Class 1 - 20240828 - Introduction
Producers performing as attorneys.
Introduction to Law
Classifications of Law
The two primary classifications of laws are:
- Criminal Law - wrong done to society
- Examples: theft, assault, rape
- Civil Law (Torts) - wrong done to individual
- Examples: contracts, trademark, infringement, fraud
Most Common Tort - Negligence
- The doing of something that a reasonable person would not do, or the failure to do something that a reasonable person would do under like circumstances.
- Since employers are responsible for employees actions a producer is responsible for any lack of care (negligence) during the shoot.
- To protect yourself, you must have liability insurance.
Criminal Negligence
- Criminal negligent homicide (more commonly referred to as "Involuntary Manslaughter" and also referred to as "Negligent Homicide") is a crime of causing another's death through criminal negligence. Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention or mistake in judgement.
- A reasonable person would have known that such action could result in a death.
- Examples:
- Shooting a gun in the air.
- Driving under the influence of drugs.
Introduction to Intellectual Property
Production - Distributor - Retailer - Consumer
- How to make sure a product is good?
- Creatively good
- Legally good
The Product Mix
- An entertainment product is a mix from two sources:
- New material
- Examples of new material: producer hires a writer to write a script, animation house for titles, video facility for special effects.
- Material that already exist (Pre-exist)
- Examples of pre-exist material: stock footage, still photos, excerpts from news or TV, music, etc.
- Written permission to use - License
Property
- Definition: a thing or things belonging to someone, that which is owned, property mean ownership.
- Kinds of property:
- Real property
- Personal property
- Tangible
- Intangible
- Intellectual
What is Intellectual Property?
- Intellectual Property (IP) refers to a collection of property laws that protect products of the creative mind or personality from theft or misuse.
- Kinds of property laws:
- Patent law - protects inventions
- Trademark law - protects products
- Copyright law - most important to filmmaker
What is Copyright?
- Copyrights are legal property rights that protect authors, composers, and other creators of imaginative and original literary or artistic works from having their own works stolen or pirated by others who would use those works as their own.
Why is Copyright Important?
- The value of a film lies-not in the tangible assets - but in the copyright ownership.
- The value of a film lies in its right to exploit it copyrights.
- Copyright protects the economic rights for the author, therefore:
- The owner of the copyright will be the money maker.