Let’s make a deal!

Let’s make a deal!

It is important whenever building a strong business plan that you seek the knowledge of an industry professional with the experience pertinent to your path to success. Research plays a major role in this as well. In this case we look at the legal aspects of the business plan. Legal protection is a primary concern for any business that plans to survive the sharks.

After having a chance to speak with a few industry professionals in the legal side of the entertainment industry, I felt a little more confident in my ability to determine the necessary legal restraints and processes required to pursue and maintain a healthy business. Once I had a chance to make contact with legal counsel members Aristdef Diaz and Lashsan Thomas, I asked them a number of short questions to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

I began by asking them a series of questions about their career. I asked each of them their title and years of experience. Together they held about 18 years. Lashsan seemed to have only about three years of experience. The next topic of discussion was contracts. After establishing the lines of communication both councilmembers had quickly explained to me that there are no magical answers to contracts. Each one could be different upon their review. They both explained that there was no main law to abide by, just typical guidelines like we learned in Advanced Entertainment Law.  She also specified to me that “beat contracts” are known as production contracts. Once I asked each one about the stipulations concerning Beat Kompete, she turned up with few responses.  Lashsan mentioned that I would need the proper information to maintain user-generated data. Contracts would be a must, also to include composition contract agreements, sampling contracts, and PRO protection. The site itself will need a venue agreement for online services.

I thanked both of them for their time. From that point, I felt I had a better understanding of the typical stipulations involved with my future plans. So…For a beat battle site, what other issues do you think will up rise?

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Outrageous Dues!

Outrageous Dues!

Often we find that in today’s society legal issues can come up pretty fast when it comes to intellectual property. Laws and legal proceedings have been put in place over the years to create a system that supposedly allows for fair consumption and regulation of media. A few of these measures include the SPOA and the DMCA. Acts such as these have caused a chain reaction throughout the industry. Although they were designed to be helpful to copyright owners and publishing companies, these major changes have altered the course of history. They do so by changing what today would seem to be a typical means of online performances and creative recordings into a targeted center to collect outrageous dues!

The first example is a case between YouTube and SPPF. This French music label collecting society sued YouTube for about $13.9 million. The case mentions that YouTube is to take responsibility for the copyrighted material that was infringed upon on the actual site. There also happens to be a similar case online involving YouTube and a German collecting society as well.

LimeWire is another example of how quickly things can get out of hand when it comes to recouping fees. There is a $150,000 dollar fine per song that is to be paid by those who are not in compliance with the current legal legislation concerning media arts. According to the RIAA, Supposedly, LimeWire owes them a whopping $72 trillion dollars in infringement damages. The amount they demanded is unreasonable without a doubt. I know this is another example of issues I will face. Found within an additional article at Businessinsider.com we find that they ask for more than the actual wealth of the world!

The last example comes from a case at news.findlaw.com. It involves Webcaster Alliance Inc. They are the plaintiff in a case involving the unlawful restraint of trade in the market. They are being sued by the RIAA, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol-EMI music, etc. apparently they neglected to meet legislative requirements to allow webcasting. The lack of compulsory licenses has also caused them to be target due to streaming of copyrighted materials. This is a problem I too could face based on the nature of my future business plans involving mass libraries of audio.

My goal is to take provisions and precautionary measures to ensure that I do not run into any issues throughout the duration of my business ventures. All three of these cases are examples of what I expect to face with my current site was well. Other site owners could also challenge digital images in the event that the site wasn’t protected. It is my intent to maintain a stream of the most updated legal info in my PLN! What would you do?

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