Michigan Entertainment Legal Questions

Just as Kitty Kelly writes unauthorized biographies of celebrities, you can write a musical about one. However, you should also be prepared to defend against a law suit from the celebrity on a variety of charges unless you can prove that every single bit of the play is factual. It would be much safer to get the celebrity's permission and pay whatever percentage of the profits he or she demands.... Read More

If the act is considered to be other than rape, meaning the act was not accomplished by force or trickery, this calls for imprisonment of one to four years and up to a $25,000 fine. If the act is considered rape under the California law, this calls for imprisonment of 10, 12, or 14 years. In addition, most such convictions require the person to register as a sex offender, usually for life.... Read More

You made a verbal contract with another party and now you want to break it. You may not be entitled to any of your deposit back, especially if the date is close and the venue doesnt have time to rent the facility to someone else. However, if the date is reasonably far away, the venue may be willing to return some and perhaps all of your deposit.... Read More

This is an interesting question. Your ex-wife probably does have certain privacy rights, in Oregon anyway probably a right to avoid the public disclosure of private, intimate facts, and the right not to be portrayed in a false light. You may also risk libel for things you say that aren't true. If your ex-wife is recognizable, that's enough to trigger the legal analysis. Of course, people could hardly read the book without being able to identify her. Of course, first amendment rights take precedence over privacy rights, but the first amendment at its core protects speech about matters of public concern like political speech. Here, you have speech about private matters. It isn't necessarily protected speech in a book. I'd go over what you write with a lawyer you can probably mediate a little to avoid these issues.... Read More

Any copying of a song that is copyrighted is illegal unless you have advanced written permission of the copyright owner (who is not necessarily the creator of the song or the group performing it). Furthermore, your paster should not play these songs for anyone other than himself without written permission. There is no exception to copyright law for religious organizations.... Read More

When you buy a song or album off iTunes, you acquire a personal license. This means that it is for your personal use, not for re-sale and not for commercial use. There are two ways to do this, acquire a copyright license from the copyright holder of those songs (record label, band, song writer, etc (there are often several)) or have your pastor purchase the songs himself and obtain a commercial license. This would likely be the most cost effective method for 2 songs. Bear in mind that the license must be obtained by anyone holding a copyright interest in the music, composer, performer, producer, etc. If they have a registered copyright this information is relatively easy to ascertain.... Read More

As a general matter, performing artists are not expected to register their assumed or fictitious names, since the general rule is that natural persons are entitled to call themselves whatever they want. However, when you do business (i.e., sell goods) under an assumed name, then there is a possibility of consumer confusion regarding the source of their goods -- and you are generally going to be expected to put the public on notice of your assumed name with a filing.... Read More

As a general matter, meal breaks are not required to be compensated under federal law. Moreover, if you are on call and permitted to leave your employer's premises and to do whatever you want when no call arrives, these hours do not constitute "hours worked" for federal purposes. "All the time" raises a question of fact which may require further inquiry. Whether you can use the on-call time for your own purpose depends on the frequency of the work calls received. If you are interrupted to such an extent that you cannot conduct your regular activities, you probably cannot use the on-call time for your own purposes, and thus these hours may be compensable. You will need to discuss this situation with an attorney or your state's labor board.... Read More

If you can prove that it would have made a difference, then you certainly can sue. Mother Nature, or some trauma you suffered, may have been the cause of the scoliosis. It will run a natural course. You can only sue if the healthcare professional 1) made it worse, or 2) failed to make it better. In both cases, you need an expert who can testify that whatever changes you experienced WERE CAUSED BY THE PEDIATRICIAN'S DOING SOMETHING WRONG OR FAILING TO DO SOMETHING RIGHT.... Read More

The DMCA allows owners of copyrighted works to contact online sites and complain that their copyrights are being infringed. Once the online site receives such a notice, they are under an obligation to take the content down and content the person who posted the content, which was you. You should have the choice to contest the accusation, but if it really was someone else's work, you run a risk of getting sued by the copyright owner if you put the content back up. The website is not trying to scare you, it is protecting itself against getting sued for copyright infringement. Whether you can continue to post on that website is determined by the Terms and Conditions, so read those and see if your account is still active. Most websites freeze accounts if there are multiple copyright infringement complaints. It looks as if that is this website's policy as well, so be careful about posting other people's content in the future if you don't have permission.... Read More

Any contract must have certain terms to be enforceable in court. Even oral agreements can be enforceable. You should take the contract to an attorney and see if you can enforce it. Even if the written agreement is not enforceable, there may be other legal actions such as oral agreement, promissory estoppel or unjust enrichment that could be brought.... Read More

Dear Questioner, Interesting question. You state you've discovered an unauthorized distribution of your copyright (registered?) work but rather than seek to shut it down, you may permissively allow it to continue. Pre-supposing that you could shut it down if you wanted to, making the conscious decision to allow the torrent could potentially have a negative impact on your lawsuit depending on how the issue was framed it is an argument you can control and need to explore further with a lawyer. This isn't "unclean hands" that is a legal doctrine your question is using inappropriately. It would be better to contact the bittorrent operator and offer a license or some other arrangement. DMCA notices will, generally, get a bittorrent taken down, unless the website in question is one that flagrantly disobeys copyright regulations (e.g. PirateBay), or, perhaps, is operated in a jurisdiction far outside the sphere of law of the USA and Europe. Regardless of whether you permissively leave up the torrent, you can still sue for the unauthorized distribution. Your situation sounds complicated. If you're going to sue, you'll need to see an attorney anyway. I recommend you pose this question to your attorney, along with all the other pertinent facts. This message is just general information. For a good, solid legal opinion, you need a full consult where the facts of your situation will be thoroughly explored.... Read More