What California's New Independent Contractor Law Means for Your Business, Even if You're Not Uber

Last month California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 5 into law. Beginning next year, the world of California employment will look completely different. Parts of the law apply retroactively, changing the landscape now as well. While the law targeted gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft, it will have a profound effect across most California businesses. So what does the new law actually say and how will it affect your business?

Prior to this new law, businesses and the government had a lot more leeway to argue whether someone was an employee or an independent contractor. There were a number of factors, and courts had some discretion in weighing them against each other. The new law is much more strict. For someone to be considered an independent contractor, they must meet three requirements. If any of the three don’t apply to a worker, then that worker is an employee. The three factors are:

A. The company does not control the time, method, or manner of the worker’s job performance.
B. The worker performs work that is not part of the company’s usual business.
C. The worker performs work in this field for other companies.

If the worker and business fail any of these three criteria, California will consider the worker an employee. This will throw many businesses into chaos. The film industry, game development, and music production will be affected by the new rules. This is something that companies must address as soon as possible. Companies should be developing procedures to ensure that workers are appropriately covered, that contractors have the proper paperwork to protect the company and the contractor, and to check which of the numerous exemptions may apply to them.

Contact The Law Firm of Dillon McCarthy for assistance in navigating this complex new aspect of your company or production.

Does My Production Need a Lawyer?

Many independent productions, from short films to larger projects, ask themselves at one point if they need a lawyer. The entertainment business can be complicated, and most productions should consider hiring one. A good production attorney can help a production with the following common needs and more:

1. Obtaining production insurance, which normally requires a script clearance report. A production attorney can produce one of these for you, highlighting potential areas of liability.

2. Drafting and reviewing contracts. Professional productions produce a lot of contracts. There will, and should be, contracts with actors, crew, and many of the other people involved in the production. Contracts written by people other than lawyers often have fatal flaws that do not protect your production. Contracts are esoteric and complicated, but that’s what production lawyers are trained for.

3. Intellectual property concerns. From licensing agreements for music to copyrighting the product itself, intellectual property is the fuel that powers the entertainment industry. Production attorneys navigate this twisting area for you.

4. Freeing up your time. You want to make movies. You don’t want to spend most of the time you could be doing that reading contracts and dealing with complex legal questions. Think of a production lawyer as another member of the crew: you hire them because they have expertise and allow everyone else to do the job that they were hired to do.

Most productions should consider hiring a good production attorney. By the time you realize how complex the legal issues of your production are, it may be too late. The Law Firm of Dillon McCarthy can help you from pre to post-production for an affordable rate targeted directly to independent filmmakers.

Does Your Production Need a Script Clearance Report?

The legal challenges of a production begin far before the cameras start rolling. For smaller productions, taking the proper steps in pre-production can make the difference in whether the project receives distribution at all. One of the most vital steps in the pre-production process is obtaining a script clearance report.

What is a Script Clearance Report?

A script clearance report identifies the potential legal conflicts of a script well before production begins. Both fiction and non-fiction projects should consider receiving one before issues become major problems later.

These reports detail legal issues that could present a problem if the script were produced as is. These range from small easy-to-miss details like determining whether character names conflict with those of real living people, to larger issues like the need to obtain release forms from people or brands. If drafted by an attorney with knowledge in the field, it should go beyond these typical issues and address whether copyright infringement, trademark infringement, personality rights, privacy rights, and more might be a legal concern.

What Does a Script Clearance Report Get a Production?

A clearance report lets a production know what it might need to change or prepare for. A production lawyer can work closely with the writers and producers to fix or mitigate issues. This can take the form of changing parts of the script or preparing defenses to potential litigation issues in advance.

Perhaps just as importantly, many methods of distribution close without one of these reports. Most well-known distributors will want the production to obtain Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance. These insurance policies help cover the cost of lawsuits that might be filed against the production for a variety of reasons. These companies usually require something like a script clearance report before they will issue a policy. Without a policy, most distributors will not consider a project.

The Law Firm of Dillon McCarthy offers script clearance reports written by licensed attorneys. If your production needs a report contact us today.