How releases can bedevil reality programming
To the rest of the civilization, Los Angeles truly is the “entertainment capital of the world,” a sunny spot where officials calculate there were the equivalent of 45,484 days of permitted production (movie or television shooting) in 2011 alone. But to anyone who has channel-surfed at any time recently, it’s also clear that a growing share of contemporary programming has channeled itself into a Wild, Wild West — the hair-raising or norm-lowering genre of so-called “reality” shows, with bored and affluent housewives, bored and brawling kids from questionable shores or bored but challenged participants in a medley of talent, survival or other kinds of human contests. With all manner of pitches for such programming flying, and with crews descending on locations across the Southland, a crucial legal question is emerging for those who make these types of show or who are in entertainment law: Just how much protection can a few pieces of paper afford? Can the inking of a release lead to legal nirvana? At a recent conference, Angels and Demons: Navigating Tricky Entertainment and Media Issues to Reach Legal Nirvana, hosted by the Biederman Entertainment & Media Law Institute and the Media Law Resource Center, a panel — “Exorcising Rights: Releasing the Demons in Reality Programming — explored reality TV releases, how much they cover and how far these documents can be stretched to assist in expanding...
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