Many of my creator friends and clients have expressed interest in fixed (and low cost) access to legal and coaching services to assist their careers as entrepreneurs in the Creative Industries.
You are musicians, artisans, authors, photographers, animators, educators, chefs or others who work in the arts.
I have heard you, and created a subscription based program which launches in February 2020 to increase access to legal services tailor made to the economic realties we are all facing: CREATORS united.
Read moreNew Jersey just made life very difficult for all employers in every industry, specifically small businesses. In New Jersey, business owners can now be criminally charged and fined up to $5,000.00 per day for misclassifying workers as independent contractors.
Running a small business can be very difficult. One of the issues that employers of all sizes struggle with is whether to classify workers as statutory employees or independent contractors. Statutory employees are paid on a W-2 basis, whereby the employer withholds federal and state payroll taxes. W2 employees have certain rights and remedies available to them under state and federal law. For example, the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law is one of those laws.
Independent contractors, on the other hand, negotiate their work relationships with employers and have those relationships governed by contract. Those contracts can provide the worker with rights and remedies. That is one of the points under attack by this overreach in New Jersey- the freedom of contract.
Read morePeople in the entertainment business (and everyone else) have been reading the news that the late actor James Dean was cast in an upcoming film project. Dean, who died in 1955, will be digitally resurrected through CGI technology. Dean - well, not exactly James Dean, but the likeness of James Dean - will “act” in an upcoming film that I’m not even going to name because of my personal aversion to this.
Many people, not just film industry people, are expressing their displeasure with this. I am one of them. We have seen this before, with Disney’s use of the likenesses of the late Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in the film Rogue One. I wrote about that extensively here.
From a legal standpoint, there are two important questions: 1) How did this happen? and 2) How can people control their likenesses after death?
Read moreEmployers take risks every day with the people that the company hires - including top level managers and CEOs. So do brands and sports teams when they hire spokespeople or athletes on multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts. Anytime there are significant dollars committed to a single person over a long period of time, real risk exists.
One of the most impactful traits of the people you hire is their moral character. This is especially true when the person you hire is your spokesperson, or your chief executive, or otherwise is the face of your organization. One of the most impactful tools you have to control your contractual relationships are called morality clauses.
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