Lawyers…Who Needs Them…ME!
Lawyers are often considered a dirty word. If they are any good you know you will not be able to afford their services. As a student starting out in the industry I have already needed to procure their services and after only a few moments of their precious time I parted with two weeks worth of pay. However, as a Producer I think it is important to align myself with great entertainment lawyers as soon as possible. I think even a blossoming career can be cut short due to some silly issue, which might have been negated had a lawyer been involved.
Dan Pearce is one of the Partners at Holding Redlich and he deals primarily with entertainment law. Pearce spent an hour of his time (which I was not billed for), explaining the in’s and out’s of some important legal technicalities related to producing original work. The two most important pieces of information I garnered from Pearce was 1) Detail is what makes a work original. For example Romeo and Juliet has been recreated in many different formats e.g. West Side Story, Dirty Dancing. However, it is the detail of West Side Story and Dirty Dancing that made it original. Neither story could be accused of copywriter infringements.
2) Secondly, Pearce mentioned many Producers when starting out simply run with ideas, and only formally put together contracts once money is put into the idea. I always assumed Producers armed themselves with as many lawyers as possible from day one. It’s good to know some issues can be corrected after the fact, although I do also understand this is not the desired practice.
Pearce also briefly discussed the issues of pitching unsolicited work to TV channels and studios. Due to the nature of the entertainment industry and the difficulty in protecting ones ideas, it is easy for people to choose not to buy your idea but to then re-create is somehow on their own terms. With out sufficient evidentiary support that a project is your idea, you are at risk of having your idea stolen and produced. This can also be witnessed in the current legal issues surround the making of the “Da Vinci Code”.
