Industry Liabilities

My focus this month is returning back to entertainment law pertaining to music editing. After reading about different ways to protect your intellectual property to ensure your creations aren’t stolen, I found some articles online that show what could go wrong that I’d like to share with you.

The first is about a small firm that met the reality of trying to confront the big names in the business. “Sounding Off: Tiny Firm Accuses Disney, Warner, Other Studios of Patent Infringement on Film Soundtracks,” by Apodaca tells of Drexler Technology, Corp. and how they believed two patents of theirs were being infringed upon by “Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20^th Century-Fox Film Corp., Paramount Pictures Corp. and Savy Pictures Entertainment Inc.” These patents were for digital sound technology and data storage. As is turns out, the infringement happens to be the widely used, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) technology. In the end, a few companies offered to get the patent rights from them, but were declined. They also did not pursue any further after being ignored due to lack of funds.

The RIAA's Effect on Film Music

The Recording Industry Association of America, RIAA for short, is probably the most popular association amongst the audio industry. Even those entering the audio post field for TV/Film are often members and keep in touch with other leaders in their audio fields to collaborate, network, promote, or even meet up at events and conferences around the country. It's a fantastic way for these professionals, and even students, to share their ideas and keep up with current happenings through long distances or short. Mostly, however, the members are labels and songwriters or composers who are marketing and distributing their works and want to do it legally in order to obtain royalties instead of being ripped off by piracy. That's right, downloaders and rippers...you're not hurting the "rich artist" in most cases, it's the behind-the-scenes guy (or gal) who is trying to get the royalties earned for their creative genius! Show them you appreciate the amazing, aural masterpiece gracing your eardrums by pitching in that few 99 cents.