Entertainment Attorney George Kaiafas Interview

Starting a company in the entertainment industry can be tricky business.  “Having a good entertainment lawyer is important from the very start,” says George Kaiafas, of Kaiafas & Kaiafas, Attorneys at Law.  I recently had a chance to interview George about his experiences in the entertainment law field. I also sought his advice on what new entertainment industry businesses need to do to start up right.

Harrison Goodbinder: Can you give me some background on you and how you ended up as an Entertainment Attorney?

George Kaiafas: I studied Political Science and Media Studies at Fordham University before attending New York Law School in New York City. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was involved in artist management at the time. I was working with and booking bands, and found entertainment law a good fit.  I passed the Bar Exam in New York in 2004, and have been practicing ever since.  I am part of a firm with my brother, based in Chicago.  I consider myself a transactional attorney.

            HG: What types of cases does a transactional attorney usually work on?

GK: I work on all types, but mostly band management and contract deals.  It is primarily contract development and paper pushing.  It can involve anything from music to film, new media, blogs, trademarks, copyrights, and even web apps now.  I try and avoid going to court as often as possible.  One case I am working on now for a band, their label, and a promotions company, is all over the place.  The band is in Omaha, NE and their manager is in California.  The label is in New Jersey and I’m in New York. The producers are in Atlanta, GA so getting everyone on a call or the same page can be tricky.

HG: Sounds a lot like Full Sail Online for me.  Do you have any advice for grad students like me, or anyone for that matter, who are starting new businesses in the entertainment industry?

GK: Yes, having a good entertainment lawyer is important from the very start.  Even if you don’t think you need one it will help you in the long run.  Like founding a business, is it L.L.C. or corporation?  It’s good to have legal advice and someone to do the paperwork for you from the start.

HG: I’m starting my own specialized entertainment labor company called JAFB.  We do business with a lot of high-end clients.  We are subcontractors for some, as well as having our own vendors and alliance partners.  We have lots of non-disclosure and non-compete clauses that are confusing.  Do you have any advice for dealing with our current contracts and any on making our own?

GK: I got a non-compete on my desk right now actually.  Unfortunately most non-disclosure and non-compete agreements you have to sign if you want the job, there’s really no way around that.  If you are going to work with a bunch of different vendors like that then you should have your own non-disclosure form.  That is something I could easily help you with and it sounds like you have a cool business idea.

George had a lot of great information and advice for me.  With the way the world is now a days, it is so important to have a good lawyer in your corner for legal advice on anything that may come up in any business.  I am excited to have such an attorney in George.  Please find more information on George Kaiafas and his practice Kaiafas & Kaiafas, Attorneys at Law at their website, http://kaiafaslaw.com/.

Recent Entertainment Industry Liabilities in New York City

New York City is the arguably at the center of the world and one of the major entertainment industry hubs.  As such, New York City sees more than its fair share of entertainment industry liabilities.  2010 was big year for Broadway and New York Fashion Week seeing some of their highest numbers in recent years, but they were not without their controversies.

Broadway was treated with its most expensive musical to date, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.  The show has still yet to open as numerous script rewrites and even worse technical issues.  A miscue on Monday, December 20, gave way Christopher Tierney, a Spidey stunt double, falling more 20 ft. from a platform near the end of the run.  He was then rushed away by ambulance and the production halted.  This has brought many questions of safety and of rushing to open the high profile production.  ‘Spider-Man’ Versus OSHA is a great article about the production and the OHSA investigation that followed Mr. Tierney’s fall.  Spider-Man should hopefully finally open on June 14^th.

New York Fashion Week went through a few changes last year moving its tents from Bryant Park uptown to Lincoln Center.  This brought a few changes but the biggest was that fact that Lincoln Center is an IATSE Local 1 union venue.  The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) is the union stage crew labor in New York City.  Bryant Park was not a union venue and most fashion companies used non-union labor to put on their shows.  But with the new union venue, IATSE wants in, which means higher costs of labor to fashion designers and even worse non-union laborers out of work.  A great article about the labor battle is Ugly Battle Brewing Over Fashion Week from the Wall Street Journal.  IATSE agreed to go with half union labor and half non-union for September 2010.  It was 70-30 union labor last February.  It will be interesting to see what happens this coming September.

As much as there is fight for the fashion industry behind the scenes labor, there are no patents or copyrights for the actual fashions that are displayed on the runway.  A recent TED.com talk I saw really puts it all in prospective.  Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture explains how fashion designers only have trademark protection and that’s it.  A sleeve can’t be copyrighted or patented as everybody is wearing one.  It is too utilitarian to quality for copyright protection.  As such, designers are free to borrow and share with each other to come up with the next hot, new thing.  This collaboration is key the innovation of fashion.  If this kind of collaboration was used in more in heavily copyrighted industries such as movies, it would be wonder to the see what films could be made.  For example, super heroes teaming up that normally never would because rival studios own the rights.  It would make better movies like fashion makes better clothes.  I doubt this would ever happen but one can hope.  Other industries could learn a thing or two from fashion to help them innovate in the future.

New York City sees its share of cultural and a wide variety of events from all aspects of the entertainment industry.  There are many more liabilities than the few I discussed here, but they all eventually get resolved, and I would expect nothing less from the city that never sleeps.