Who Says the Law Isn't Entertaining?

  For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a lawyer. Actually up until the age of 7 or 8 I wanted to be MLB, NBA, NFL triple threat that was a F-15 fighter pilot and lawyer all rolled up in one (this sounds like an awesome idea for a show I know). The lawyer thing persisted up until about the 7^th or 8^th grade when my English teacher said that I should get ready for a lot of advanced English courses and a ton of writing.

Considering the fact that I would cry and throw a fit up until the 4^th grade whenever I would have to write a paragraph about what I did for the summer among other difficult writing assignment (like what I would do if I won a million dollars) I don’t have a strong love for writing per say. I decided to change up my career goals for something a bit more conducive to my style (aka laziness). I moved over to my other love in life movies (which actually requires a lot of writing as well so I can’t win for nothing).

  My love of the law hasn’t subsided so coming to the subject of entertainment law my ears perk up like an excited pup. I was introduced to a podcast site Entertainment Law Update that talks about recent cases and happenings on the legal side of the entertainment world. This is a great resource as I’ve found some great information in some of the podcasts I’ve listened to.

  The first podcast Ilistened to dealt with various topics and cases. One of the ones that stood out for me was the case of the artist being sued by the University of Alabama for trademark infringement. In this case the artist would paint famous plays from Alabama football history. The school claimed that since the colors and uniforms of the school were present in the paintings the artist should have to get additional licensing for the paintings. The artist refused and so the case proceeded. To put things simply the court said that the artist didn’t infringe upon Alabama’s trademark because he was portraying historical events and thus not infringing upon their trademark.

  This has great implications for someone like me. This would mean that I have some protections if I were to make a historical movie that involved a team or such. I wouldn’t necessarily have to get a license for showing their uniforms (although I would reach out and make sure things were kosher before going forward to avoid litigation but that’s just me). The second podcast I listened to dealt with the passage of the JOBS act and (most interestingly) crowd funding and how that would work under the new law. This could be a major boon to independent filmmakers and producers. Caps were raised as to how much a company could raise through crowd sourcing and as to how it would be reported.

  During this discussion I was able to glean a piece of information that I had no previous knowledge of was the fact that you have the ability to go directly to a movie chain such as Regal Cinemas and pay them to directly distribute your film in their theater. You could theoretically raise funds to help in this endeavor. To say that my mind went into overdrive at the possibilities is an understatement. What I have gathered from this is that it is imperative that I keep my ear to the ground on these legal happenings in my industry. They will have great effect on my future endeavors. To note it’s also in my best interest to find a really good attorney that is versed in this world to help navigate the waters.