Legal

**NOTE** The following pages and materials are for general education and information purposes only, and are not legal advice or legal opinions. The information provided in the pages and materials is not intended to create a lawyer-client relationship between anyone and you.

Copyright
How to file a copyright and how to avoid infringing the copyrights of others.

Trademark
How to file a trademark and what constitutes damaging the mark of another.

Filming Permits
How to apply for Filming Permits and when they are necessary.

Contracts
Materials relating to contracts, releases for background actors, and other agreements filmmakers get into.

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
These organizations exist in every U.S. state and Canada. They provide legal assistance at very low costs to artists of all types (including filmmakers) who have limited financial income. For artists of higher income levels, they can also be extremely helpful in finding legal assistance at reasonable prices, particularly when limited legal assistance is necessary.

For New York City: Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

Barely Legal Radio with Joe Escalante
A call-in radio show on indie 103.1.com out of LA, where artists can ask their legal questions and get advice.

From Joe Escalante: "Call the Barely Legal Radio live on indie1031.com every Friday at 11 AM PST at 877-LAW-4777. Check out the Podcasts at www.barelylegalradio.com and email me your questions at [mailto:info@barelylegalradio.com info@barelylegalradio.com ] If you can't wait until Friday send me your legal question right now and we'll get it answered for you asap. It's free and worth every penny!"

If you don't already have a question, listening in to other caller's questions is a great way to learn more about entertainment law and, in a way, basically have your questions answered in advance.

Legal Zoom
Heavily promoted by Joe Escalante, this website provides services so that people can create legal documents without the assistance of an attorney, which can save a great deal of money. A wide variety of legal documents are available, but of particular interest here are those relating to filing copyright and trademark protections, and entertainment contracts (the last being found under "More Legal Forms" ).

From the website: "Our founding vision was for an easy-to-use, online service that helped people create their own legal documents. We brought together some of the best minds in the legal and technological fields to make this vision a reality. The result is LegalZoom, the nation’s leading online legal document service."