Musical America Blogs

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    We recently had an incident where the Executive Director of an organization that presented one of our artists gave him a cookie with a controlled substance in it at a reception after the performance. Admittedly, the substance was legal in the presenter’s state, but it made the artist (who […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    I work for a small performing arts organization which performs each year in a tax-payer funded, non-traditional space. The venue makes itself available for rental as an event space. In the past, we have been allowed to pay them a reduced rental rate in exchange for a full-page ad […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder: What rights does a translator have? I translated a non-English script into English. All of the prior translations were very bad, which is why I did my own.  Everyone agrees mine is the best, even the original author. However, now that I am getting offers […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. Dear Law and Disorder: I had a really interesting conversation with a consular officer at a U.S. consulate where we were having one of our groups apply for P visas. Our group has toured the U.S. many times and the officer mentioned that P class petitioners do not need to […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder: I’m dealing with a presenter who wants to cancel two weeks out due to poor ticket sales. While it’s not a huge engagement fee, my artist has already contracted its performers and paid out expenses for the date as its part of a bigger tour. […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder: Many years ago I hired an attorney to create an LLC for me, but I wound up never using it. Recently, I was presented with another business opportunity, but I’d like to have an LLC to do this. Can I still use the original LLC […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.     We booked a tour for a folk/rock group that will be touring the US for the first time. It took a lot longer to get their visas approved because US Immigration kept asking for unreasonable things like background information on venues and festivals and even made us get […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder Our group got a bad check from a venue for a performance. We called them and they sent us a new check, but that bounced, too. Now they won’t return our phone calls. Is there anything we can do? Many venues, especially smaller non-profits, wrongly […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.    Dear Law and Disorder: We obtained a three year O-1 visa for one of our artists. We are the artist’s agent and served as his petitioner. A large venue wants to book the artist, but they are insisting that, according to their finance department, they cannot pay us as […]

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. Dear Law and Disorder: We filed visa petitions for O-1 and an O-2 visas. USCIS is asking for a contract between each of the O-2s and either the petitioner or the employers. This has never been an issue before and we’ve been doing this for 20 years. They are also […]