Entertainment Legal Questions

You may be confused with regard to trademark and copyright law. This is an extremely common mistake. I believe that you are speaking about trademarks. A trademark is a name, logo or slogan. The "quotes" you reference could be a slogan. Certainly you will want to hire a qualified IP attorney to determine whether you can use these without substantial liability. Use of a trademark dictates ownership of that mark. Registration is certainly helpful and could access triple damage and attorney provisions, but someone's use of the trademark could mean that you could get sued for infringement should you start using it.... Read More

Any work that qualifies for copyright protection gains that protection the minute it is fixed in some sort of permanent medium. So both your work and the revisions are already copyrighted (assuming they are your original work). If you choose to, you can register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office in the Library of Congress. Submit the whole revised work to the Copyright Office, even if you already submitted an earlier version, so there is no question about what what is protected.... Read More

You are permitted to place a "thumbnail" photo on a website for the purpose of giving potential buyers an idea of what you are offering. The image should not be the same size or image quality as the item itself. You don't want people to be able to download the image instead of purchasing the magazine.... Read More

Wow. I was in disagreement with you, until I read that the service employees are not actually getting these mandatory gratuities. This is extremely deceptive, if nothing else. The whole scheme sounds deceptive and illegal to me. It would be legal and not deceptive if the service people were being given the gratuities and if those were on top of their regular salaries. Good for you for spotting this situation. You should go to head of the club and complain. They may have been tricked by the snack bar owner into thinking this gratuity charge would be going to the employees. You can go as far as you want and complain as high up the legal chain as you want, but the first step with the most integrity is to complain to the club director and manager and ask them to sort it out. They are most likely unaware of what is really happening. They may be grateful to know.... Read More

This is the sort of trademark question I like to deal with. You should speak directly with a lawyer to help you work on this, because the specifics of the name and of your company will make all the difference. In naming your record company, you should be choosing a name that can be registered as a trademark. The name of a famous movie may or may not be able to be registered as a trademark for your record company, depending on many factors. There may also be trademarks already registered in the movie name by the movie company, and these may interfere with your use of the name. For example, when a famous movie is made, although the name of the individual movie may not be be qualified for trademark, trademark might be registered for many associated products. That is why you need to work directly with a lawyer.... Read More

The rules about beach bonfires in Southern California differ with each beach. Most Southern California beaches maintain a website that tells all the rules. Some do not allow fires at all. of those that do allow fires, they usually require them to be in a fire ring, to use only small wood, not to be stacked higher than 2 feet, to use no treated wood, not to use any pallets as wood fire, and to put the fire out with water only, not sand. Of the places that do allow beach fires, many have a curfew on fires, for example, from 11pm to 7am. A few places do not have a fire curfew. All locations require the fire to be attended by a person at all times. Southern California Beaches do not allow alcohol, glass bottles, dogs, or smoking. So, do not plan to bring your dog, drink beer, and smoke, because you will get kicked out and be given a handful of tickets. ... Read More

I think this would be possible, but would take some good planning. Many states require the name change to be published in a newspaper either before or after the change takes place. This makes the change quite public. Some states, such as Iowa, do not require this. However, Iowa, as most states would, requires the petitioner to be a resident of the county where they are petitioning the court. So you may have to move for a while to a state that has the laws that suit you. Then there is the matter of court records. You must find a state where this particular type of court record is not publicly accessible. It differs greatly state to state which court records are made available to the public. You can research all of this online, or get a lawyer to assist you. However, keep in mind that no matter what the court practices are, there will still be your high school yearbook out there, your old friends and neighbors, and your aunt who is just dying to tease you by revealing that your name was once Humbert Humperdink. Good luck. ... Read More