Business Plan Interview Involving Entertainment Industry Guidelines

Those who provide valuable information, are true individuals who are determined to succeed in certain areas of work. Rather it is an actor, actress, athlete, model, attorney or even a musician. People are blinded sided by the negativity and disrespected slander towards people who are trying to make a living. In other words, it is not invisible to the naked eye that people in the entertainment world try to pursue others into doing something that could hurt them in the long run or possible screw them over on a business plan involving their career. So, I took the time to reach out to an attorney by the name of Skinner Louis and I asked to give me positive feedback and I asked him a series of question revolving around artist mangers. I wanted to know the in's and out's of what legal steps I needed to be aware of or perform when managing an artist. Mr. Louis started of by telling me that its important how you structure your business. He mention's that the structure of business will represent what type of legal entity you as an artist manager will be in. Mr Louis then states that you have to then understand the rules and regulations you have to follow in the state that you are building your business in. An example he gave was, how in certain states that have entrainment law's like Los Angles and New York, because they have so much entrainment going on this those states that are listed. Mr Louis really emphasized the fact that I need to look at where I want to have my artist management company located and follow the rules and regulations that were given for that state that are followed in that state. I then asked him how he would view the outlook of managing a  certain target audience and I was able to give hime my age range of the individuals I would want to manage which was 16 to 21. He explains that between the ages of 16-18 they would need to be accompanied by there parents because they have not reached the meaning of "age of majority," unless they have a legal form that says they are emancipated and have been on there on since they were 16. After 18 years of age it is automatically legal for individuals to sign contracts to be managed. He mentions that I have to take in the fact that I am not just managing their child, but the parent as well. Even though the parent has signed the contract saying that it is ok for me to mange their child, If I try to do something that would benefit the artist, but the parent does not like the idea, I have to consider the fact that it is important that I satisfy both parties. Its important that you do not what to mess up the flow of the business, says Skinner Louis. Skinner then goes into detail about what I need to do when I actually go into my day to day artist management. He tells me that its important that you come up with an agreement that shows what I will do for them, and the responsibilities I look forward to in return from my artist. Mr Louis explains that a lot of people confuse themselves with the words "net" and "gross." He explains how "gross" can mean you are getting the full amount of what they made before any expenses are taking out, and "net" means you are getting a certain percentage after they paid everything. He then explains that the average percentage that would be taken out for an artist manager is 10 to 20% from their "net" income, and not there "gross" income. My Louis eventually goes into detail about "relationship" and how it is key to a successful career. The strongest advice he gave me was that, as an artist manager on a legal term you want to pick the best entity that will allow you to keep the most profits. He recommended two types of entities which were, S.Corporation also known as a S.Corp or S.Corp LLC. He mentions that there are two types of levels which are, the "legal" level and the "tax" level. The tax level represents how you pay the federal government, which also revolves around the term "property gain tax". The S.Corp designation means that you are able to pay yourself a reasonable salary and that any remaining money from the company that you get, you can take out as a dividend. Mr Louis would then refer back to the S.Corp LLC, and tell me that he feels that it is a lot easier to manage and not as intensive when it comes to forms that individuals have to fill out. The very last category he touched on was bank accounts. It is very crucial that you keep your business money and personal money separate. When you start to commingle funds with other activities that have nothing to do with your business, you then start to lose what is called you "corporate protection." In other words people will start to look at your alter ego, and judge you based off of your irresponsibilities to keep your personal funds separate from your funds with the company or business that you have. The first time you start using business money for personal things, you lose liability. Its very important that you keep things separate so if someone was to try and sue me, they would sue the company and not me personally. Skinner Louis concluded this interview by telling me that it comes down to your skills to really understand the entertainment industry to provide the best value to your client which would be my artist.

Industry Problems

It has been brought to my attention that even throughout your career, there are various reasoning for certain individuals to pursue a lawsuit against you, or having items stolen from you that could later on affect your career. A perfect example of that would be the incident between artist and producer Ryan Leslie and one of his employees that stole his laptop back in October of 2010. Mr. Leslie made the offer that if the individual would return his laptop he would offer a million dollars just to return his belongings back to Ryan Leslie. Ryan would eventually receive his laptop, however he would not hold up his end of the bargain by giving the 1 million to the individual who gave back the laptop. So in retaliation, "The German finder Armin Augstein has sued in hopes of getting what was rightfully promised." As I continued to look up industry liabilities I came across two more articles that dealt with artist that deal with loss revenues due to illegal file sharing and new way music being distributed online.  One example I came across was that on October 30th 2012 an author by the name of Ben Sisario discussed some issue about Eminem's  problems about some digital royalties in a lawsuit. The case was entitled F.B.T. Productions v. Aftermath Records. This was a group of producers who sued a subsidiary of Universal Music Group because they were feeling that they were not getting the right amount of royalties that was supposed to be given to them from iTunes and possibly other stores that were digitally included in the entertainment industry. Also, according too an article from NYTimes.com, Chuck D from the music group known as "Public Enemy” also took part in filing a lawsuit against Universal Music over digital royalties. His argument was that Universal had been miscalculating Public Enemies royalties for digital downloads such as MP3 and ring tones. It is stated that artist are due to receive 10 to 20 percent of royalties in record sales.