California Entertainment Legal Questions

Bars have different kinds of licenses and different policies. For example, if a bar serves significant amounts of food, it might be able to allow to let in the underage or let them in up to a certain time. Bars may also be policed differently. Inspectors may show up at one bar and not at others. Usually that is based on if nearby neighbors complain about a bar. Also, some bar owners are lackadaisical about following the law and risk accumulating citations that could close them down and others are very strict. More than likely, the bars are justified in not allowing you there. Some bars may also be reacting to your mother bringing her child to a bar so your mom can get intoxicated. Based on this fact pattern, it seems likely your mother is a problem drinker or an alcoholic. For her to involve you in her drinking is abusive. You say your family is very low income, and yet your mother is spending money at bars, enough to get intoxicated to where she cannot legally drive. At age 19, you are spending your time in bars waiting for your mother to get drunk, so you can safely drive her home. You should be spending your time doing your schoolwork, pursuing your interests, developing friendships, having a part time job. Could the time and money your mother spends at a bar be better spent on your education, her education, a job, a fitness club, healthcare, etc?I hope you will look at whether your family life is healthy. You might consider speaking with a counselor about this. Look up Al-Anon, a support group for families of alcoholics. Most moms do not hang out in bars, let alone bring their kids there. If your mom needs to drink, most likely she is dependent on alcohol, or an alcoholic. If you are spending time in bars, it can seem like a lot of people do this, but in fact, most moms are at home with their teens, being supportive of them in their education and sports and activities. Instead, you are being forced to enable your mom in her drinking.It sounds as if the tables have turned, where you are being required to act as the parent for your mother. This is the time in your life when you should be going to college and pursuing your own goals and dreams. An unhealthy family life or can lead to so many social and legal problems for decades to come. Look into patterning your own life around success in education, work, and relationships, rather than patterning it on access to alcohol. I urge you to take a first step to talk with someone about it.... Read More

I wish I knew why you were asking. Do you wonder if you are required to have a business license to hold a garage sale or sell one item in San Joaquin County? The San Joaquin County Code Chapter 7-1000 may require a license to run such a business, although that applies only outside of an incorporated city. The provision applies to selling goods for profit or not for profit. You may wish to call the County offices and call any city or town offices, if you live in one, and ask your question. Since I am a lawyer in California, if you click on my Contact link, I am happy to have you as a client to work on your questions. If selling one item is too much hassle where you live, you may wish to sell it elsewhere.... Read More

Check the terms of your contract and see what it says about termination. Whether you can switch will depend on whether the agreement automatically terminated or else required some action on you or the agent's part to either terminate it or continue the agreement. If you aren't sure, contact a local entertainment attorney who should be able to let you know if the agreement is terminated.... Read More

This is a fun one. CBS Interactive v. National Football League Players' Association, which followed CBC Distrib. Marketing v. Major League Baseball, which decided that First Amendment rights took precedence over state publicity rights laws. Ultimately, a series of courts found that fantasy football players had the right to use the already-made-public names, likeness and statistics of athletes. ONLY publicly released information can be used and that doesn't include a football magazine's exclusive. It includes only information in the "public domain" biographical information, statistics, probably a league-released mugshot. There are also some landmines here you should never publish anything that can be misconstrued as a player endorsement of your fantasy league/website. Also, caveat: These cases are not in our circuit, the 9th Circuit, which speaks for the law on the West Coast. There's no guarantee our courts would find the same way. And the NFL and MLB are fighting hard to try and keep their licensing rights. This is still a contentious legal issue. You should still probably consult with an attorney about what you want to specifically do or say in your podcast, but you should be covered by First Amendment rights to discuss public domain information. I can't give you a proper legal opinion without more facts, so this information is just for your general knowledge.... Read More

You need to talk with a lawyer and give the details. The California Gaming Act as well as the California Penal Code seem to prohibit most advertising of gambling. The U.S. Gambling Ship Act also applies. There are many details who is running the gambling, what kind of gambling, in what waters where, who you are, your relation to the ship, and on and on. WiIth gambling, there are far more things that are illegal than are legal. This is one time to pay a lawyer to research the laws and help you.... Read More

You do not say where the video is located. If it is on YouTube, this is what to do: Join Youtube. Sign into your account. Go to the video. Below the Video is a little flag button. Click that flag button. A drop-down menu appears. Click "Infringes My Rights." Then select "Invades My Privacy." This will take you to a page that gives instructions. File a report and state that this identifies you, you are identifiable, and the people are saying defamatory things about you that damage your safety and reputation. The series of questions ask if you are comfortable contacting the people on your own. You should choose "No," because obviously you are not. Follow through and fill out the forms correctly. Emphasize that this names you, that it identifies you, that it harms and endangers you. It may also be Defamation. Defamation claims are very hard to win in court. If you wish to do this, contact a lawyer. It is a sort of lawsuit that can cost a great deal of money to pursue and has a very high chance of not succeeding. If the video is on youtube and has been embedded elsewhere, having it taken down off youtube will remove it from the other locations, too. If the video is hosted someplace other than youtube, that place should also has similar flagging instructions. If all of this does not get this off the internet, speak with a lawyer as fast as you can. If you are being harassed by these people or others online, file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is an FBI clearing house for internet complaints. That is www.icg.gov.... Read More

Several points: 1. The overall amount can be anywhere from $25,000 to 100,000+, and far in excess of that if it's a 'hot story,' especially if there is bidding war as there often is if it's a hot story., 2. Typically the option/initial payment is 10% or so of the above amount. Usually the producer has a series of options, and each time the producer exercises an option to continue the agreement, another option payment must be made. Usually that happens when the producer needs time to get a funding or a network or studio deal for the project. 3. Often there are other deal points, for example, a fee for you to be a consultant during production. Also you want to put some kind of limitations on how they portray you. The first draft of many LSA's are pretty open-ended and give the producer too much liberty as to how they portray you. 4. You would be wise to be represented by an attorney in the transaction, specifically an attorney who has done this kind of deal in the past. Good luck. Disclaimer: The above is general information ONLY and is not legal advice, does not form an attorney-client relationship, and should NOT be relied upon to take or refrain from taking any action. I am not your attorney. You should seek the advice of competent counsel before taking any action related to your inquiry.... Read More

You should get a lawyer to help you with this. California has strict rules about running any contest, which are in the California Business and Professions Code sections 17539-17539.3, 17539.35. However, those Contest rules do not apply if the people will be in person competing with their skills. So first you need to determine if this is an in-person contest or not. You will also need to check the licensing on the game you plan to use. You will probably need to get permission from the game company, since you would be using the name and photos from the game. The game company may not want to be affiliated with your contest and may not allow you to use their game for your money-making contest. You may be violating the game company's copyright as well as its right of publicity. If you choose to work with me on this, I will try to help you come up with a way to run a contest that is within the laws. Do not attempt to run such a contest without proper legal help.... Read More

I'm not entirely clear on your question. Are you suggesting that you may purchase the MMORPG business or company? If so, you need to hire a professional to go over the sales contract with you and perform due diligence to make sure everything was properly valued. If you are buying an player account with the MMORPG, you do not "assume" the copyright. Look to your license as a player with the MMORPG. You cannot, for example, take the MMORPG's graphics and use them in a competing game. For a better answer, please clarify your question.... Read More

While you may be able to collect the information (from those who are willing to volunteer the information) as part of customer research for an individual business, publishing that data on-line may violate a number of laws. Two exceptions would be as a legitimate part of scholarly research or for law enforcement purposes.... Read More

This is a good example on why you should always have a lawyer look over any contract BEFORE you sign it. Doing so will almost always save you money in the long run. First, please understand that if you want your wedding outside at night, nearly all locations have noise ordinances. There is almost no location where you can have loud noise late at night. If you truly want loud noise late at night, it usually has to be indoors with doors closed so the noise does not emanate. Because I help plan outdoor music festivals, I can tell you that the latest any location is likely to allow loud noise to emanate from a property is 10 pm. Many locations will have the cut-off time much earlier, and some locations never allow loud noise to emanate without a special permit for that. Some locations require a special application for a Noise Permit, but even those have a cut-off time that is not very late. So, you may find that your expectations of making loud noise outdoors late into the night are unreasonable. I DO know of some places where there are no noise laws, and they are places that are very rural, unincorporated, not near any town or suburb, and where the county has no such laws. The places that I know of are not anywhere you'd likely want to hold a wedding. If you do find a different location for your wedding, or decide to move it indoors and can secure a place, then you are best off asking a lawyer to help you with the contract. You may end out responsible for the deposit. May is a long way off, so the winery may be able to find a different wedding to fill the time slot if you act quickly. This is called "mitigating damages." The winery may be able to mitigate its damages by filling the slot with a different wedding. Another factor to consider is that almost all wedding venues limit the number of hours for the event. Nearly all wedding venues limit the total time frame to 4 hours. This means that at almost all wedding venues, whatever you are doing ceremony, dinner, dancing must all fit in 4 hours total. Again, it sounds as if you may have unreasonable expectations. If you begin calling around to different venues, you may find that you do not need to change the venue, but that you do need to change your expectations. Best wishes. Other options may be to rent out a full resort, so your group is the only one present on a large acreage of land. That way, your guests can also spend the night and there will be no worry of drinking and driving. There are some conference centers in woodsy areas that will rent the entire place for weddings. I have seen several such places that are owned by universities. Such a set-up may be perfect for you.... Read More

If you receive permission from someone you believe to have the right to grant permission to a copyrighted work and it turns out they do not, you can still be liable for copyright infringement. However, if you do not make any significant profit as a result of the usage of the copyrighted work, you will only be labeled what is known as an innocent infringer. The damages for innocent infringement are approximately $500.... Read More

Probably yes, the hosting organization can limit who attends the event. Especially if there is a limited amount of space or supplies available, the event is not suitable for certain people (like children), or the hosting organization is picking up the tab and can only afford a certain number of people. Mistakes do happen.... Read More

Colton Simpson, who wrote "Inside the Crips" WAS put on trial for crimes he wrote about in the book, using the book as evidence in the trial. In 2007, he was sentenced to life in prison on California's 3 Strikes law. The book came out before this happened, of course, so does not tell about it. Tell-all autobiographical books are dangerous to write, because they CAN be used against you. As far as hip-hop and rap songs talking about crimes, those are mostly presumed to be lyrics, like poetry, and are not to be thought of as being autobiographical. Song lyrics often tell a story, but we do not think that the songwriter had all those adventures him or herself.... Read More

Copyright protects the expression of the idea, not the idea itself. So unless your friend gave you very specific details about the design or you had an agreement to share the royalties with or turn over some or all of the copyright to your friend before you finished the design, he or she doesn't have much claim to your work. However, if you couldn't have come up with the design at all without your friend's inspiration, then he or she probably deserves some of the income from the work. It's up to the two of you to work out an arrangement.... Read More

Dear Questioner, GREAT question! Website/host liability for harmful comments that have been posted is a legal hot topic! The answer is somewhat complex, but usually "No." You can sue a website only very rarely. In the USA, we have a federal law that provides a broad shield to websites against liability for comments other people make on the website. Generally, the website needs to do MORE than just refuse to take down the comments. Do the comments create a direct commercial benefit for the website (not just in increasing hits or advertising is the website a business that is your direct competitor)? Did the website promise to take the comments down, and then fail to do so? Has the poster of the comments asked the website to take them down and let him or her print a retraction? You can certainly sue the person who made the comments, even if you do not currently know who this person is (you can get a court order that will help you discover his or her identity).... Read More

Using a camera surreptitiously could raise a few issues. First, in many states, it is illegal to record someone without their permission. There are exceptions and these vary from state to state. The next issue concerns what you plan on doing with the footage. If you plan on using it commercially, then the people shown in the video have a right of publicity that prevents you from using their images/voices for commercial purposes without their permission. Again, these rights vary from state to state so you need to find out under the laws of the state(s) you intent to use the footage whether the subjects of your video have enforceable rights.... Read More

You could run into several issues with using your video footage. The first one is the right of publicity of the person(s) shown in the video. Everyone has a right to keep their image/voice from being used for commercial purposes without their permission. You would need a release from everyone shown in the video to use their images/voices or risk violating this right. The right of publicity varies from state to state so you need to make sure you get permission to use the video in all states you plan on showing the video. The next issue is copyright. You must make sure that your video does not violate someone else's copyright. That could happen, for example, by showing works (such as paintings, photographs) that are themselves protected by copyright. You would need a release to show those images in the video. Additionally, you should consider trademark. While showing someone else's trademark is not necessarily infringement, there are many companies that are very protective of their trademarks and they could seek to prevent you from showing their trademarks even if they may not be legally correct. Finally, you should register the copyright in your video to prevent other people from copyright your footage.... Read More

You do not need the other owner's permission to perform the song live if the venue has a license that covers the song from a performing rights society, such as ASCAP or BMI. However, the question about sharing contest winnings is more difficult. Joint owners of a copyright work must "account" to the other owners for profits derived from exploiting the work. The law governing the right to an "accounting" falls under state law. You would have to consult an attorney familiar with "accounting" in the state law in which you live or would be performing the song to answer that question.... Read More