Entertainment Legal Questions

Did you engage the photo company to take a picture of your child? Often, the fine print of photographer's contracts give them the right to use images in their advertising. Otherwise, if no release was obtained for the use of the photograph, you have a right of privacy and can send a cease and desist letter to the photo company. ... Read More

I would want to see what the shoes look like and how your customizations change the trademarks and copyrights of Converse. Feel free to contact me about a consultation. Generally, you will have the right to resell the shoe because you purchased it. However, there could be instances where you may violate the Converse trademark and/or copyrights. You also need to make sure that you don't violate any of your states laws. I would need to know how and where you are selling the products, because your presence in another state through your sales operations may make you liable.... Read More

It is very likely that the custom print from Converse would be intended for your personal use. You would need permission from Converse to sell their shoes - even with your custom print - since the would still be Converse branded shoes - labeled as Converse. They control the trademark CONVERSE - as well as the "trade dress" - the look of the Converse shoe. Good luck with your project!... Read More

I need more details before I can answer. Are you asking if the app is patented or copyrighted? Whether the developer has the legal authority to rebroadcast a TV program or a local or national TV signal? Whether a particular app is licensed by Android? Whether the material on the app violates any state or federal laws about content?... Read More

There are many types of trainer knives and Cosplay weapon knives. These look like knives, but they have no blade. The blade is what makes it a knife, just as the ability to shoot bullets is what makes a gun. In many styles of trainer knives, the blade-like part is made with holes in it so it can never be sharpened. These do not appear to be illegal, just like toy guns are not illegal. However, if you bring this anywhere in public or any place that knives are not allowed, then you will most likely run into trouble. That trouble may include being questioned, being arrested, or even being shot by police who think you pose a danger. Therefore, if you have one of these practice knives, be careful never to carry or use it in public or on the street, never bring it to a school or park, never bring it on an airplane. Simply practice at home or at a martial arts studio, and keep it packed up while bringing it there. Some of these trainer or cosplay knives look realistic, while others look obviously fake. If you want to meet with less trouble, choose one that looks obviously fake. Think of toy guns and how there are children who have been shot and killed by police for carrying a toy gun. This is not much different and could easily lead to the same sort of trouble.... Read More

This is a huge question. You really should get a music lawyer to work on this with you. Consider hiring a lawyer to be part of your expenses. Choosing to hold your concert in a existing venue is a great choice. If the venue is already legally holding concerts, that means it most likely has all the zoning, safety, and parking requirements. It probably also has music use licenses from performing rights organizations. Speak with the venue about renting out its space. They will tell you what they need. The three main things they are likely to need are money, insurance, and information about who you are and what you plan to do. The venue might have insurance coverage you can buy through their insurer. If the venue is selling the alcohol and food, since you would be supplying the audience, you might want to ask for a percentage of the take. There will be a whole contract involved and you are best to have a lawyer representing you on it. One of the main things any venue is concerned about is safety. They may reject any event if it sounds unsafe. Many venues will reject any event that sounds like it will draw unsafe people or include unsafe activities. The venue will also want to know about your track record, experience, and associates. They will want to know if this is a private party, a charity event, a business venture, or part of an existing organization. If you get rejected by one venue, move on to other venues until you find one that is suited, or adjust what you are doing so it is more suited to venues.... Read More

It is the policy of the State of California to afford all persons in public schools, regardless of their disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes set forth in Section 422.55 of the Penal Code, equal rights and opportunities in the educational institutions of the state. If a student-athlete has been kept out of a sport based on one of these categories, then legal action might be appropriate. However, the legal action would probably be to seek an administrative remedy first, and only if that does not work, move to a lawsuit. If it is not a situation of discrimination, but rather of judgment on the part of the coach, that is probably a matter to bring to a principal or the school district. There could be many legitimate reasons for keeping a student off a team or less active on a team, including the student's discipline record, grades, behavior, lack of team spirit, disrespect for the coach or game officials, play that endangers others or that the sport endangers the student, and on and on. Most coaches become good at making such assessments. Most teams require try-outs and some make it onto the team and others do not. If it looks like a student has been kept off a team for reason that is considered discrimination, it may be time to discuss this with a local lawyer or with an agency or organization in your area that deals with civil rights.... Read More

There are three major areas of law that come into play in your game scenario. The first is copyright. You must own the copyright on any pictures you use. You would have to have artists create pictures of each person that are not based on photos or works from anyone else. The second area of law is defamation. If the characters you use are all public figures, such as all presidents or presidential candidates, then the bar for defamation is quite high, but it still exists. You game cannot tell lies that are damaging. If you paid attention, you would have noticed that Melania Trump sued The Daily Mail because the news outlet claimed that Mrs. Trump's modeling career was not just about modeling. The parties settled the case. With the people who are currently involved in politics, you should not have to make up any stories, since the reality is interesting enough. The third area of law is the right of publicity. This is not federal law, but are different laws in different states. In a nutshell, the laws make it a tort to make commercial use of any person's name or image without their permission. A game you sell is commercial use. Every one of these laws is different. Does Donald Trump want you to use his name and image to sell your game? Probably not. Will he sue you? Maybe. If the game is basically a satire or parody, you might have a First Amendment Fair Use defense to the right of publicity claim. In fact, making the game strong satire or parody will assist your defense in any claims. Avoid anything lewd or vulgar, too, since such misuses usually will undo any defenses you might otherwise have.... Read More

Contracts with educational entities in the U.S. will be covered by the bodies that govern the contracts. For example, the procurement procedure for a local school district is something you can obtain from that school district. If you are talking about a college or a university, the procurement policy for each of these will be governed by the Board that runs that college or university. Google the name of the university and the word procurement and this should bring you to a page that tells the procurement policies for that school. Large university systems will have detailed procurement procedures that cover different categories and different price ranges. If you look at the policy of the specific institution, you may find that items below a certain price or items for free, may have a different procurement procedure. Selling or giving items or getting contracts with any school district or university is a complex job that requires someone willing and able to learn all the rules involved with the particular institution. One thing that is almost always illegal in dealing with any public institution is for the software company to offer bribes, gifts, kickbacks or other money or items of value to the person who will be making the purchase decisions. In most cases, the vendor will be required to sign a statement saying no such exchange took place. If you are allegedly giving the software and then charging for some aspects or usage of it, this needs to be clearly stated in any deal.... Read More

Unless you signed an agreement with Nat Geo releasing your rights to the the reality show, Nat Geo breached its contract with you.  You have the legal right to sue for breach of contract and violation of your confidential relationship with Nat Geo.   Paul VanSlyke, Attorney at Law  ... Read More

School dress codes and school uniforms are decided by school districts or by individual schools. The uniforms or codes would be subject to state law and to the U.S. Constitution. To learn about a specific dress code, you would need to read that particular dress code. A dress code will be in writing and should be available in paper form or on a website for your school or school district. When you read the dress code you are concerned about, you will see if it does in fact disallow bandannas for boys, but allow them for girls. My guess, without seeing the code in question, is that bandannas are not allowed for boys or girls, but that some form of hair accessories are allowed for girls. With every dress code, there is a lot of interpretation of the rules that will be left to the discretion of the teacher or principal or whoever is enforcing the dress code. If the teacher saw a girl with her hair held back by a bandanna that was obviously not part of a gang symbol, the teacher might let it pass. Another teacher might send her to the office or tell her not to wear it again. Why would bandannas not be allowed for boys? It might be the association with gangs. It might also be that almost all schools nationwide do not allow any head wear indoors, unless it is required by the student's religion. The rule about boys and men not wearing hats indoors goes back a long time in the U.S. and is considered a basic rule of good manners and being polite. Head wear such as bandannas and ball caps are often associated with gangs, and so are likely to be disallowed indoors or outdoors in or near a school. Many public schools have found it too difficult to interpret dress codes and have opted for simple school uniforms. Most of these school uniforms consist of a polo shirt in a specific color worn with some sort of bottom in a different color. For example, a typical school uniform is a navy blue polo shirt with khaki bottoms, such as pants, shorts, or a skirt. School uniforms will almost never allow any head wear, other than whatever might be required by a religion. So, a Muslim girl may wear a hijab and a Jewish boy may wear a yarmulke. But, unless you are going to start the Church of the Easy Rider or the Church of the Dude, you are not going to have the right to wear a bandanna to school.... Read More

It is past the expiration date you mention. Are you complaining about something that happened before that date? If so, where did this happen? The location is important because local laws may affect the answer. The only place I have seen use of the term "meal booking" is in colleges in the United Kingdom. Without knowing the details or location, it is not possible to know what laws might be in effect. However, usually in most cases, such a coupon is not considered a contract offer, but is simply considered a promotion. There would be no obligation to honor the coupon. However, in most places, if a business hands out such coupons as a form of "bait and switch," where they lure in customers to try to sell them something more expensive or less desirable, then this may be a deceptive business practice that should be reported to a local Better Business Bureau, a Chamber of Commerce, and possibly to the Federal Trade Commission.... Read More

A contract signed under the influence of alcohol may or may not be valid. A person who signed a contract while intoxicated can attempt to cancel the contract with the other party, or can go to court seeking to void the contract. Usually such a contract is only voidable if the other party had reason to know of the level of impairment. The totality of the circumstances will affect the Court's decision. Such factors as if the other party gave the signing party alcohol to trick them or woo them into signing will be taken into consideration. If you are asking someone to sign a contract, do not give them any alcoholic drink or smoke weed or use any other drugs with them. Do not let them sign if they appear as if they have been drinking, smoking weed, or are otherwise intoxicated or high. Also, when you are having a person sign a contract, you should give them the contract and let them have plenty of time to show it to their own lawyer or ask advice from whoever they trust. If the person has had the contract for days and has shown it to their own advisor before signing, then it is highly likely to be considered valid. I write contracts for indie music and film. Since most indie people cannot afford their own lawyer, I write the contracts so that any normal intelligent person can understand the contract. Also, we email the contracts to the person and let them take enough days to read it, show it to their friends and family for advice. Also, the contracts are written to be fair to all parties. In the music and film industries, many people abuse alcohol or drugs, and many people have mental or emotional instability. Some such people have very strong natural talents. If one is signing a contract with such a person, please get good legal advice before doing so. Record label contracts often have provisions for what is to happen if the artist becomes incapable of living up to the expectations of the contract. Such provisions should be written only by a lawyer. ... Read More

In California, you definitely need a very well-written release form for this and give notice in very prominent lettering on all materials, as well as at the door. In the Los Angeles area, particularly, many people who may attend such a workshop may be actors or models, and may have agents or belong to a performer's union. You cannot just snap a photo of such a person and use it in your marketing materials. You must arrange for this in advance, sign a contract for their services, and pay them their rate. Therefore, particularly in California, you are best off to separate your workshop from your marketing, and either hold a special staged event for taking photos, or use great caution to take only photos of those who have agreed in writing to be on your marketing materials.... Read More

My best opinion after looking at the DMCA notice on the site is that the site is most likely not legally run. The site claims it is legally run, in a description that is jam-packed with misspellings, incorrect word usage, and legal confusion. The TV-o.org domain is registered in the name of a man with an address in Vienna, Austria. The site claims it is not hosting content, but rather, is indexing, redirecting, or framing materials from other sites. Most other sites have Terms of Service that disallow such usage. Why would any content provider go through all the expense and work of providing and hosting legal content, only to have another site profit from it? It is highly unlikely that the sites he is slurping off of want him doing that. On his DMCA page, he seems to misunderstand almost totally what U.S. Copyright law is about, how notice is given, and whether or not he could be allowed to make the copyright owners of infringed materials jump through hoops. He chastises content owners who want him to stop infringing on their entire body of material, and insists they must report infringement on each URL specifically. He actually thinks a site like Youtube should be forced to report a million URLs, or however many videos are on Youtube. That's not how it works. Youtube can simply file a copyright infringement lawsuit, or perhaps the U.S. government will file criminal copyright infringement charges against him. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges before against the owners of websites that index or redirect content from other sites. Whether it is legal or not for you as a viewer to watch this probably depends on where you live. Federal law was proposed to make viewing such things illegal, but I do not think that ever became law. There could still be state laws against it. If you are viewing it outside of the U.S., you should check with your local laws, because it might be illegal. Also, if you download a show or movie that is protected by copyright, and most are, that is copyright infringement and illegal. There may be other dangers besides whether or not it is legal such a site may be prone to containing malware or viruses. Is your computer safe there? There are many sites where you can view videos and TV for free or for a small charge. You are better off viewing videos and shows on sites that have gone to the trouble and expense of making sure their content is offered to you free from any concerns about legality and safety.... Read More

I have experience in writing contracts for joint screen play writters and collaberation agreements for adapting a book for a screen play. I need more specifics about your questions.   I can draft the contracts to be established for the new publishing company.  Tell me your concerns about shares for partners and board member.  Feel free to call me if you like. Paul C. Van Slyke Hoover Slovacek 713-735-4129... Read More

The laws regarding gaming, gambling and sweepstakes do differ from state to state. So much depends on where your sweepstakes is actually taking place and how. For example, if all tickets are sold within one state only, then probably the rules of that state only apply. If the tickets are being sold in multiple states or sold on the internet, then you have a lot of complications. Also, there are several states that might ban any such gaming. Within any one state, there can be different rules, such as rules of different counties, rules on water versus rules on land, and rules on tribal lands. Keep in mind that anyone can sue anyone for anything and even if the case is clear cut, it can cost a lot of money and time to get a case dismissed. Check with the lawyer who wrote the rules for the sweepstakes and make sure they advise you carefully on what you plan to do, before you do it.... Read More

There are basically five areas of law that you will be looking to for guidance in this matter. The first is FCC law regarding radio or phone transmissions, depending on what kind of transmissions your device uses. All such devices are licensed by the FCC, which controls the frequency on which the communication will operate, how strong the signal will be, and how the device functions. When cordless house phones first came out, this was a big deal, since some phones were transmitting into nearby phone. The second area of law is the FCC Regulations for Low Power, Non-Licensed Transmitters. This is the category of baby monitors, garage door openers, and other such low range items. If your item fits this category, you will be looking to this body of law. If your device fits neither of these categories, you will need to discuss with the FCC. Generally, the FCC does not allow any frequencies to bleed into phone frequencies, since no one wants their phone calls interrupted. The third area of law that will guide you is advertising law. Some types of ads are legal and some are not. The sort of ads you describe are likely to be illegal as harassment or unfair competition. Have the people downloading the app been fully informed on what it does and then agreed to that? If the app easy to deactivate and uninstall? The fourth area of law you will look to is privacy law. A while back, there was an ad company that wanted to transmit ads at a shopping mall onto the phones and iPod of the shoppers. This was deemed an invasion of privacy. There are special privacy laws for children under age 13, and they have phone and iPods and are present in shopping spaces. The fifth area of law, and the one that should be of most concern to you, is patent law. You should immediately get a good patent lawyer who is experienced in tech inventions. First they will do a search to see if the thing you have invented has already been invented. If not, they will go ahead and start the long registration process. You should go directly and quickly to the patent process and not worry about this or that application being legal or exactly what the practical uses for it will be. Most inventions take on a life of their own and uses will be found.... Read More

Generally, a mere listing of contents is not covered by copyright protection. However, a working Table of Contents is not a listing of contents, but is more a proposed outline of a work, so an argument could be made that it is a creative, original work that could be registered. Literary works can be registered with Copyright, and a listing of Chapter headings in itself may not be considered a literary work. If the table of contents is a detailed outline of a book that is going to be written, an argument might be made that it should be eligible for registration. If you are looking to protect the working Table of Contents during the planning and writing stages, Copyright registration may not be the most effective approach. It may be much more effective to try to protect your working Table of Contents with nondisclosure agreements that state liquidated damages for any breach and possibly with a covenant not to compete, that is, a contract whereby the participants agree not to take the ideas or materials and use them to create their own book or a book for some other entity. The working Table of Contents should be treated as a trade secret. That means it will be kept very securely and divulged only to those who are under a nondisclosure agreement. The physical handling of the Table of Contents as a trade secret will be most important. It must be password protected with limited access. Security precautions must be taken to make any such materials meet the legal requirements of being a trade secret. Trade secrets are the bulk of the way that most proprietary things in business are protected, rather than copyright. Copyright registration necessarily exposes the thing to public scrutiny and dissection by a Copyright officer. Keeping trade secrets locked away and divulged only to those that need to know and who are under a legal obligation not to reveal is the way most business secrets are protected. If you are planning to send the Table of Contents out with a query letter to literary agents or publishers, it may be worth trying to copyright register it in advance or trying to get a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement in advance from those who will read it. Another option is not to send out the Table of Contents in queries and only divulge it once there is a serious potential agent or publisher who will willingly sign a nondisclosure and trade secrets agreement.... Read More

It sounds like in the first part of your question, you are asking what is the average finder's fee for a music distribution deal. This question makes little to no sense to me. There would not be any finder's fee involved in any such thing. The only person who can be paid a percentage of talent work is a Licensed Talent Agent and the prices are set by contract that must be approved by the State. The only exception is when a Music Manager gets a recording contract for a client, but the law states recording contract, not a distribution deal. Trying to get a "finder's fee" for telling someone about a music distribution company would not happen legally, absent being a licensed Talent Agent. In the second part of your question, you are saying something about a "film finder deal bring investor." Please be aware that investing in a film is usually considered an activity only for qualified investors under SEC rules. In any situation where an investor will be brought on to a film, you must work closely with a film finance attorney. The rules are very specific because the investment is so incredibly risky. When the film project has a good film finance attorney in place, she or he will be able to tell you if there will be some sort of fee available for bringing in an investor to the project. Before expecting any such fee, be sure to have a contract in place between yourself and the producers of the film, written by the film finance attorney with all legal provisions. If you simply show up introducing an investor to a film producer, do not expect to be paid any money for that. Who can be paid for what is very specific in the entertainment industry.... Read More

It sounds like you need to consult a lawyer of your own that you pay for. That is the only way to divulge all the details of your situation and get some solid answers. Often in contract law, it comes down to the intent of the parties. Was the person or persons behind the LLC intending to make a contract for themselves with the individual? You need to hire a lawyer and show the lawyer all the paperwork and emails and discuss. Whatever the situation, both parties should try to work out a deal that will be good for both of them.... Read More

Not usually. If you could, the courts would be awash in lawsuits over cable and cell phone companies. However, you might want to write back here with more about your specific situation, such as the type of company and type of service and what happened. Then maybe there will be more answers for you.... Read More