Knowing the Law in This Business

Getting tangled up in legal issues can be time consuming, costly, and just plain annoying. However, it is avoidable in most cases if you learn the legalities when you are doing business and follow those laws or legally binding contracts. In order to learn more about entertainment law, I researched and listened to four podcasts that discussed the entertainment industry and/or important laws and issues to be aware of.

The first podcast I listened to was “Musical Artist Management Contract Review.” It is part of a series titled The Music Law Podcast. This podcast discussed what to pay attention to when considering signing a contract that will enter you into a manager/artist relationship. The relationship between artist and manager was even compared to a marriage. Due to the seriousness and the high level of commitment required of both parties, it is important that you believe in and trust each other. The following are terms that will most likely be part of the contract:

·      Exclusivity: The artist cannot have anyone else service as his or her manager but the manager can have several artists as clients. Don’t be too worried about this if you are an artist because a manager having several clients is often a good sign of his or her abilities.

·      Term: Typically five-1 year periods that the manager has an option to extend at the end of each one year period. An artist can have his or her lawyer add a clause that lists expected performance objectives that the manager must meet each year and if these objectives aren’t met, then the artist has an option to not rollover the contract.

·      Duties: Make sure to include requirements of each party specifically and eliminate the unnecessary.

·      Compensation: Typically 10 to 25% of the artists’ gross income goes to the manager as compensation. Exclusions should be spelled out in details for things such as money from the label to the artist to pay for a video. The contract should also specifically mention how often manager will be paid. Every 30-90 days is common.

·      Power of Attorney Clause: Artist allows managers to sign contracts on his or her behalf. Artist should talk to lawyer in order to list detailed restrictions in this clause.

·      Sunset Clause: When the artist and manager’s relationship comes to an end, the Sunset Clause will determine how long and how much the manager will get paid for things that he or she helped artist to gain compensation for. The length of time and percentage is something that the two and their lawyers will have to agree on.

Another podcast I listened to from the same series is about Music Publishers and songwriters and the legal issues between the two. The podcast is titled “Music Law Publishing Part Two.” A Music Publisher’s job is to protect the interest of the songs and the songwriter by insuring the longest most profitable life for the song. He or she can typical approve or deny a request to use a song in any type of media, from advertising to print. The Business and Legal Affairs department handles drafting and negotiating of all music work licenses. Depending on the contract, the Music Publisher usually has the copyright rights of a song. A songwriter can seek to reduce the length of the publisher’s rights. It is typically 8 to 15 years that a publisher has the copyright rights before being transferred to the songwriter who can then reuse the song later. The transfer must be in writing to be legally recognized. Also included in a contract between the two are the share of the song and compensation.

From the Entertainment Law Update Podcast, I listened to their 43^rd episode “No copyright, Sherlock?” This podcast discusses copyright news around the country. In this episode they discussed a college football player, Sam Keller and how he an eight other players sued EA Sports for using their likeness in a college football video game without permission or compensation thus violating their right to publicity. EA could not pay the students because it violates the NCAA code stating that players cannot profit off playing sports. EA’s defense was that they didn’t violate the players’ rights to publicity because no names were used and based on the 1^st Amendment; there was nothing illegal about what they did. The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Keller ruling that the game didn’t go far enough from being transformative to constitute 1^st Amendment protection. Basically, they had guys playing football, with the same skin tone, stats, height, weight, position, and jersey number as the players. It would be different if they created a game that had all of these players in a Dancing With the Stars video game because that is not something that they have done.

The final podcast was a lecture given by Nina Ossanna concerning intellectual property. “Introduction to Intellectual Property” discussed patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Patents have limited life and full disclosure. They also have a strong, broad legal strength. Trademarks have a longer life but doesn’t’ protect the product. They have a strong, narrow breadth legal strength but are very dependent on the value of the company. Copyrights have a longer life, but narrow protection. They also have strong, narrow breadth legal strength but value is dependent on the market.

From the podcasts I viewed, I was able to learn more about the legal system and how it relates to entertainment business. I hope you are able to gain something too!