Held Liable

Within all the realms of entertainment, there are many apparent and hidden liabilities. Liabilities are hindrances. Hopefully companies take insurance to avoid the mess that they can cause for their business. Due to my interest for events, I checked out some podcasts that detailed some so I could get a better understanding of how they can apply to my future business. The first one I looked at was Entertainment Law Update Ep 12  by Gordon P. Firemark, Esq. It caught my attention because he spoke on theft of ideas. The example was about a script that was pitched and apparently became the base for The Last Samurai movie but not credited. The court dismissed the claims because there was not substantial similarity of the protectable elements. Since I want to do concept/theme development (which encompasses a lot of ideas being thrown), I learned from the example how pitched ideas could be seen as bordering infringement. I could apply this knowledge by just being weary of copyright infringement from whatever should inspire me.

The next podcast I listened to was by the same gentleman, about Fair Use. It tied in with what I was just reviewing. Certain materials can have a limited use but may be seem as being in competition to or infringing. The case he looked at was about a play and music and the court saw it as fair use. Fair use can be arguable as it looks at competition and some things do not have a market. I could apply this to my event business by understanding how material is classified as being used to advance. This would help me protect myself and my business so that we never see a court.

Now something I would love to work on is a fashion show. This interview was really fun to listen to and I got a lot of information. A liability for a new business starting out is proper use of funds. I learned from this podcast the importance of proposals, as the event director was able to get a venue for free by showcasing the benefits. It also stressed how WHO you know helps out a lot.  A good tip from the podcast was to update your advertising rather than presenting it all at once. This way you have a better return on investment as people know ahead of time of events. It also talked about how to keep outside vendors specific to what they need to know as those could be other liabilities.