How to Select a Music Attorney for Copyright
Ron Brown: Legal, contracts and paper work. We’re so excited to get into 10-business and rush on and get our songs on music or TV programs out there. But we haven’t taken time to read the fine print on the bottom line. So many people right now are stuck in their contract they can’t get out of.
How do you get out of the contract? How do you get into a contract? Who should write your contract? When is the proper time to have any term? Did you have one of about 24 hours a day to you? Or should you have one when you need them for the right reasons? Well, let’s try to recall what are some of the legal issues that go on in the entertainment business and some advice to give us direction. Some things that we can import now instead that the last reason is too late.
Make sure you have a graded term to put together the thing that you need to put together. Now, in my opinion, personally speaking, every book on legal business of the industry, read it, learn it. Make sure you have a good attorney who understands the practice of the entertainment industry. There are hundreds and thousands of attorneys out there but they may not focus on in the entertainment business.
Hey, if you don’t know something, it doesn’t hurt to ask, okay? Pick up the phone, logon to the internet and get information. But make sure what you do is always best and it’s safe to get it in writing, all right? You can say that I had headaches on a lot of time. Make sure you’re getting a writing because in writing only go bottoms would you have to do what we have to do. Make sure legally, you protect it.
Don Passman: When you’re looking for an attorney, you want to look for the same kinds of thing you look for any professional. I mean, you want to get references, you want to check them out, you want to find also from people at your level to make sure that they’ll take care of you if you’re just getting started that you won’t get lost in the shuffle. And you obviously want to check out whether they do the work well or they have a reputation for honesty and for doing what they’ve say they’re going to do.
And generally, you want to seat down and make sure you vibe together. I mean, just like you got to be able to talk open maybe your lawyer and be able to feel that you get along. And the other thing is to check just to make sure they are knowledgeable in the music business because a lot of great lawyers, for example even in film, they don’t understand music and certainly if you get somebody in the real estate business, they’re not likely don’t know how to take care of your music life.
Debra Johnson: I think the most important thing that a person can look for an attorney is personal service. Is that person going to return your phone call, is that person going to find your particular place in life to be interesting and challenging and are they going to pay attention to your particular risk.
I think the main good service attorney’s get into is being afraid to refer to other people. If you know that there’s a particular way or particular expertise, refer to that person especially when you start boring into areas that surround people’s lives than may not be your forte for instance, someone has a family law issue. I have a group of family lawyers that I refer business to or somebody has or haven’t forbid a criminal law issue.
I have certainly criminal attorneys that I would refer those people to because that’s not my area of law. You don’t want call an electrician to do a plumbing job.
Max Siegel: When choosing a good attorney I think that the client should look for someone that obviously has the technical confidence and you could check on that on a number of ways. You can kind of quiz a lawyer about things that they have done. You can ask them areas — specific questions and areas.
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