666: Liabilities

            Starting a business in the entertainment industry sounds like it would be a lot of fun. If there is a passion for it then eventually it will be fun and you will get to do what you love everyday. First though you have to really do your homework and find out what goes along with starting a business. It is grueling work and you definitely have to figure out the liability issues that come along with your business. That is exactly what I am going to talk about! I will discuss, with the review of several podcasts, liability issues in entertainment-based businesses. The first podcast I listened to was about copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is the violation of rights secured by a copyright. In this podcast the hosts talked about different cases dealing with copyright infringement. It focused on Republican presidential candidates unauthorized uses of copy written musical works in their campaign. This is a liability that would be associated with my business! I want to start an artist management company and I might have an artist whose musical works are infringed upon and will have to take the necessary steps to get that taken care of. In the case of the Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich who was sued by Rude Music, Inc. for the use of the song, “Eye of the Tiger” during his campaign trail. Rude Music wanted the court to award actual and statutory damages. This podcast really solidified what I had already learned about copyright infringement in my current Advanced Entertainment Law class! Shout-out to Cassi!!! Whoop! Whoop!

            The second podcast I listened to dealt with trademark infringement. This podcast really outlined what trademark infringement is and how to deal with it. Trademark infringement is when somebody else is using a protected trademark without permission. Protected trademarks includes, but not limited to, names, logos, and slogans. The most typical form of trademark infringement, according to the podcast, is likelihood of confusion. When defining that it means the comparison of two trademarks that may be confusing to the public and figuring out which one was trademarked first. The other form of trademark infringement is dilution. Dilution is when someone infringes upon a famous trademark without the proper consent. Since my business WILL be a famous one (see what I did there J) then if I ever had to deal with trademark infringement it would fall under dilution.  This podcast gave great ways to handle trademark infringement which most of it I learned in class.

            The last and final podcast I listened to discussed artist contracts. Now, this is a heavy subject and a lot goes into any business contract. As a manager I want to get the best deal for my potential client and myself. The speaker Daniel Friedman also talked what he called an upstream provision in a recording agreement. What this entails is that independent labels that are subsidiaries of major labels can have their artist be pulled from their label to the major label per a predetermined agreement. That was something that I had never heard of before and just goes to show you that you really have to be on top of everything! You cannot let anything slip through the cracks. With that type of agreement you have to make sure that you have some type of liability clause set in to cover your artist. I could go on and on about the subject of liabilities but I think I will end it here! I hope that you who are reading this learned something or at least enjoyed reading it!