Episode 17

Right of Publicity with Stan Soocher

We are going to help define what the Right of Publicity really is and how all of us, as musicians, need to be aware of how it functions in this business. Similar to a snake in your community garden, it protects your assets from varmints but at the same time can bit you if you sample from your neighbors crop without permission.

0:00:01.5 S1: Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies on Rockin the financial side of your music business with over 40 years combined experience. Here are your host, Chris Webb and Dave take. Welcome to musicians, Tim, we talked about musicians and money, we are here to help you understand how to protect yourself and your wraps best samples, so it doesn't leave you giving out samples at Costco to pay your lawsuits. I'm your host, Chris what? Have joined by my co-host, the man who's High School and nickname was vanilla nice. Dave Dakin, you're pretty proud of that one, legal even your first one was good too, everyone, we're doing this podcast left earlier today, and Chris seems to be glowing and is on top of his game right out of the gates. I quoted the week, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Except your own obituary, Brendan Behan. Had you find that one? You know, I got my sources, Dave can't reveal them. Today, we are going to help define what the right of publicity really is, and how all of us as musicians need to be aware of how it functions in this business, similar to a snake in your community garden, it protects your assets for environments, but at the same time, it can bite you if you're sampling your neighbors crap without permission, and is not to bite the hand that feeds this podcast.

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0:02:59.5 S1: And make sure you rate, subscribe to this podcast, leave us a comment and go to our website, sign up for a free weekly newsletter where we will deep dive into the week's topics even further. We will connect you to the related articles and provide you with helpful resources for your music business, I've been working on a new one, Chris, how many ways to bring more traffic to your website, so that should be up by the time this podcast comes out. Excellent. And because we're given something back, I hope everyone takes any negative comments back, changes them and make them only positive comments. Well, we do love you, and that should be all you need to know, I'm not gonna do that, but we do love all of our guests and all of our special listeners, and today's guest, being our first official guest, there's no exception to how much love we give so let's get into this interview, this amazing interview with stories and insights into the right of publicity, the stature. We are very excited to have our guest, stand suture on our podcast today, stand as a professor of music and entertainment industry studies at the University of Colorado Denver campus, as well as the long-time editor-in-chief of the monthly publication entertainment law in finance.

0:04:26.5 S1: He has given presentations on intellectual property, entertainment and media law to a wide variety of legal professional, educational and industry groups. In addition, stand is an award-winning journalist and an entertainment attorney, he is an author of the books, maybe your rich man suing the beetles for Fun and Profit, and they fought the law racks goes to court as well as a chapter, 21st century patronage, The Road to Billy Jill's Madison Square Garden concert residency in the book. We didn't start the fire, Billy Joel and popular music studies. Oh, and Stan is also a drummer. Welcome to the show stand. Thank you for being here.

0:05:07.3 S2: Thank you, Chris, and thank you so much for that introduction. It makes me... Need an extra cup of coffee to keep going. MIM, just kidding. Thank you.

0:05:16.1 S1: Thank RIT is an impressive list. But some day I'd love to talk to you too about how you had the brain power to put together such amazing books as we encourage some of our listeners to think about creating books and making that a part of their asset class, and as a drummer, we're kind of used to. It's slowing down so...

0:05:40.3 S2: Well, I try not to use a metronome during the Q. Keep it real. Keep it very real.

0:05:47.0 S1: So let's start out with, how did you get involved in the entertainment industry? And what led you to music law?

0:05:52.2 S2: Well, of course, like so many of us, I always had it from the start, a deep interest in music, so I was around as a little child during the early years of rock and roll, I was in the junior high school band playing clarinet, because by the time my parents Litem going at juniors and I wanna be a drummer. All the drum decisions were taking, so I made sure to be... To get in a rock band, a drummer playing basically like 60s and 70s, classic rock style, pretty straight ahead, but I also want it to be from... Tom was about five or writer, so having the writer and the music put together, and I decided after I got out of college, which was the University of Florida, that I would go to New York, where writers typically went with all the magazines up there to carve out their career... And I ended up at a magazine named circus, which was a fanzine, rock fanzine at that time, Rolling Stone was in New York, and then they were outside of that, the three Cs cream Radin circus for three music magazines. So we were based in New York City, and I got him with a great group of writers, a really wonderful group of writers, it was my first full-time job in the music industry, and then I got interest in legal rights of writers as a writer.

0:07:06.8 S2: That was really an important thing to do, going to law school and finding out... And then music law, entertainment law, that seemed to be a natural. So that's how I got going with that, and then became a member of the New York Bar and also edited entertainment long finance, which is a published by its company. It's named American Lawyer Media, so they have a lot of different publications, but National Law Journal, American lawyer, but this is the entertainment area. So up to that point, that's what happened, and then I was off the job out here in 2000 at University of Colorado, Denver to chair the music department.

0:07:42.7 S1: Working at the circus magazine, and the other two, which one was more intense?

0:07:47.6 S2: Well, I worked... Well, Circus is a full-time job. I mentioned cranium cream were the three Cs. I didn't work for them. I wrote an occasional piece of Rolling Stone, a couple of which actually do one national journalism award so that I could compare that experience 'cause a lot... We were down the street from Rolling Stone, so we had a group of writers, some of which I mentioned, 'cause he's in the recent HBO, Tina Turner documented Kurt leader. It was David Frick and other writers. We were in a small little room together, and Kurt always knew he wanted to go down the street to Rolling Stone, so in his case, he went and did their random notes column and then became an excellent reporter and did a lot of great cover stories than before he went to be MTV News anchor, so I was lucky to be with a group of writers like that, and I would say that we... We were fanbase, so we had a lot of... They covered kiss a lot when I got there was on the cover all the time, I came in when the beaches were just hitting big with Save The Night Fever, and I had interviewed them already a few times, so I kinda brought that into the magazine and covered them from all the interviewed their parents, you name it, and we did an Andy giver, but still great where I thought...

0:09:01.3 S2: Interesting writing at Circus magazine doing the interviews. I think everybody there was in like David Frick, who's on Cram nowadays, he just detail-oriented, really a rock historian, so it was a fanzine, but the writers each brought something that I thought was and what was really substantive and a lot of talent. So it was a really great start as a writer, but again, what were the legal rights that I had as a writer, and that led me to law school, and then as I mentioned, I ended up out here, the University of Colorado, Jenner. And was chair for three years, and since then after that have been a full-time music business professor, and

0:09:39.6 S1: As we're here to talk about the right of publicity, I'm sure you had a lot of those cases even back in the 70s, and that was kind of what he was getting started, can you tell us a little bit about the right of publicity and why it's important for musicians...

0:09:50.3 S2: Oh, sure. It's essential in the day and age that we're in now, where the brand of the artist is so important, the brand of the artist, that's the central thing with the struggle to get revenues from sound recordings, with the Internet, where everything's out there and people can copy everything that's become quite a struggle, so musicians looking for a clinic-related revenues, merchandise and the other things have ramped up so much in the current digital era that we're in with music, so the right of publicity is... And it's a state created, it's not a federal right, the name right of publicity, but it applies to the right to control the commercial exploitation of one's personal elements, persona elements, for instance, name, voice, likeness, signature, the total components of an individual's persona that are protected in any state depend upon that state's laws, so it's always important to know for musicians in terms of the right of publicity, what is it in the state that you are a permanent resident in? That's usually the test. There's another test where if there's a right of publicity dispute is like What state has the most contact, substantive contact to that dispute, in other words, where the parties based and What is the fact pattern that came out of it so that...

0:11:16.7 S2: It's an important right, it attaches to each of us as individuals, so every musician has a possible right of publicity, are they able to protect it, the more famous and successful and artist becomes, obviously, the more people, the more unauthorized uses that may end up out there.

0:11:35.3 S1: Sure, so when you mentioned where the parties are located, so it might not even be the musician, but where management, the business entity is located, that would be at as important as where the musician

0:11:48.9 S2: Is. Well, first of all, the permanent residents test, so that would be aware, the musician is based... But the one I mentioned, the substances would be the dispute itself, where was the automatic use... Where did it occur? You would look to the state where the action was in terms of where the dispute... What was the dispute about? Is it connected to a particular state, but again, there's the two tests, different states, some states have the permanent residents tests, others have the substantive contact test. There was, If I give you just one summarized example involving Jimmy Hendrix is a state of... This would work with permanent residence. So Jimmy was from Seattle, that's where he's... A State is based... That he's been gone a long time. Is one just wonderful artist, very iconic, like certain iconic artists that with lots of these write or publicity disputes, Bob Marley, a state would be another one. So Jimmy statically dispute arose, and the question became, where was Jimmy's last... Permanent residents. The permanent residents test, the court looked at was a Washington State Court, and it looked at... Well, Jimmy, he's from Seattle, but then he moved to New York City.

0:13:08.4 S2: That's where he tried to carve out his career or career playing at clubs in the village, Katherine particular, that's where he was discovered by Chas Chandler, who had been the bass player and the British Invasion band, the animals eat with House of the Rising Sun and Chas Chandler was from England, so he said, Hey, Jimmy, why don't you come to England? And I'll put a band together. And that became the Jimi Hendrix experience. So unfortunately, Jimmy, who died in London. So in this court case, the court had a figure, what was his last permanent residence, they decided it was New York City where he had rented this apartment, and that meant New York had no descend able right of publicity. Because of that, is the state lost that particular case, that was the permanent residence test, so they lock the end of that story. Dave is the James state, which is based in Washington State, lobby that State's legislature to change the test to the substantive contact of the situation as the choice of law... I hope that made sense. To your listeners are listening is being careful with it when you get into the legal details, it's all about details, so being careful to double-check what you're asking and how I'm explaining it, to make sure a person has the empowerment of that knowledge to use in their favor, and

0:14:34.1 S1: What can you tell us about the development of the criticality...

0:14:37.6 S2: Oh yeah, Chris. Oh, sure, it started out as a state law, so with this misappropriation... Right. And eventually, some states started like California, in New York enacting statute. Statutes that would apply. So California was one of the early statutes, but there was a case in 1977 that went to the US Supreme Court. It was a case about the plaintiff or the guy who filed to suit, the person filed the suit had an act where he was shot out of a cannon and he landed in a net and a net television network had a film of that and showed it on their broadcast and this person was shot out of the canon, same as Kani, he filed this lawsuit saying that they violated my right of publicity, he went the way to the US Supreme Court. Now, is the first time in 1977 that the US Supreme Court recognized... Yes, a right of publicity at that level, the right of publicity is enforceable, so as time went on, it was the same year that Elvis Presley died 1977, so his state was immediately launched into an epic battle to try to try to camp down all the unauthorized merchandise that was out there dealing with Elvis and the estate had quite a battle on his hands, they lost some of the lawsuits, they won some of the others in different states, so like Jimmy Hendrix's estate, also the Tennessee State Legislature, Kenney being Elvis last permanent residents to enact a writ Opus statute, have it in a statute, and also to make it ascend able.

0:16:18.0 S2: So that really... That's a really key, key development, there are a lot of developments through the years, but like I'll give you a more recent one with Prince, the iconic music artist print in Minnesota. So that's where he was based. So after he died many, many legal battles over his estate, lots of cautionary tales and things to learn from these battles, it's unfortunate that they go on, but the rest of us can learn and there's a lot Prussians to learn from these... That they can actually utilize to strategize and maximize their careers, but all that said, with Prince, there was some previously unreleased sound recordings that were released after Prince did, and so his estate... Pasley Park enterprises, love that name. Pasley Park enterprises, they file a lawsuit against the parties that we're doing an unauthorized release of princes previously UN... Really sound recordings. Well, part of it was about use of parts of princes persona, right of publicity. In that case, the defendant said, Wait a minute, in Minnesota, the right of publicity is not descended, Prince is no longer alive, so we can do what we want. And in that case, the court ruled for the first time ever, that someone like Prince does have a descend able rite of publicity, so that shows you the evolution, the US Supreme Court embracing it easiest at battle, continued into more recent years with artists like Prince.

0:17:51.8 S1: Now, because Prince has a statute in place now for himself that can be used in future cases...

0:17:58.3 S2: Oh yeah, Dave, you mentioned statute. So in their clear state statutes, and some states have also what's called common law misappropriation claims that evolve right of public common law. That's basically judge-made law. So in Minnesota, it's not a statue at the time of the lawsuit, it was a common law misappropriation claim, and so that was a very cutting-edge ruling in Minnesota that using the common law misappropriation claim, princes the state had it descended right of Pliocene an artist, a sign his or her right of publicity to another party who would then have the legal authority to issue licenses for use of the artist persona. Yes, and at times that's been a contested issue, if you think of your first... Or there are two ways to look at it. There may be an entity to which the artist or the artist's state said, assigns the writer publican says Here, why don't you go out and try to find us opportunities, and so we're giving you the right to do the licensing for us on the right of publicity issues, for the artist persona, and then there's more direct licensing, which would be when an artist, for instance, signs a recording agreement, so the late is gonna want the right to use the artist's name boys, like it's pretty obvious there to promote...

0:19:17.4 S2: Distribute the product, so the artist can do it directly, but in terms of assigning the rights to this may be an entity and they're out there, this is a big area today in the entertainment industry and the music this is... So it may be there's a company out there that is in the business of working with an artist to try to help them get their right of publicity out there more, to commercially exploit more and that kind of case, the issue becomes Canarsie, it's a personal right or write about those, the attaches to each of us, or can we assign that to some company to let them so-called sub-assign or rights to somebody else, that's been a contested issue, and I just said the reason why? Because it attached... How can the argument against being able to do that is you can't assign... Give a third party to write to them, assign your right of publicity to someone else, but it's been found that, yes, it can be done, it may be personal to each of us, but unauthorized uses are often... The claims are seeking monetary damages, how much has an unauthorized user gain from that unauthorized use of something to do with an artist persona?

0:20:31.3 S1: Could you put that in context of a guitar player, if aratus riff was too closely copied, not necessarily the melody, but the tone, is that something that would fall into that? I certainly think that with Ovie, you get certain characters that could almost be capping to Alien, I think in acting... This is a really easy example. Somebody like Morgan Freeman, like somebody can imitate market Freeman really well, we all think it's Morgan Freeman. Is that in France in such a case?

0:20:59.2 S2: Great cresting question. Be Chris, because when you mentioned, for instance, Arcata, his voice, well, very well known voice, we know his vocal style very well for decades, but there becomes an issue when it deals with sound recordings, what right is really at stake there? So Eric has his voice. And by the way, I wanna mention, not get too technical, he's a British-based artists, Britain does not have a straight ahead right of publicity law, they have privacy rights to have defamation claims, things like that. But let's say Eric was a US resident as somebody took a sound recording of his and was using it without permission because he ever write a publicity claim. What right does he have? Well, in those kinds of cases, there are some court rulings in the US that have distinguished on sound recording issues with voices between the voice itself, and that's a right of publicity outside the recording, butlin and artist sings in the studio, and that voice goes on to the sound recording courts have found that the voice then becomes part of the sound recording copyright, and so then you gotta look to, Well, who owns the sound recording copyright? It's off on the record label, it...

0:22:16.3 S2: So has that record label given the license to use that sound recording with Eric Clapton voice, has that label done it... Given a license to that saunderson to a third party. And as Eric brought a separate suit saying, No, no, you can't do that, it's my voice, will art gave the label the copyright to the sound recording of the artist or Clapton, and the hypothetical could very well lose that case, so it's again, detail figuring that out, but it's fascinating how our voices, when we're recording in the studio can leap onto the sound recording and become leave, leave us and become individual, become part of that sound recording copyright.

0:22:59.6 S1: Since we're all currently proud residents and is dated Colorado, let's talk a little bit more about local policy, what is the current status with the Reilly... For our state of Colorado.

0:23:12.5 S2: Colorado is a state where it's in a developing stage, we don't have a write a publicity statute, and we don't have a lot of case law here yet, but we do have some court cases where the common law misappropriation... Right to bring a claim, alleging misappropriation of any of our individual personas in a court and to protect those, so that is something that has been recognized as called in Colorado again, a common law misappropriation claim judge, judicially recognized claim as contrasted with an actual state statute also here, in terms of the descend ability is the right of polity, descend able. As of now, I'm not aware of a court ruling that says that the Colorado writ of publicity is The senile, so again, remains to be seen, test case would be needed, and we'd have to look for the outcome on that.

0:24:08.4 S1: Can you define dependable just

0:24:11.1 S2: Right. So descended is... And we could go back to Jimmy state, Bob Marley estate, and so many of the others, that is when the artist has passed away, does that ability to enforce and control that right of publicity altice artist descend to their estates to their heirs. Some states say yes. Some states say no. For many years, New York State said No, just recently they amended their statute, it goes... That new amendment goes into effect in a few days from our interview here, where it says it has become and is becoming descended for artist moving forward.

0:24:48.8 S1: And is there a federal law that is similar to the state of public laws.

0:24:53.6 S2: You want to write a publicly... Again, Chris, thanks for asking that because that's another thing to make sure... What is the distinction? State law, it a public state law. However, there is a federal statute, and it's known as the lane at Lanham melanoma, which sins like a bodil group or something to me, Hey, and now it's the animax, here they are, but actually it's a federal trademark statue, but it can apply not just to trademarks products but also to individual rights, so for instance, even though the anima is not a, what you call a writer, publicity law, state right. Public law, it does allow somebody... And that's why I mentioned bcares, I stayed again, because they've been involved in a lot of these lawsuits over unauthorized merchandise and things like that... Whitmire on it, you can bring false endorsement claims, fall sponsorship claims where you're alleging that, Wow, by putting my picture, for instance, or your picture on that t-shirt, I have a false endorsement claim against you under the Federal... Animate the distinction between state ritual city law and the Federal Land at is what is the burden of proof on a defendant? It's tougher under the land act for one reason, under the Lana federal law, if you bring in a falls into or semnan, you need to show their likelihood of consumer confusion, you have to establish that in a writ of public case.

0:26:28.8 S1: It's good to know I made a bunch of T-shirts with Christ's face on them, and they really haven't sold yet, but it's got to know that it's... I guess you know now, but if you found out later that that might be an issue... I'm surprised I didn't sell out in a minute. Can you give us a couple of examples of the right... Of publicity that's occurred some cases within the state of Colorado, like some local stuff...

0:26:52.1 S2: Yeah, well, there was one, it's probably one of the most, if not most notable recent in recent years, music case, but it involved the Rehan Lin when area was still alive, and it's a lawsuit that she filed here in Federal Court in Colorado. The federal court, it being located in downtown Denver. So in the early 1970, she did a concert in 1972, it was a gospel concert known as The Amazing Grace. He was recorded as the amazing grace gospel concert album. So shaded in was also video was for a documentary, but in the agreement she had with the documentary production company, she had approval, right to write in the contract over any kind of release of this documentary in the concept, so she was not happy with the outcome at first, we actually, for a long time of how the production came out and never less in more recent years, and this is why I say recent years, 'cause I conjured was 1972, but in 2015, the Telluride film festival, there was going to be a screening of a duck to tack documentary was being screened there, but Aretha had not approved of it, so she expression is around to the courthouse, I don't think she did it physically and the lawyers usually don't run up to step suddenly, I guess if they're in hurry judges to be harsh with deadlines, but anyways, some judges, but so she flowed this lawsuit here and it included a writ of publicity claim, and she was seeking emergency injunctive relief to stop the Telluride film vessel from showing that documentary, and it's interesting on choice of law, which we talked about a little while ago, because she did bring it under Colorado misappropriation claim, she also brought it under California law where the concert took place but are to herself let...

0:28:42.7 S2: Her permanent residence was in Michigan, Detroit. So the court never reached the issue of the choice of law, how do you figure out in a case like that, which state law write a policy law line, but they did grant her that emergency injunctive relief. And at the end of the day, after she passed away, her state did enter into a deal for an authorized release of the documentary... Well.

0:29:09.4 S1: And nowadays, we have a lot of people who sample music, and I'm sure that that's become... Put up a spotlight on this law, and I think a lot of younger generations in the electronic music and then the hip hop rap, see they use a lot of samples of other people's stuff, what are some legal arguments? Hopefully, none of our listeners are in this situation, but what are some legal arguments that defendants might raise in responds to a right of publicity lawsuit?

0:29:34.4 S2: There was one of a bellwether is in that area. Involved a sample that appeared in a Jennifer Lopez sound recording that was... And she was signed to Sony Music, Jennifer Locos. But they had gone to use this sample, they had gone to the original record company that an artist named Debra laws had recorded for around 1980, and so dear laws sign with this label, and then in the label, it said, of course, is a label on the sound recording the Dever law saying into, well, it was Debra law's voice, and a segment from her, one of her sound recordings that Jal and Sony inserted into jalore cord so dear laws brought a loss... Write a publicity lawsuit, and that is a key case where the court said, Wait a minute, gabala is Sony Music went to the original record company you signed to and got that record company to give us permission to use the sound recording sample. And not only that, Jay, Lo and Sony argued, when you record it for your label, the original recording that we sample from, you sign the agreement that gave the sound recording copyright to your label when you went in the studio in recorded for that label, your voice jump became part of the copyright, you don't have a viable right of publicity, client, that's what the court ruled in that case, and its laws...

0:31:02.0 S2: Laws, that's kind of convenient, I guess, to have a named laws when you're bringing in laws... Well, it was the law suit, but anyways... But it's very instructional. It is right on point, Chris, with what you just asked, that explains to the US who has the right and the sound recording that has the voice on it, and

0:31:19.9 S1: So obviously now we're also in this world of all digital, which is we've all seen... It increases the content level of everything, just keeps pouring out, how does the reciprocity apply to digital media these days?

0:31:32.3 S2: It does apply. It absolutely applies. It's another immediate form I mentioned earlier in our discussion, that New York State has the amended their writer publicity statute, and it takes effect the amendment in a few days from this interview, it also includes not just saying that the Ritalin not would become descended in New York or is becoming descendent forward, but it also talks about digital replicas and talks about use of voices, for instance, and talks about sound recordings, so digital uses, is that digital use of that person's persona... Some element of it recognizable to the reasonable person, that's the test and a language is in the statute. So there's an example where now these right of public laws are specifically addressing digital settings and uses and defining digital replica... Right in the statute. That's very cutting edge as we speak, so sure. It just makes sense that wherever or parts of our persona may be used without our permission, we may be able to question and challenge those uses being digital media. The big difference is not whether or not we can do that, but the challenge in as the more famous a person is more successful, the more unauthorized uses are so easily distributed over social media, but there's one defense that a potential defendant can use that really is helpful.

0:33:01.9 S2: In these kinds of settings, especially with digital media, which is can be so flexible with photo shopping and user-generated content, is the person or party who's doing the alleged unauthorized use of some aspect of a person's persona, are they doing some kind of transformative use of that for instance, are they doing it to do a party of that person, are they taking their name, their voice, they're like this and putting in some kind of a setting to make some humor statement, that's one kind of way of what is known as a transformative use defense and a transformative use defense is recognized in a growing number of states as a defense to write a publicity claims, and again, it really is dead on with social media and internet and photo shopping and all the things we can do with digital media

0:33:56.0 S1: And along the signs with the digital, I always like to ask about your predictions of the future as I was reading more about the... Right, of elicit. And I like to think about what's coming next to try to give everybody a heads up, and I talk a lot about AI in the digital music world in technology, and I started to think, do you think that this will be the first area where AI will be the one to find the cases, do you think there'll be an AI, an artificial intelligence that will find relevant cases that very well are having the right of publicity situation happen and they're gonna bring it to people. Do you think that's gonna be something that could actually happen in the future.

0:34:34.5 S2: There's the issue of artificial intelligence, of programming, that is you would be used, for instance, to be able to create movies through artificial intelligence, we know it could be done through music, the software, much more competition for human beings, for real artist, but at the same time, what if there's a software that... That's all these famous well-known hits, parts of elements of famous musicians insert is inserted into this to make AI created music, and then attached to it, make it in the style of a certain artist, and then the computer software program knows how to insert that particular art the artists that it sounds like photo and things like that on to this AI-created software. I would say from my position, it would be that that could still be a right of publicity claim. Oh yeah, that could be another issue is... What about an AI-created music artist? And like a Roomba, when they're out there making music, can they have a right of publicity...

0:35:43.0 S1: Your first example though, would that be transformative?

0:35:45.7 S2: You'd have to look at a particular situation, does that software... What is it doing it? Trying to recreate. Is the public gonna say, Wow, that sounds so much like riccarton. It's AI created, but I'm gonna buy that album, it's not Eric's music, it was created by a computer, I would think that would be a right of publicity violation, however, if it was some kind of humorous or party or a statement, a certain kind of statement that the software is created to make... Using different personas of famous people, that may be a different outcome.

0:36:21.8 S1: And the last thing on the reverse side of that, if AI was the one policing the internet for right of publicity lawsuits right now, if I put up a video using... I don't know, a movie. There are certain music that I'm allowed to use, or if I create songs, I can use them, but sometimes Sony has an AI that tells me that that's our song, we own that, and then we have to dispute whether or not... If they're right or wrong. I was just curious if you think that there'll be an AI that will be on policing the internet for those cases, to Protect Sony and to protect the big name identities.

0:36:58.8 S2: Not being a computer programmer, but I think it's possible to state that... Computer program could be made. Here were lots of different personas and elements of our enter to the computer program and its content ID, like YouTube, they have the content ID with the songs and the sound recordings. Why not? If it's a computer, why not create software that has all these elements of well-known people and order people who are likely to end up unauthorized uses on the internet and then put that software into play looking for that and that finding those kinds of uses on the Internet alleged unauthorized uses.

0:37:40.4 S1: Wow. Kinda watch out for my gifts then when I make those little inner gifts, well, thank you so much for your time and your wealth of knowledge and being our first guests on a musician tiara. We hope to be able to get to do this again. I'd also like to say, and the experience is just thank you for it. And if you wanna find out more about Stan, go to stander dot com, you can find his book on his website, you can also find it. Baby, you are rich, man, seeing the Beatles for Fun and Profit on our website, we're very excited to be able to offer that under our Book Club page. Thank you very much. Sooner, Chris. That was an amazing interview, and a lot more than I expected. There was things that I guess maybe I still have some questions. I'm the difference when it comes to using other people's art for a parter inspiration or tribute, I look forward to going into that morning was staying the next time we have time with him, but so much energy and just willing to give all this information to our listeners and things I didn't know about prior.

0:38:50.4 S1: Indeed, and one of the most amazing things for me that came out of this was how much more relevant it is to everything that we do, then I realized I never really put much thought into the right. Of Polity with my own personal business, everything from the scripts in this podcast to the copyright protection around everything that I post on my social media now, has gone through that thought processes of, is any of this infringing on anybody else's rights and in levels that I didn't approach before, do you think if we didn't have this interview, you'd feel more comfortable just taking credit for all the work that you do, but there's no question that the best quality content out there that isn't mine, I certainly will wish that I could... It's the same with writing great songs, the... Any time I hear a great song like, Oh, I wish that was mine, you know, but I think it's more about understanding the complexity in which the law protects all of these situations that I really had never really dove into before, so... That really was fascinating. I thought it was interesting on where you live and how that reflects into your career and your future earnings, not only for yourself, but for your trust as well, which is a shame actually, because it's like if you can live across the street in a different state, you have a whole new set of rules to protect your art.

0:40:21.8 S1: Yeah, and as a business goes, we certainly are aware of where we are set up in states, so this is just another level to consider as you build your business, a lot of times we just kind of are subject to the state that we live and we're not gonna move for a lot of these situations. But it does play a factor, and certainly when we get into the tax stuff, states play a factor, but here we are in protections of our publicity, it plays a fact as well, but with taxes and with companies, you can open a company in a different state, other than the state you live in. That's where I find it curious because if musicians open the business in a different state, the right of publicity still doesn't affect them as far as where their business is located, it's what they live, where their home is and where they've spent the most of their time living which is not necessarily true for business, because business is all in New York and Las Vegas and wherever, but they did say something about how a lot of times it's the situation where the situation occurs or where the estate is set up, because they had an example of standing the example with...

0:41:34.9 S1: Was it Hendrix soups? It is that he lived... Not where the business was. Sure, yeah, because obviously, a lot of what we create really doesn't have a home, that's a very tough thing to draw the line on. Yeah, agree. I also loved his response to talking about when he was writing early for circus Magazine, and I tried to ask him if it was intense, 'cause most circuses are intense, but his answer was so awesome, I forgot to on it back to it. It's amazing hearing his story and how much he's accomplished so far, your site doesn't look old enough to have done all that makes me wake up a little bit earlier. That's for sure. There's hope for you yet, Chris web. You have time. There's a chance. Well, and we gave you the connections there, how to go find more about staying and certainly go to our website, you can go to the book club page to get the link to purchase this book. I highly recommend that read, it's fascinating and very entertaining as well, so a couple of DOS and donuts we got here from what we took out of this, always give credit to all contributors.

0:42:51.3 S1: This comes up as a theme in a lot of our interviews going forward, when you agree... Especially for you, Chris. I do, I definitely agree. Get permission before you release, even when it's hard to obtain, and I guess we're gonna relate that to any tracks, loops, cover songs, anything that might infringe on someone else's rights, get permission first, any samples, you ever get it, unless you created that sample from an original idea, and remember, it's not just music that's protected for an artist, it's everything about an artist that is protected, so when you're building your brand, the more your brand stands out, the more it's protected, so a couple of actions for you to take away on this too. One, check your current catalog of material and make sure that any possible rights of issues are, you're aware of them and you're paying attention to who else might be using your music. Number two, commit to the habit of practicing good ethics for all your content, it is a practice, these kind of things we wanna make sure we build into habits that you would never even think about not... Giving credit to where credit is.

0:44:05.3 S1: Do and third read stands book, we know that your time is valuable, and we so appreciate you spending this time with us and being a part of our community, it is our hope that you feel the sense of community here at musician tip jar. And we'll get involved and contribute or even ask questions for the things that you need answers to. You can check out our website, musicians tip jar dot com, or send us an email at musicians tip-jar at gmail. And as always, thank you for joining us and remember, there's already enough for everyone, you just need to know how to get it until next time, on behalf of Dave Hampton and myself, Criswell, stay safe, stay healthy. Take care of each other. It's Mark Twain said, It's never wrong was a brightness musicians tip cap. Nothing on this show should be considered a specific personal or professional advice, please consult as appropriate tax, legal business or for natural professional for individualized advice. Individual results and our clarity and all this as strategies have the potential for profit law operating on behalf of musicians, tear all the exclusively