Industry expert blog

            I watched two podcasts from Entertainment Law.com. Episode 32 was about UMG v. VEOH and episode 43 wasabout Sony Pictures v. Faulkner. The two podcasts talked about many court case analyses, so I picked two cases, which are related to my animation business.

            In the first podcast, the attorney talked about the copyright infringement law. In 2007, The Universal Music Group (UMG) sued Veoh because users uploaded music videos from UMG to Veoh’s websites.  UMG claimed that the hosting video company should take the responsibility for every infringed video by users and be liable for the full cost of policing for infringement. From the attorney’s opinion, the lawsuit against Veoh was very important for entertainment companies forcing the courts to revise the law, DMCA safe harbors. In order to prevent the copyright infringement law on online hosting users and providers, the copyright holder has to alert the ISP to the infringing material and put aggressive copyright warnings below copyrighted videos. Moreover, the Internet is a mass market; as a result, the copyright holder has to keep their intellectual property safe. Such as having the ability to limit the public access to the materials and remove it. Furthermore, if you prosecuted a company that infringed your product, you could show the rights and the ability to control infringement that could also prevent the defendant to attack the ownership.

            In the second podcast, the attorney talked about fair use. The lawsuit is about the film distributor violating Faulkner’s copyrighted work by taking a quote from his book without permission.  Sony picture won the lawsuit because they only used a nine-word quote from a thick novel. The attorney analyzed that the copyrighted work is in printed format. However, Sony used it into a speaking part in a comedy film. So, this transmogrification in medium tips is the factor in favor of transformative.  In another hand, Sony only used nine words from a 220-page novel, the same as qualitative significance to the initiating work as a whole, and it is de minims, thus is considered fair use.

            After listening to the two podcasts, I learned more about how to safeguard my artwork by limited access, to put a warning sign on the Internet, and how to fair use digital materials such as images, music, movies, and Internet elements.

Three legal liabilities

My business is an Animation Company that performs some outdoor shooting activities. In this post, I list three examples of legal liabilities, which are related to my business.

            On April 15^Th, 2013, two bomb blasts turned the 117^th Boston marathon into a tragic event. From the first moment, officials said that the attack was a terrorist act, but they continued investigating. Later in that day, authorities confirmed that the death toll was three, one of them being an 8-year-old boy. During the dramatic even, local hospitals reported that at least 144 people were being treated. As for these injured people, more than seventeen were in dangerous conditions and twenty-five in serious condition. What began as a simple form of entertainment where crowd and participants gathered for the annual marathon race, turned into this horrific nightmare

            In my opinion, the security team needed a complete risks plan before the beginning of the event. Public safety could be maintained by making a plan to reduce the risk of an attack. A possible plan could have been to changing the location of the event to the suburb area because it is easy to manage people in a suburb rather than in downtown Boston.  In addition, everyone getting into the finish line area should have passed the security check. That could have filtered anyone carrying weapons.

            On March 14^th, 2011, an employee got injured while repairing a roller coaster at one of the Disney’s parks. After a few days, the employee died at the hospital. Russell Sherry Roscoe, 52 year-old, was air lifted to the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Few days after the incident, he died due to severe head injuries.

            Safety is a big issue when it comes to handling tech equipment. Even if the reputation of the Mickey Mouse Company is in high standing, this tragic incident adds up to the negative light instead of the magical experience. So, the mechanic should evaluate and analyze the potential risks, which could be threat for the assets and their safety.

            In November 2011, a crewmember died during the shooting of the movie Dark Knight Rises in New York. Officials could not identify the unknown man, who suffered a heart attack during the rehearsal of the epic finale battle shoot between the cape crusader and his nemesis. “The studio can confirm that a male extra passed away while on a break during an off-set crowd rehearsal for a sequence with several hundred extras... in early November" (Michael, 2011). A Warner Bros. representative told The Post. It was reported that the production team fully co-operated with official investigations that took place in order to find out the cause of death. One can simply question how does this act of god play out for the studio when the man’s family comes knocking at their office door for explanation.

            I did some research about their safety preparations, and I found that they didn’t have medical team present at the backstage during that time. In order to reduce the legal liability, we should identify the risks of the security and understand it to reduce the risk, and provide details of potential healthy risks that must be covered to shoot safely. Meanwhile, prepare the first-aid kit and medical support team to ensure employee safety, health, and welfare.

            Liabilities in the entertainment industry may exist in all forms. Whether it comes in the form of a terrorist act, or a simple malfunction of technology or purely an act of god, somebody is always responsible. Legal battles, safekeeping and legacy cost follows after these kinds of horrific incidents. Due to these reasons, entertainment companies or organizations have implemented insurance policy, emergency risk management plans, and limited liability contracts to push liabilities away from themselves.