This guest post was provided by Rob Sciglimpaglia.
Rob is an actor and voice actor, who also happens to be a brilliant attorney. He understands us, as talent, and he understands the business in which we work. If you’re looking for any of legal advice related to voice over, he’s a great guy to reach out. You can also purchase his book Voice Over Legal on Amazon.
Think Before You Post
So you got a wonderful job and you want to tell the world on Social Media! Or you want to take a piece of the gig and put it on your demo. Before you do that, will you land yourself in legal hot water? Or worse, will you land your production company client in hot water?
Did you sign a Non Disclosure Agreement, or a Confidentiality Agreement? If so, DON’T POST ANYTHING! Not a word, not even something like “I got a job but I can’t say anything”, because guess what, you probably just breached it! Do you know what your NDA or Confidentiality Agreement allows you what you can do or not do, or is it a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo?
Even if you did not sign an NDA or Confidentiality agreement, did you sign a contract with your client saying you will “Indemnify and Hold them Harmless for any legal actions against them” due to your actions?
So what if you post something about your gig, and the end user client complains to your Production Company client, and ultimately has to pay a penalty or they get sued by end user client because or your post? Losing your client will be the least of your worries. Hopefully you carry Errors and Omissions insurance in that instance.
Do you have your clients sign your own contract? If not, the above is even more of a reason to do so because you are the one that should be asking for hold harmless/indemnification language. And if you are reading this saying “this stuff doesn’t happen” or “this won’t happen to me”, thank you, because you are the ones that keep me in business!
Trust me on this one, it is much cheaper to prevent these issues than resolving them, and they happen quite frequently.
Rob Sciglimpaglia
Voice Over Legal
Get your copy of Voice Over Legal from Amazon
