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If you make your living in the creative arts, you want to focus on your craft and leave the business side of entertainment to your lawyer. The legal aspects of protecting your songs, plays, and artistic expressions through copyright involve a variety of disciplines, including contracts, intellectual property, negotiations, litigation, and business. The purpose of this to prevent exploitation by producers, publishers, and sports team owners, among others.
You may wonder if you need an agent and a lawyer to support your career goals. Although agents can connect you to industry people you should know and represent you when a studio, gallery, or publisher is interested in your work, only an intellectual property attorney can protect your work and litigate against anyone who pirates it. Our Boynton Beach entertainment lawyers could draft the airtight contracts you need, including the one between you and your agent.
Copyrights are a branch of intellectual property along with patents and trademarks. Registering creative work and obtaining a copyright under 17 United States Code § 412 allows artists to sue those who infringe on their work.
Creators who discover their copyrighted artistic work online, hosted by an online service provider (OSP), may be able to sue for infringement. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, OSPs have four safe harbors protecting them against infringement: system caching, content hosting, transitory digital network communications, and information location tools. Artists, musician, writers, and other creative people who discover that their work was reproduced online without authorization should talk to a Boynton Beach entertainment attorney immediately.
Entertainment contracts, like all valid contracts, are legally binding agreements between parties who are exchanging specific duties for something of value. If an actor wishes to contract with an agent or manager, the contract should specify what the agent’s duties are in exchange for a commission on earnings. If a baseball player has an offer to play for the Miami Marlins, the player will expect to know his duties and what pay he will receive for doing them. Some common issues addressed in entertainment contracts are:
Every contract should be tailored to the situation. Contracts are unique to every aspect of the entertainment industry, including distribution deals, grants, and loans for artistic projects and those for studio employees and independent contractors. Many emerging and famous artists prefer confidentiality from people they work with, and a Boynton Beach entertainment law attorney can provide that as well.
Sometimes ancillary matters crop up which require someone with extensive experience. An entertainment attorney must understand child labor laws if a child actor is wanted for a project. They also can discuss whether union and guild memberships will benefit a client, such as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which represents 160,000 artistic professionals.
Whether you are an actor, an athlete, or a musician who wants to entertain people for a living, you need to have the proper contracts and licenses in place in order to be successful. Lomnitzer Law is your partner in this endeavor.
Your creative work should be protected through copyrights. If someone plagiarizes you, we could halt the infringement and take them to court to pay what you are owed, if necessary. Furthermore, we know how to analyze a contract and determine if there are any glaring errors or omissions that need to be corrected. Whatever your needs, a Boynton Beach entertainment lawyer acts on your behalf, so schedule a consultation with us today.
