My Best Sites, Blogs & Twitter Peeps for Entertainment

As a young attorney, I kind of feel this weird sense of duty to bring law practice into the 21st Century. It's actually a bit more difficult than it sounds; not only do you have a rift between the "young" attorneys and "older" attorneys. It's not really an age thing, it's more of a way of practicing. As a young attorney, I want to be flexible with billing (hence our flat-fee based model at New Leaf), I want to really interact and build a relationship with my clients, and I want to promote what they're doing because I'm genuinely excited about it! However, this has not been the traditional way of legal practice, which is traditionally tight-lipped.

Thus, in the spirit of creating a new legal landscape; one that is tied to its fellow entrepreneurs and artists, I would like to share a list of my favorite sites for entertainment-related (business) content.

A Snippet of the Bestest Websites & Blogs for Artists:


lawyers4musicians.com

In a nutshell, this website totally rules. Not only is it a great resource for artists to learn about their rights, options and the law, it's also a great place for entertainment lawyers to stay up-to-date on the latest rule-world developments in this area of law. It's a perfect mix of cases, news and events.

The Hollywood Reporter's Law Blog

The Hollywood Reporter can be a very overwhelming website, especially for folks that focus more on the creative side of the industry and keep up on the business side because they have to (and that's ok!!). But Matt Belloni artfully manages a blog through the site that focuses on interesting legal happenin's in the industry. While it may seem at first only a resource for "boring lawyers" and copyright nerds like me, its content is interspersed with valuable lessons any musician, filmmaker or artist should find valuable. For example, today's blog highlights a film that is about to debut at Sundance this year - and it's FULL of unlicensed corporate logos and mascots, an issue that, as Matt points out, would make any entertainment lawyer faint. However, this is an issue that is often overlooked by many filmmakers because they have 50,000 other things to be (rightfully) concerned about. You scan this blog, and you'll be even more the wiser to the legalities you should make sure your lawyer takes care of.

arstechnica.com

Ars Technica is the go-to resource for all geeky entertainment industry peeps - whether you're a web developer, marketing/viral guy, game developers (!!), you need to hit this site on a daily basis. Though it's content is VERY rich, it's easy navigation system makes scanning through it and finding relevant, valuable information a cinch. I highly recommend the "Gaming" section for developers, industry professionals and consumers alike.

Best Twitter Content:
Gaming news: @arstechnica (for obvious reasons), @goodgaming
Entertainment law: @musiclaw09, @entlawupdate
Entertainment/Industry news: @hypebot (who also has an amazing website for musicians), @fightpiracy


A couple of other invaluable resources for Artists:
- Your local film bureau or Chamber of Commerce
In Massachusetts specifically, the Film Bureau is an amazing resource for understanding laws right regard to filmmaking, tax credits, and a myriad of other issues. There are similar organizations for other areas of entertainment as well.

- Your local arts lawyers organization
The Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts has a presence in most jurisdictions, especially ones where the area is thick with entertainment and art. I actually worked at the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts and am now a member attorney. Most of these attorneys will take artist cases pro-bono if you qualify.

How, this clearly isn't an exhaustive list; these just happen to be some of the sites I like, for various reasons. I would invite everyone to contribute their favorites as well. The bottom line at the end of the day, though, is that it is more important than ever that entertainment industry folks understand the latest news and legal developments in their industry. Not only is it (slightly?) interesting, it is most likely relevant to something you're working on, and simply being aware can save you loads of time and money on the back end. Enjoy!



www.newleaflegal.com

Buy Your Tix Now! Vid Game Exhibit in Smithsonian in... Wait... 2012?

In what can politely be called an "early announcement," the Smithsonian American Art Museum recently published an announcement that it will host a 6-month exhibit on the evolution of video games, beginning in March 2012.

First of all, this is sure to be a completely bad-ass exhibit. I honestly wish I had kids just so I could take them and show them just how far video games have come since "War Games." (Do you remember that? Ah, nerd memories...) Alas, it will likely be just me and my fiancé nerding out with all the other adults that proudly wear their gamertags on their sleeves. But no matter.

The exhibit is sure to have its high and low points. For example, not only will the exhibit take a comprehensive look at every console system (big positive there and yes, I'm bias to consoles), but there will even be a demonstration room where visitors can play games.

Wait, a demo room? Cool in concept? Yes. Execution? Hmm... I'm afraid that the Smithsonian Directors may underestimate the power of a gamer, especially under the influence of an energy drink or one too many cups of coffee. And I know I would fuel up before taking on that exhibit. In mean, the line to play Wii at Best Buy is annoying enough... can you imagine the hoarding when there's thousands of game enthusiasts in one place, scrambling to get their moments of reminiscence with an Atari system? I shudder to think. You know people that live in the DC area will visit that exhibit multiple times just to hang out in the that room. And the adults are sure to be worse than the kids (aren't they always?)

Either way, I know I'll be heading down to DC sometime during 2012. In other news, I've recently discovered The Guild. How the hell did I miss this??

Local Boston Artist Launches Healing DVD

Over the course of the last few months, I have had the privilege of representing one of the kindest and sweetest artists in the Boston Area - Ms. Linda Dehart, a seasoned and talented artist specializing in watercolors. In October 2008, Ms. DeHart approached myself and a colleague witha big dream: she wanted to create a DVD that synchronized 1,000 of her watercolor paintings to ten pieces of healing music. This project was going to be massive and unlike anything she had ever undertaken; it would require a full web team, a marketing and PR team, and organizational team, and, of course, a legal team. From a legal persepective alone it required substantial drafting and negotiating of 3 separate copyrights: a synchronization right ("synch"), a master use right, and a public performance right (as the DVD would be marketing to health facilities who would play it publicly at their offices, in patient rooms, etc).

A quick copyright diversion for those interested - copyright owners hold 6 "exclusive" rights: the rights to 1) copy/reproduce; 2) distribute; 3) create a "derivative work"; 4) publicly display; 5) publicly perform; and 6) perform publicly via digital transmission. If you wish to do anything with a piec that someone else wrote/painted, etc., you need to get specific permission (except in some instances where you can go through one organization that issues that type of license). When you "synchronize" music to any image, you must negotiation straight with the copyright owner. Luckily, all of the artists Ms. DeHart was working with own all their own copyrights, save two, which were own by record companies. So on my end, there were 10 licenses to negotiation, each with 3 different rights in them.

This was the first project that I had licensed from beginning to end, and I was honored and proud to be a part of it. The launch of the DVD was last night at the British Consulate Offices in Cambridge, MA and it was just beautiful. I would urge everyone to visit www.dehartart.com and check out the samples of each of the tracks, which are designed to offer a broad range of healing, from a mere moment of repose to relief from serious pain. I hope you will find them as relaxing as I did, and in such a busy world, I believe we all deserve a moment to ourselves during the day.