As a creative director/producer, there is a chance that you might have come across the term “cease and desist.” You probably never gave it much thought. However, you should. Cease and Desist orders have a lot to do with your line of work, especially in the context of legality.
A Cease and Desist order is exactly what it means. It is a legal document that orders you to put an end to your activity. In the voiceover industry, creative directors/producers and voiceover artists deal with Cease and Desist orders more often than you think.
The worst part is that most of them remain clueless as to why they even received such an order. Well, that’s exactly what this article aims to achieve, educate you about the “Cease and Desist” order.
The Basics
You’re likely to get a “Cease and Desist” order when you use copyrighted or trademarked material in your productions without obtaining permission from the original copyright holder. Generally, to use a brand name or even a music track, you need to get permission from the original creator or copyright holder. Plus, you will, most likely, have to pay them royalty as well.
It is quite common for corporations and companies to send out these orders. In fact, there has been a rise in the number of such cases because organizations have become overprotective about their intellectual property. Of course, you cannot blame them considering the level of fraud and piracy that seems to have pervaded various industries, thanks to the Internet.
Examples
To give you a better example of what can cause you to receive a Cease and Desist order, here are a couple of examples.
- If the name of your production house or studio happens to be the same as another organization’s, you could be looking at a Cease and Desist order. Of course, you may genuinely have had no idea, but, the law doesn’t care. So, it’s safer to do some research before you use names.
- If you use the logo of a client without their permission, you could be looking at a Cease and Desist order. It doesn’t matter if you’ve produced a project for the client. You still need to obtain their permission to use any of their materials for your own purposes.
Ignorance will not be accepted in such matters and what’s worse is that things don’t end with just Cease and Desist. Some corporations and organizations will go after your blood. You could be looking at a lawsuit asking you to pay for damages and we’re not talking about a few dollars here.
So, educate yourself about copyrighted content and intellectual property. Talk to a legal consultant if you have to. The time, effort and money spent will be worth it.
ABOUT ROBERTA –
Roberta is a Professional AND award Winning International Voiceover Actor, as well as an accomplished on-camera actress and spokesperson. She lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area and is the owner of Roberta Kennedy Voice Talent and RK Productions, Inc.
She voices for companies around the world using her state of the art, broadcast quality studio. She’s hired for commercials, web demos and explainer videos, product infomercials, documentaries, promo/imaging, political ads, e-learning videos, podcasts, guided real estate tours, telephony/IVR projects, high profile corporate presentations, video games and character animation.
Her voice is described as: playful, contemporary, compelling, commanding, inviting, sultry and smooth. A hip edge with sophistication, bold, warm, interesting and engaging are also commonly used adjectives to describe her voice.
Her home studio is equipped with ipDTL, ISDN and phone patch capability with lightning fast turnaround times! A voiceover talent with over 20 years of voiceover acting experience, she offers a full range of voiceover services at highly competitive rates & will work with your budget to help you promote your business to new levels of excellence!
To request a personal quote or audition and/or to review more of her credits & demos, feel free to visit her website: www.robertakennedy.com – or mail her at roberta@robertakennedy.com. You can even give her a call on (408) 313-7202.