PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts (VLA), a program of the Arts and Business Council, was established to meet the legal needs of the state's artistic community. The VLA provides a legal referral program, seminars and workshops to artists and arts organizations from all creative disciplines.  The VLA has also launched a new program, building on the success of its “Holiday Card Contest program” in the Boston Public Schools (sponsored by the Brown Rudnick Foundation) to provide inner-city high school students with an understanding of copyright, trademark and patent law, called the “Teen Art Law” (“TAL”) project. Our goal with TAL is to make these students aware of the intellectual property law and concepts that govern the digital age in which they live. 

Intellectual property law is the vocabulary of the modern technological world in which students now live and will eventually lead. Therefore, while the target population for the TAL project will initially be the students and teachers in the Boston Public Schools’ arts-related classes or after-school programs, we intend to gradually expand the program to reach out to a broader range of high school students. Additionally, these students will have an opportunity to interact with members of Boston’s legal community, be exposed to critical legal thinking and see the issues and opportunities that exist for lawyers who work in this area.  For many of these students, the TAL project will be their first introduction to the legal field and will encourage students who may not have otherwise considered law to explore it as a career option.  For those considering careers as artists, the program will provide valuable legal tools to help them proactively approach the intellectual property issues that affect all practicing artists. 

PROGRAM SPECIFICS

The VLA works with teachers at participating schools to design presentations appropriate for each student group level and tailored to the intellectual property issues affecting their particular form of artistic expression.  Examples of two successful presentations are below:

- Music

The Music session focused on the intellectual property issues most commonly associated with music and the music industry. We introduce students to music related terms and vocabulary through the use of a hypothetical scenario and recordings of seven actual songs that demonstrate the difference between an original composition, cover, sampling, parody and mash-up. Through this lively use of real music recordings we demonstrate the different intellectual property rights and issues musicians and individuals working in the music industry regularly encounter.

- Visual Art