Artits and Their Legal Issues

The Spanish Ballet and Flamenco dancer Joaquín Cortés is considering suing the production team in charge of his show planned to be held in the Mexican Blackberry Auditory. The performance was scheduled for this past Friday, October 19. The dancer claims that in his arrival to the arena, he noticed that it was completely empty and there were no production staff members around to explain what happened.

Among dislikes, in a press conference Cortés highlighted that in his 30 years of dancing trajectory he had never lived such experienced. Feeling embarrassed with the public he guaranteed that his lawyers were already working the situation and assured his fans that the next presentations will be done as planned.

Is really sad seeing how the entertainment industry is still affected by people who do not understand the power of the human word. About legal issues, breach of contract is basically the principal cause of legal problems between parties. This is why it is extremely recommended to build strong clauses in the contracts to resolve this issues as friendly as possible.

American rapper Chris Brown is in risk of facing another legal problem. After being sued for the brutal beating he executed against his girlfriend and pop artist Rihanna, he was sentenced to community service and to keep good behaviors. At this day, he has not accomplished with none of his obligations and even though they broke up when the lawsuit happened, rumor has it that they are getting back together.

I do not think Rihanna should get back together with Brown. His conduct demonstrated that he does not fully respect the female gender and less respects the law. He should be concerned about accomplishing his obligations and be a good example for his fans.

Another artist facing legal issues is American actress Lindsay Lohan. After several former problems with the law, now she has been accused and arrested of doing a “hit and run” in New York. Apparently she ran over a pedestrian and escaped. Accused for running away from the scene, paying a fine was the only thing necessary to free her. Still, the legal situation will not finish there because she is still in probation for a previously lawsuit for jewelry robbery.

These situations are example of how artists should protect their image in order to keep credibility. These actions only demonstrate that they do not care for the public safety, the law and the United States politics. Both Brown and Lohan should work with a PR that can provide them a crisis management plan and a lawyer to resolver their legal issues.

Puerto Rican Digital Distribution: CEMCA Records

Digital development has transformed how the public delights the entertainment. Thanks to these changes, music and its distribution require a transformation in the traditional training of the musician. Being “music-talented” is simply not enough anymore. To be successful in a competitive market, the musicians must acquire knowledge and skills in self-management in how to promote and distribute their creative content, and be successful entrepreneurs. Here is where CEMCA comes in.

The CultuArte Musicians Business Center (English for Centro Empresarial para Músicos CulturArte and better known as CEMCA) is the first and only center in the island of Puerto Rico led to the strategic education in music and arts. CEMCA is an initiative of the Music Conservatory School of Puerto Rico that looks to propitiate new ways to benefit musicians and music students in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Some of the digital distribution channels used by CEMCA in their educational programs are: AOLMusicAmazon, ECD Hong Kong Limited, eMusic, FNAC.com, Napster, MusicMatch, OD2 (and their licensees, including HMV, Cokemusic, and VirginMega), iTunes (Worldwide), Listen.com/Rhapsody, Puretracks, Real.com, SonyConnect, MSN Music
Loudeye, MusicNet (and their licensees, including AOL and Yahoo! Music), Liquid Audio, SnoCap, and Walmart.com. This long list of channels help the school and the musicians (the students) to have many and better ways to distribute their music or artistic content.

CEMCA is basically the first record label in the island by this school focused in the digital distribution of intellectual content through the Internet. The school prepares its students to become professional in the music industry and its distribution thanks to programs like CEMCA. Other strategies used to collaborate to this education are workshops of business plan making, market analysis and financing sources, national and international internships with successful music-related companies, and lessons in entertainment law and media publishing. CEMCA’s programs not only prepare these professionals in the music industry but also boost them to be administrated entrepreneurs. 

Creative Commons: the Next Best Thing for Distribution Solutions

Each day more and more people become artists and authors, where thanks to their talents new intellectual content is being created. To facilitate the distribution of these contents –without having big companies interfering the distribution process- many organizations and webpages have excelled providing strategic alternatives to distribute and publish such works.

Besides the existence of self-publishing Print-On-Demand (POD) websites, there are other organizations like Creative Commons (CC). This last one is an American non-profit organization dedicated to provide legal models and applications to facilitate the distribution and use of content within the public domain. Creative Commons present their legal models as licenses, inspired by the General Public License granted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

This organization (FSF) has dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, understanding, and modifying of computer programs. Therefore, the licenses granted by CC are aimed to allow authors to decide the way in which their creative content will circulate on the Internet, providing freedom to quote, reproduce, create works and offer them publically. Although these licenses were written in English originally, they have been adapted to other languages and various laws in other countries. The languages in which the licenses have been translated are: Galician, Catalan, Spanish, Basque and Portuguese. Some of the countries that have adapted the CC benefits and have granted operating licenses (also adapted to their legislation) are: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Spain, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Puerto Rico.

 

Currently all intellectual creations by default fall under the protection of the copyright laws, with the long string of restrictions that it implies. Anyone who wants to use a specific work must enter a complicated process of finding the copyright owner and obtaining his or her permission, which often involves the payment of royalties. Because of this, many projects never become materialized.

Therefore, CC provides a system that automates the content search. To license the work, the creator strictly establishes general conditions that later are incorporated into the work digitally, so that a search engine can identify them. Apart from establishing a database containing all licensed works, the organization intends to establish a creative file available for public sharing.

Copyrights, 360 Deals & Royalties

Entertainment law is an important aspect of the entertainment business industry. It is applicable to the film, music, and events businesses, and all those branches that nourish the entertainment industry. To assist in the dissemination of the legal significance of these businesses, experts have decided to study and share their knowledge. That is why we have the collaboration of Gordon P. Firemark with Tamara Bennet, who maintain a website full of podcasts for the benefit of all those who work and study law entertainment.

Firemark’s Episode 23 podcast talks about the copyright laws. Through out the discussed cases like Who Wants to be a Millionaire vs Disney, the Marvel Comic dispute, and the Wizard of Oz lawsuit, Firewark highlights terms like the lack of matter jurisdiction and the copyright's function. This is basically behaving as a set of legal rules and principles, which governs the moral and economic rights that the law grants authors (copyright).
His next podcast, Episode 29, has to do with 360 deals. For this episode a special guest participated, named Aaron Jacobson. She represents entertainment professionals like producers, musicians, companies and other performers. About the 360 degrees deals, Jacobson says that these are record agreements where record labels have the opportunity of owning and sharing all the profits and income or part of it of the artist career. Here it is included publishing and copyright termination.

Another Firemark podcast is Episode 32, having to do about royalties and cancelation proceedings. With Eminem's dispute about his digital album downloads, it is discussed the importance of clearly establishing royalties. Royalties are the payment made to an owner of a copyright, patent or trademark, so in exchange is enabled the right to exploit or use of certain resources. About cancelation proceedings, Firemark discusses a cancelation issue with Lady Gaga. He highlights the importance of having cancelation clauses in all contracts so any dispute may be resolve as easy and quick as possible. These clauses can even avoid possible lawsuits. 

Even though my business plan is more focused in the event industry, still these activities are part of the entertainment industry and need to be backed up by entertainment laws. Events need the affiliation of many companies to work together to execute events and these affiliations are done contractually.  

Industry Liabilities: Artists and Their Lawsuits

A lawsuit came along against the Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber. During his presentation in July 2010 in the city of Oregon, thousands of fans went to his concert to enjoy his music and live performance. The venue was full with frantic screams, almost suffocating most of the presents that felt uncomfortable with the chaotic noise. Allegedly the situation got worst when Beiber got up a platform, which directed him above the audience serving as a conduit to expand more decibels.

 Taking his daughter to see her idol, mom StaceyWilson Betts was one of those stressed victims intolerant to the screams. She now claims that since that concert she has been partially deaf and suffering from tinnitus disease. She decided to demand the artist and the concert promoter for 9.2 millions.

I do not think this lawsuit will benefit Wilson. Who can control thousands of frantic fans extremely excited because they are seeing their favorite artist? In the other hand, who can blame her? I do understand she feels the artist is responsible, but truly, fans’ screams are something that nobody can control during a concert.

Another lawsuit took place between Latin actress, singer and businesswoman JenniferLopez and her former driver Hakob Manoukian. She accused him from extortion after allegedly he threatened her of divulging personal information and secrets about the artist. The extortion came along after apparently Lopez and her manager breaking the deal without justification and for not paying overtime.

Many times these discrepancies arise because of the lack of communication and honesty. Eventually, Lopez and her manager failed for not meeting their part of the contract. But it was beyond from human to be extorting with personal information. So, in general for me it was a good decision that Lopez decided to demand him.

Recently the Puerto Rican producer Roberto Morgalo sued the Panamanian singer Ruben Blades for defamation. Morgalo accuses Blades for declaring defamatory accusations and attacks against the producer. To this lawsuit Blades countersuit Morgalo, where the Federal Courts of Appeals said that the “federal judge for the District of Puerto Rico abuse its discretion in dismissing the defamation lawsuit against the singer Ruben Blades”. This means that the original demand returns to the Federal Court in Puerto Rico.

It is really sad seen such behavior between professionals in the entertainment industry. I think it was a good thing that the lawsuit returned to the Federal Court. I am more than sure that the whole case will now be investigated in more detail.