This
week I decided to conduct and interview with a well-respected entertainment
lawyer. I am looking to start a business in where there are a plethora of legal
ramifications that I could run in to while trying to get my business off the
ground. So I decided to ask them questions on some of the issues I would have
when getting started and some of the pitfalls that I should watch out for.
The
attorney I chose to interview was Shannon Ligon of the Ligon Law Group LLC
located here in Orlando. She is a managing member of the firm; her name is on
the door. She earned her Juris Doctorate from Florida A&M College of Law,
she has also previously worked for Big3 Records, Clear Channel Communications,
and have worked on numerous Entertainment and Intellectual Property Law
cases. Her experience is what drew me to
her to be good source of information for my company.
One
of the first questions I asked were about protecting myself and my company from
any legal liabilities involving my business, such as how I should go about
filling my business. Ms. Ligon suggested that I file under an LLC because it
provides many benefits for new companies like mine. Such being that provide
protection for its members in the form that if something happens to the
business creditors cannot pursue personal assets to pay business debts incurred
by the owners. Furthermore, it provides the ability to have a flexible
management structure and not be so stringently run like others companies
allowing us to have the freedom to conduct business in a totally new way to be
more in line with the products and services we supply. Ms. Ligon did also
mention that it will not be all peaches and cream, she stated that although the
LLC is the best way to go it could very well be the most costly choice for
starting my business seeing as how forming an LLC is more expensive than
starting any other form of business. It can be even more of a financial burden
seeing as how depending on the state the terms of formation are different with
some states requiring owners to publish notice in local papers for weeks.
Another disadvantage is that because an LLC is a newer type of structure that
there is less legal precedent and that could work against you in a lawsuit when
the judges are trying to figure out what to do in your case dragging out costly
court hearings.
Another
question I asked was about the potential issues coming up with copyrights on
songs and how to foresee and prevent issues concerning the ownership and
distribution of music. She advised me to
start from before the music even comes on your site, by making sure your
contracts and agreements are in her words “ironclad”. Ms. Ligon stated that
most issues that occur over music copyrights are traced back to vague terms in
agreements and can be misappropriated and could be used against you. She
advised to hash out all the details before even putting it up on my site.
Another thing she mentioned that since this would be an online company make
sure that the software you use is also free of bugs or glitches that could alter
the song in anyway shape or form, we both said “because we know how artists can
be with their music”. She also mentioned that before anyone uploads a song that
they are required to read the terms before every song uploaded and not to have
a blanket agreement for all songs.
All
in all I believe this was a great opportunity to learn a lot about the proper
way to start my business from someone who has been working in the field for a
while. There was much more that was discussed during the course of the interview
but I don’t want to give everything I learned away. What do I look like free
legal advice, get out there and get our own lawyer to interview?
Here’s a couple websites I used to
do some research to prepare for my interview
