Entertainment biz attorney: ‘Don’t get sued!’

It’s a nightmare scenario: a young entrepreneur or artist sets up a Website to distribute the product of her years of hard work in the arts scene, only to find out she doesn’t have the rights to that work.

Attorney Robert Strent, a partner at Grubman, Indursky & Shire, PC will host a panel at South By Southwest called “Don’t Get Sued! A Guide for Content Creators” that will give creators guidelines for staying out of legal hot water and hanging on to their intellectual property.

Strent is an entertainment and media lawyer who represents clients in all aspects of the industry—writers, directors, actors, Websites, brands and authors. His clients range from start-ups to large media companies, and emerging artists to A-list talent.

Retaining the rights to an artist’s work often involves having sound legal documents drafted before an artist “makes it big.”

“Basically, it is critical that content creators be able to demonstrate that they own, control or otherwise have the right to exploit their content in the media in which it is currently being exploited and in the media in which the entrepreneur may want to exploit it in the future,” Strent said. “In order to determine what documents you need, you have to look at how the content was created and what elements are embodied in the content.”

Content creators can incorporate other artist’s work into their own—provided they have a legally-binding agreement with the owner of that intellectual property. The panel will discuss the documents relating to work done by a third party, including writing agreements, agreements relating to the creation of designs and logos, acting agreements and individual appearance releases.


The panel will also explore other avenues of acquiring the rights to third-party work, such as employing fair use exceptions in copyright law and using material that is in the public domain.

Strent said he looks forward to the chance to head a SXSW panel because of the festival’s multimedia focus and the youth and dynamism of the arts scene in Austin. He encourages young artists to establish solid legal ground for their content before they make it big and legal matters become more complicated.

Other panelists will include Koethi Zan, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at MTV, Luke Paglia, associate general counsel at American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. and Joshua Sussman, vice president and general counsel for programming at IAC/InterActiveCorp.