Legal Liabilities in Entertainment Business

In the first podcast I reviewed entitled IP Law Concentration, Professor Andrew Beckerman-Rodau discussed various aspects of intellectual property.  He discussed topics such as: patent law, trade secrets, copyright law, etc.  The part of intellectual property that applied directly to my business was the part about copyright law.  Since I am opening up my own dance studio, there will be many artistic works that I need to protect.  Andrew touched on many benefits of getting your work copyrighted.  He explained how once you create your work, it automatically has a right to protection, but it just needs to be registered in case someone attempts to steal the work.  He also mentioned that there are very minimal costs when registering your work and that it is not difficult to do at all.  From this podcast, I took away a lot of information on intellectual property.  I know that once I start up my company, that I will need to have protection on all of my original works and I will need to ensure that anything in my business that I want protected will need to be registered properly.

In the second podcast I reviewed entitled A Seminar in Copyright Law with Entertainment Lawyer Greg Eveline, Greg discusses all of the aspects of copyright law and how it applies to artists.  He discusses the performance rights agencies and what they do, the benefits of a copyright, etc.  In the podcast, he compares copyrights to property rights.  He says that owning the copyright to your work is like owning your home; property is property and it should be equally protected.  He stresses and emphasizes the importance of protecting your works.  He also goes on to talk about First Right of First Use.  When he is discussing this topic, he is referring to musicians, but I can apply this to my dancers.  When they record their performances at my studio, no one else should have the right to use their performances in any way.  This podcast ties back into the fact that I need to protect my works.  Learning about copyright law now will help me protect any and all works I do in the future concerning my studio.

In the third and final podcast I reviewed entitled Whitney Broussard: Entertainment Lawyer withSelverne, Manelbaum, and Mintz, Whitney discusses many aspects of the music industry and the legal issues and struggles that the artists have to face.  One issue that caught my attention was when he was discussing the longevity of an artist’s career and their copyrights.  He talks about how if an artist really wants to pursue a long-term career that they should keep all of their copyrights because they will last longer than the artist.  This applies to my business because at some point, I would like for my studio to partner with a talent agency so the dancers have an opportunity to be managed once they have completed their training.  This information will help me aid my dancers in their careers, especially when they become big stars.