Dot-com bubble by Ivan J...

, Inc. in the late 1990s, the world’s first legal source for downloadable Latin music and music videos. He is a contributing writer to The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...

 on the topic of entertainment and media law and is frequently invited to speak at entertainment and media conferences and symposiums around the world.

Early life/formative years

Parron was born at Mercy Hospital (Miami)
Mercy Hospital (Miami)
Mercy Hospital is a 473-bed acute care U.S. hospital located in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida. It is Miami-Dade County’s only Catholic hospital and is a recipient of the MAGNET award for nursing excellence....

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, the son of Ivan Parron and Norma Parron, both of whom emigrated to the United States from Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 in the mid 1950s.

From a very early age, Parron had an affinity for technology, business and entertainment, as well as a creative streak. He was fascinated by how things worked and would often take his family's television set or stereo equipment completely apart and then put it back together. He also enjoyed music and took up the alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...

 at a young age. In 1977, at the age of 8, his parents enrolled him in a computer programming school for adults, where he learned to program on the Apple II series
Apple II series
The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...

 computer and quickly excelled much faster than his fellow classmates. As a pre-teen he took an interest in film and began writing scripts and making movies with friends using his family's super-8 camera; At the age of 13, Parron started a mobile disc-jockey company called Ambiance Productions and was hired by corporations like Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major airline based in the United States and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta and its subsidiaries operate over 4,000 flights every day...

, Eastern Air Lines
Eastern Air Lines
Eastern Air Lines was a major United States airline that existed from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida.-History:...

 and Braniff International Airways
Braniff International Airways
Braniff International Airways was an American airline that operated from 1928 until 1982, primarily in the midwestern and southwestern U.S., South America, Panama, and in its later years also Asia and Europe...

 to produce music entertainment for their employee events.

In junior high Parron became interested in debate and joined the Miami Country Day School
Miami Country Day School
Miami Country Day School is a private, non-denominational, co-ed Preschool–12 college preparatory school near Miami Shores, just north of the city of Miami, Florida. The school has been named a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence.- History :...

 debate team. In high school he continued debating and won a Miami-Dade County-wide debate sponsored by the American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...

 and was awarded a trip to participate in Boys State in Tallahassee, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and was elected to the office of state senator by his peers.

During his college years at FIU, Parron began working at Paxson Communications, owner of the local Miami radio station Love-94. He worked in practically every department including promotions, production, and advertising sales. He eventually was promoted to the position of senior advertising sales, in which he excelled. During his tenure at Paxson, Parron experienced firsthand the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) Media cross-ownership rule changes that gave birth to the massive radio conglomerates of today, such as Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...

.

In February 1993, Parron visited his cousin Jose Marques, a nuclear physicist at Fermilab
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...

 outside of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. His cousin demonstrated the newly developed Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...

 and hypertext markup language(HTML) on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. While his cousin showed him how the browser could view images and listen to sounds located on computers across the world, Parron had an epiphany. His three affinities in life (technology, business and entertainment) converged into one world. Upon his return home he founded the consulting firm Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc.
Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc.
Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc. was a consulting and web development company founded in 1995 by Internet entrepreneur and visionary Ivan J. Parron in Miami, Florida. During the Dot-com boom the company consulted on, developed and launched some of the first US brand-driven websites geared...


Education

Parron attended Montessori preschool in Miami Lakes, Florida
Miami Lakes, Florida
Miami Lakes is a Miami suburban incorporated town and former census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 22,676 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S...

 and went on to elementary school at Atlantic Christian School in Hialeah, Florida
Hialeah, Florida
Hialeah is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 226,419. As of 2009, the population estimate by the U. S...

. His junior high and the first two years of his high school career were spent at the prestigious Miami Country Day School
Miami Country Day School
Miami Country Day School is a private, non-denominational, co-ed Preschool–12 college preparatory school near Miami Shores, just north of the city of Miami, Florida. The school has been named a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence.- History :...

 in Miami Shores, Florida
Miami Shores, Florida
Miami Shores is a village in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 10,380 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 10,040....

; during his time there he played American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 and participated in track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

 in the events of shot put
Shot put
The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action....

, discus throw
Discus throw
The discus throw is an event in track and field athletics competition, in which an athlete throws a heavy disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than his or her competitors. It is an ancient sport, as evidenced by the 5th century BC Myron statue, Discobolus...

, 4 x 100 meters relay and 880 relay race
Relay race
During a relay race, members of a team take turns running, orienteering, swimming, cross-country skiing, biathlon, or ice skating parts of a circuit or performing a certain action. Relay races take the form of professional races and amateur games...

. Parron transferred to Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School
Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School
Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School is a secondary school operated by Miami-Dade County Public Schools, located at 7977 W 12th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida, USA, on the boundary with the city of Miami Lakes.-Construction:...

 his junior year; he played varsity football while there and was elected student council
Student council
Student council is a curricular or extra-curricular activity for students within elementary and secondary schools around the world. Present in most public and private K-12 school systems across the United States, Canada and Australia these bodies are alternatively entitled student council, student...

 president. He graduated high school in 1987.

Parron began his college years at Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...

, where he majored in computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha
Pi Kappa Alpha
Pi Kappa Alpha is a Greek social fraternity with over 230 chapters and colonies and over 250,000 lifetime initiates in the United States and Canada.-History:...

 fraternity; he eventually transferred to Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...

 and received a bachelor's degree in business administration with a double major in marketing and international business in 1994. After spending 8 years developing his career, he returned to academia attending Florida International University College of Law
Florida International University College of Law
The Florida International University College of Law is the law school of Florida International University, located in Miami, Florida in the United States...

 and received a juris doctor
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 degree specializing in entertainment law, business law and intellectual property.

Parron Law

Parron serves as attorney and principal of Parron Law, an entertainment, media and sports law firm based out of Miami Beach, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 in the heart of the South Beach
South Beach
South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...

 entertainment district. Parron works as business and legal counsel to television networks, motion picture studios, producers, writers, directors and actors. His law practice has particular emphasis on representing producers and production companies in the international licensing and distribution of format television. The firm also has a particular focus in the unscripted/reality television genre. Parron is currently an appointed board member and officer of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law section of the Florida Bar, as well as an appointed board member of both the Miami-Dade County Film and Entertainment Advisory Board and the City of Miami Beach Film & Television Production Industry Council. He is also an elected Grammy governor and board member of The Recording Academy Florida Chapter. As a CEO, board member, and an in-house attorney, Parron has over 15 years of executive and legal experience in the television, digital media, music and entertainment industries.

Universal Music Group

His first position out of law school was as in-house attorney at Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

, based out of the Miami Beach regional office which oversees the U.S. Latin market, Spain and Portugal. During his tenure, Parron represented the company in negotiations and worked with Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...

, Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...

, U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

, Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

, Enrique Iglesias
Enrique Iglesias
Enrique Iglesias is a Spanish pop music singer, a son of singer Julio Iglesias.Enrique started his musical career on Mexican label Fonovisa...

, Juanes
Juanes
Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez , better known as Juanes is a Colombian musician who was a member of heavy metal band Ekhymosis and is now a solo artist. In 2000, his solo debut album Fíjate Bien won three Latin Grammy Awards.Juanes has sold more than 13 million albums...

, Akon
Akon
Aliaune Damala Badara Thiam, better known as simply Akon , is a Senegalese American R&B recording artist and songwriter.According to Forbes, Akon grossed $21 million in 2010, $20 million in 2009 and $12 million in 2008. He rose to prominence in 2004 following the release of "Locked Up", the first...

, and Daddy Yankee
Daddy Yankee
Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez , known artistically as Daddy Yankee, is a Latin Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican Reggaeton recording artist. Ayala was born in Río Piedras, the largest district of San Juan, where he became interested in music at a young age. In his youth he was interested in baseball,...

, among others. He also oversaw business and legal affairs for several of the company’s joint ventures, was instrumental in the company’s efforts in obtaining digital and mobile distribution rights from its artists, spearheaded an effort to monetize music videos and developed an American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

-style reality television venture.

Ritmoteca.com

During the Dotcom boom of the late 1990s, Parron was the founder and CEO of Ritmoteca.com
Ritmoteca.com
Ritmoteca.com was an online music store and early pioneer in the online downloadable music space. Founded in Miami, Florida in 1998 during the Dot-com bubble by Ivan J...

, Inc., the world’s first legal source for downloadable Latin music and music videos via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and mobile networks. The company was an early predecessor to the Apple Inc. iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 business model. As CEO, he oversaw the implementation of the company’s business plan, capitalization, and forging of strategic partnerships. Parron helped pioneer the deal structure for digital distribution of music, signing digital distribution agreements with over 60 top independent record labels and aggregating exclusive digital rights to over 600,000 music tracks and videos, including exclusive digital distribution rights to the catalogs of artists including Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony is an American singer-songwriter, actor and producer. Anthony is the top selling tropical salsa artist of all time. The two-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy–winner has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. He is best known for his Latin salsa numbers and ballads...

, Carlos Vives
Carlos Vives
Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo is a Grammy Award and three-time Latin Grammy Award winning-Colombian singer, composer and actor.-Biography:...

, Tito Puente
Tito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, and Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American salsa singer, and was one of the most successful Salsa performers of the 20th century, having earned twenty-three gold albums...

. The company became the first Latin music venture to sign digital music distribution deals with several major record labels. Under Parron, Ritmoteca forged strategic alliances with companies, including Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

, Real Networks, Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

, and Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

. At its peak, Ritmoteca.com employed 150 people, with satellite offices in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and was backed by private and institutional investors, including Bain Capital
Bain Capital
Bain Capital LLC is a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Originally conceived as an early-stage, growth-oriented investment fund, Bain Capital today manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and its strategies include private...

 in Boston.

Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc.

During the early part of his career, Parron founded and acted as president of Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc.
Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc.
Internet Marketing Consultants, Inc. was a consulting and web development company founded in 1995 by Internet entrepreneur and visionary Ivan J. Parron in Miami, Florida. During the Dot-com boom the company consulted on, developed and launched some of the first US brand-driven websites geared...

 which in 1995 was one of the first Internet and new media consulting firms in Florida. He was a consultant for international television media brands and companies, including MTV Networks
MTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...

, Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...

, and Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

. He also developed a computerized horse race results system and made Hialeah Park Race Track
Hialeah Park Race Track
The Hialeah Park Race Track is a historic site in Hialeah, Florida. Its site covers 40 square blocks of central-east side Hialeah from Palm Avenue east to East 4th Avenue, and from East 22nd Street on the south to East 32nd Street on the north. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S...

 the worlds first horse racetrack to post race results on the Internet in real-time. This accomplishment led to him consulting with Churchill-Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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