Court vs. Entertainment

The entertainment industry is almost amazing when it comes to how things are done and how much work goes into one project not even thinking about how many people it takes to get some things done in a timely fashion. At the same time in the entertainment industry it is that quick to find yourself in harm way when it comes to legal issues. There’s so many ways to end up in court; just simply creating a piece of artwork and posting on a social media is not that safe anymore.

Looking at three cases that could impact my company really helped in showing me that I always need to double check things, ask questions, and have all contracts written correctly. The first case I looked at was the fact that the Subway footlong subs aren’t really a foot long. They have had many claims against them saying that the footlong is really only eleven inches verses twelve inches, and being fraudulent and deceptive to the public. Which the footlong represents $142M of there sales. This specific case showed me that when it comes to advertising, being creative could really hurt you. Calling one thing something that it is to make revenue will always bite you in the end. Me being right in the middle of creating advertisement I may want to help lookover for things like that in scripts and props, just to better help the client.

The second case that I did a little research on was that TV Networks filed legal claims saying that skipping commercials is copyright infringement. Mainly focusing on the DISH subscribers with the Hopper feature are recording television show and skipping the commercials when they later view the recording. To be honest me personally, I don’t see why even start a case on this subject matter. It’s the same thing as purchasing a DVR and doing the same thing recording your favorite TV shows then when you later watch them you skip the advertisements, many consumers want to watch a show for the show and not the three to four minutes of ads. Reading over this case was a little comedic because there is really no real argument.

There was an company called Areo starting in New York, which provided live cable television to online members and also provided a DVR service, that allowed them to record for later viewing. NBC and some other local stations sued Areo, claiming that the retransmissions of their signals were copyright infringement on public performances of copyrighted work. This shows me that there is always better things that come up, new ways of doing things and if you want to move for ward with the big guys you have to be ready. I should be able to provide services for those online ad holders and move forward with the new generation.

There are legal issues when it comes to any industry or any topic, but as an entrepreneur you have to know what you’re stepping into, and do the research.