Entertainment Industry Liabilities

The business world is filled with many liabilities and the entertainment industry is no exception. One of the biggest liabilities that affect the entertainment industry is Intellectual Property (IP) liability. IP is broken into four components copyright, trademark, patent and trade secrets. Of the four components copyright infringement is the one that plagues the entertainment industry the most.

       We all have to obey the copyright laws. According to Keith Winstein’s analogy, for the most part libraries are committing copyright infringement. However, libraries have been given a special exemption by congress, provided they display the copyright notice.

The entertainment industry has fixed or tangible products in the form of sound recording and lyrics when written on paper (tangible form). If a person needs to use the original works legally, then they must seek the author’s permission in order to reproduce the work. For example, if a CD is bought and used in the comfort of your home or car no permission is need, however, if that sais CD is used in a commercial environment the author needs to give permission and be paid royalties.

According to Professor Beckerman-Rodau, the copyright law does not protect all copyrights. He also mentioned that that copyright laws protects artistic works, which includes music composition. Copyright law, trademark law and trade secrets law will mainly protect JamDung Entertainment, as a business. Copyright law protects artistic works, which includes musical composition and is protected for the author’s life plus seventy years after his or her death. Trademark law will protect the “JamDung” name, logo and image, which is associated with the entertainment industry. Bear in mind that there are two types of patent law, utility and design. JamDung Entertainment could easily fall in both categories, based on the nature of the business operations. Trade secrets law will protect how JamDung Entertainment operates its business and the methods used and prevent anyone from using the tactics used in developing business strategies