Gordon Firemark: The Podcast Lawyer

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now

Matt Cundill  0:13  
in 2022 at Podcast Movement in Dallas, I shared an elevator ride with Gordon firemark. I recognized him immediately, as the podcast lawyer, he's the guy you call when you get into a podcast legal entanglement. You only get about 15 seconds on an elevator to ask a question, and I asked, I'm in Canada, you're in the US. If we get into a podcast dispute, which laws apply and how you going to find me anyhow, he didn't answer the first part, but he answered the second part by telling me, uh oh, I'll find you. Today's the day you get to hear the rest of my questions as you'll hear he's not an ambulance chaser and not overly litigious. He's thoughtful and concise, and today he's going to give you things to consider before you start your podcast journey. And now Gordon firemark joins me from Los Angeles. Tell me about your very first podcast, the one you first started.

Gordon Firemark  1:12  
Well, the first one that I started while I was a host of was actually started by another fellow who had had me on his show as a guest. And it went so well that he decided, let's do something every other week. And so for about a year, we did a show called law and video. It was me answering legal questions posed by videographers, folks doing, you know, in the wedding business and the whatever else videographers shoot in that space. And it was really great, until his boss at his day job said, Wait a minute, you're Moonlighting. That has to stop. So he had to stop the podcast, and I was hooked. So a few months later, I started my own show called entertainment law

Matt Cundill  1:55  
update. So that didn't take very long for you to encounter your first legal entanglement, which is with your co host. You have to figure out who gets what.

Gordon Firemark  2:04  
Well, at that point, I didn't care. Sometimes that's the easiest way out of legal trouble, is just let them let it go, as the frozen song goes

Matt Cundill  2:17  
and entertainment law as it is, like I think you're starting podcasting, and then you're thinking, oh, there's some legalities in here. And podcasting at the time when you started, this was just so new. And everyone talks about how it's the Wild West, and look what we can do. But there were restrictions, and there were things that would pop up. What were some of those early things that popped up that? And I'm talking about sort of like in the 2000s 2000s 10 era.

Gordon Firemark  2:39  
First, my consciousness immediately went to, well, how is this similar to radio, television, film, the areas that I was practicing law in, right and live theater as well, of course, but, and what I quickly realized is that there were some differences in in the way things were done. You know, the use of music. The big one always has been music. People want to put a song in there. What they want to do is a radio show on as a podcast. And unfortunately, that's real hard to do. And the other area that a lot of folks sort of struggled with, even in those early days, was what I sort of refer to as the podcast divorce. You know, they started something together and then ended. And, you know, who gets what? Who knows, sort of what you were alluding to about when the when the podcast ends, whoa, who's responsible for things and who gets to keep things and and, of course, anytime there's money involved, if people are either spending a lot of money or receiving a lot of money, or even a little money, they tend to fight over that at some point too. So those are the kinds of things that have always plagued the podcasting industry.

Matt Cundill  3:39  
People will come to me and they say, We want to start a podcast. And they're excited. It's almost like they're asking for a marriage license. And I say, Absolutely, but you need to write out the divorce before you get podcast married. And they go, what does that mean? And I go, I don't know. You should really look up this guy, Gordon fire Mark. He knows what he's talking about. Yeah, one day I'm gonna have him on my show. But what are some of the things that you do have to consider about dividing up when it comes to things like, you know, I IP and the RSS feed and stuff like that. How? How can you make it amicable, like, before you even get podcast married? Well,

Gordon Firemark  4:13  
I think that's the key. Is that talking about it before there's a fight, before there's a disagreement or hurt feelings, or, you know, the frictions have, have come into play because, you know, it sets up some predictability of outcomes and keeps everybody has in mind that, oh yeah, we talked about that. You know, it's, it's less about the document, which I call a podcast, prenup, right? It's less about the document and more about the process of having the conversations about these things. And, you know, you ask, you know, if you feel like you're the founder, creator of the show and your co host decides to leave, well, then you want to keep the show and maybe pick a new co host, or do it solo, or whatever. And so the RSS feed and the body of of existing content really will, will be the the assets that you're concerned with, really. Maintaining, but sometimes the person who's leaving is the one who wants to take all that, and then they're sort of, you know, firing their their partner, or kicking them out the door, basically. And so it can get a little tricky, but again, having talked it through and figured out, okay, who owns this thing, and what are we all entitled to, and and what do we what's expected of us is another important component, because if someone's not pulling their weight, the other hosts may want to do something about that.

Matt Cundill  5:30  
It's one of the reasons why I think radio stations don't do more podcasting, and it's because, you know, talent gets turned over all the time. You get a new shift. You leave, you cross town, we're gonna fire you. There's so many like exiting things, there's almost no point for them to start a podcast, because they, for whatever reason, never want them to leave with the RSS

Gordon Firemark  5:50  
feed. In the radio world, it's a little different, because mostly the hosts of the show, you know, the On Air personalities, are employees of the radio station or the or the syndicator or whatever, and so the the company owns what they create and does have the right to direct them. You will do a podcast as part of your job, and we retain ownership of that stuff. But there are other branding issues. And you know when, when you have a host who's now on the competitor radio station across town, it creates some weird confusion issues and things like that. So there's lots of strategic reasons why radio may not want to get too far into the Evergreen media kind of business. That's the main difference between podcasts and radio. Is the podcasts are evergreen. Radio is ephemeral. Once it's happened, it's happened, and, yeah, there are air check tapes and things like that. But that stuff doesn't find its way into the public consciousness that often.

Matt Cundill  6:41  
My other favorite one is, you know, usually there's a host, I invite them on the show. I try not to invite them on the show, you know, when they're in between gigs, because, again, that makes it a much less evergreen experience for for the for the end user. But one of the things that comes up is they say, Well, I can appear because I can't be on a podcast because there's a non compete clause. I go, Well, you're on Facebook Live this morning. You used your Instagram. This is just an RSS feed. It's funny how, like an RSS feed or podcasting gets treated like something different than Facebook Live or YouTube, but it's

Gordon Firemark  7:16  
not. Yeah, I think conceptually, you're sitting down in front of a microphone, putting on the headphones or the earbuds or whatever, and speaking into the microphone in a studio kind of environment. And you're right, nowadays, we've all got the camera attached to the computer and we're sitting here having a conversation. It's still a studio, but yeah, the context feels somehow more radio like and something I've been pushing against for years is, you know, radio is a different medium, and the rules are different.

Matt Cundill  7:44  
So the biggest thing that made me go, oh, wow, probably 2017 is there's this guy at a podcast conference saying that you need a guest release form. And here's why that person was you, yeah, and you need a guest release form, your guests should sign these forms because of the content. The content without a form, is essentially owned by both parties.

Gordon Firemark  8:08  
It can be. It sort of becomes a question of subjective interpretation, and the goal of using a contract that led this form that we're talking about, by the way, anybody wants to access it, podcast, release.com. Is where you'll find it, and it's free. Just give me your email address and I will not leave you alone till you tell me to so you can opt out at any time. But yeah, check out the release. And you know what it is, is it's not just it's not just about that ownership, although it's definitely possible that when two or more people come together to create what copyright law refers to as a work. That work will be deemed jointly owned by those co creators unless there's evidence of a different intention. So the document is about creating and documenting that different intention, as well as the consent to record so you're not invading anybody's privacy, and the consent to publish the episode again, so you're not invading anybody's privacy with that. And nowadays I also include a clause that, you know, basically says I understand that you may use AI tools to edit the show, and I'm okay with that, as long as you don't change the meaning of what I've said those kinds of things. So it's all that permission to use name, image, likeness, sound of the voice performance, all sort of rolled into a one page agreement. Now you can do it online as a as a check the box when you sign up for the podcast.

Matt Cundill  9:27  
I've live produced a number of shows that did require somebody to would require the guest to fill out a form. But if, let's say the cat or a dog appeared on camera or barked, I would then ask them to get the dog to fill out a guest release form as well. Yeah. And most would believe me that that would Are you serious?

Gordon Firemark  9:45  
Yes, just, you know, dip their pawn ink and put it on the line.

Matt Cundill  9:48  
I have not used the guest release form of all the episodes I've done. And I've always felt this way, that if the person I'm doing the show with is not happy with the. Product and didn't feel that it was a value to them. I don't want it out there either, and I'm happy to report nobody's ever asked me to take it down. They might have asked me to make a change along the way for a particular reason, but that I've never this is why it's just never crossed my mind to actually get one. So tell me what's wrong with my thinking there.

Gordon Firemark  10:19  
Well, your thinking is in line with very many, many podcasters. And if you are comfortable with the idea of taking an episode down after you've invested your time and resources in making the episode and getting the guest on and whatever, just because they've, for whatever reason, changed their mind, then I guess you're fine. I mean, you know, you go with your conscience. My my advocacy of using the guests release came out of an experience one of my clients had where she had created a show. She's a journalist, so she treats it as you know, takes it seriously, as sharing important information with an audience. It was a mommy blog, kind of a podcast where she was parenting advice and so on, and she had a lactation expert come on her show, as a expert advocating, you know, breast milk on breast milk only for babies. It's the only way to go, and staunchly against the use of formula. Well, as a journalist, a few maybe a year later, this host decided, you know, I should present a counterpoint to that, and at least hear from the folks that support supplementing babies nutrition with formula. Well, that original lactation consultant got all up in arms and demanded the episode be taken down, and demanded that no l references to her appearance were gone from all the websites and everything else. And you know, this journalist, client of mine came to me and we talked about it, and she was just not willing to just have an empty, you know, a blank number in her RSS feed. She considered her whole thing a journalistic endeavor, and so she decided to offer this former guest an opportunity to present a counterpoint, write up an explanation of why the episode is no longer available, and so on. She refused. She turned around and sued the client, and you know, many, many, many, 1000s of dollars later, they ended up settling in a situation where nobody was particularly happy. The episode did get taken down, but my client wrote an explanation for why. And you know, that kind of thing just didn't need to happen, and it didn't need to cost my client, you know, multiple five figure number to achieve that.

Matt Cundill  12:25  
So I'm going to advocate for the guest release form, very simply, for this particular reason that a lot of people don't understand podcasts. They may think they're coming on to a YouTube show or a video show, or it's going to run once, or they think it's live. I've had a few people surprised. Oh, this person over here has put the show up on their website. I don't particularly like them. I go, there's not much I can do. They just sort of embedded the show with Spotify or Apple onto the show, and that's how it rolls. So, yeah, make sure that clause is

Gordon Firemark  12:56  
in there. Yeah, you know another thing that you know for those who don't want to bother with the friction. And yes, there's a little bit of friction when you add the guest release to the process of booking a guest and so on. But honestly, I don't think most people presented with it think of it as anything more than a formality. Just you know, you look you make a doctor's appointment, you fill out a bunch of forms. You go to appear on a on a TV show, you're filling out a release form. Live radio has always sort of done things a little less formally and that that's the way it goes. But for those who who just don't want to, you know, it sort of depends on the kind of a show you have. Also, another component of this is, if you are sponsored, if your episodes are sponsored, those sponsors have an expectation that a certain number of episodes they've paid for are going to be available for a while, or the life of the show, or whatever your deal is. So if those, if an episode comes down, you have now essentially broken your contract with your sponsor. So it's another reason to have a release that leaves the decision making to you and not the guest, over whether the episode stays up or goes down. And, you know, I certainly if someone's gonna get fired because of something they said on your show, absolutely go in and edit that out so that they don't get in trouble. Or, you know, run it by their bosses first, or whatever it is. But that should be the podcast creators decision, and not someone

Matt Cundill  14:19  
else's just like the breast milk episode you were referring to. There's a number of podcasts out there that didn't do involve health, or maybe it's about finance, or maybe even it's about legal, where there are disclaimers at the beginning of the show disclosing, you know, what would be local legal rules that they believe often, you know, making reference to, you know, to avoid trouble with the with the FTC, maybe there was some money exchanged to appear on the show, and you need to disclose that for sure, absolutely. But I'm in Canada, and we don't have the same rules, but I got a lot of listeners in the US, so maybe it does apply to me.

Gordon Firemark  14:54  
Maybe, yeah. I mean, honestly, some of it is just sort of good common sense anyway. Don't you think? Audience has a right to know if you've been paid for you know, if I had paid you to come on the show, they would have a right to know that I wanted to gain, you know, their attention and was paying for it. If you have mentioned a product and you've gotten a copy of that product or some kind of compensation for talking about the product, then I think they have a right to know whether Canada has the same rules or the or not as USA. It's good, common sense and just, frankly, good stewardship of your audience to do that. I think that said, if you're giving, if you have a guest who's giving legal advice, like I am today, I'm not well, let me, let me reframe, rephrase that. Here comes the disclaimer. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. That is to all of those listeners and viewers out there. So if you have a legal issue, yes, the information I'm going to provide you will be helpful, but it's really the best thing to do is to consult someone who can give you custom, tailored advice after researching the facts and the legal issues that apply. So that kind of a disclaimer is just, again, just good sense that your your audience needs to know now is it absolutely always required when you have someone in a professional field who comes on your show, maybe, maybe not, I sometimes say the disclaimer, and sometimes I don't. The fact is, you don't, you don't see, you know a guest go on the Dr Phil show on television, and there's no big disclaimer there. They're just talking about who they are and what their expertise is, and this is their opinions. Sometimes you'll see, you know, the opinions of our guests are their own, and don't reflect the thinking of the podcast host or the whatever. That's another good one to some, you know, especially if it's controversial subject matter that might get you canceled. So, you know, it's use your judgment, be thoughtful about these things, and don't just ignore it. That's sort of my take on that

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Matt Cundill  17:13  
with the biggest obstacle for a podcast, or an American podcast, to be the Federal Trade Commission, because they have sort of nudged in a little bit on influencers and podcasters kind of file fallen there as

Gordon Firemark  17:24  
well. I wouldn't say they're a big obstacle. They've set up some guidelines and rules. Frankly, I think they're fairly easy with which to comply. You know, you have to have a conspicuous disclosure of any financial relationship between the creator of the show and the brand that might be promoted or endorsed. And, you know, influencers aren't supposed to endorse products they haven't actually tried and used, because that would just be a lie. And, you know, so again, it's, it's false advertising rules. Again, common sense is the is the underlying watch

Matt Cundill  17:57  
word. I went to a trademark lawyer when I started the company, and I said I would like this idea here to be trademarked. And he's looking at the idea, yeah, yeah. Well, you know where it's going, right? Well, he said, It's the idea that's not something we can protect, yeah. Well, this idea, business idea that I have here, because this is what's going to happen. And they he pushed that to the side, and then he points to the company, yeah. He says, This is what really needs to be trademarked. And, you know, whatever that grandioso idea I was going to sell under a different brand name was is now in the garbage, but the company is still here,

Gordon Firemark  18:27  
right, right? Yeah. So, you know, when we talk about intellectual property, let me go mile high view for a second. We there are several different kinds of intellectual property, and as soon as you say the word idea, that takes us out of the world of property, ideas are not something that can be owned, concepts, themes, those kinds of things, that's sort of part of the lexicon of creation. However, you can protect the way you have expressed that idea. That's copyright law, the words you've used to say it, or to tell the story, or the cinematic devices you've used to tell it on film, those kinds of things. Copyright law protects that. Patent law protects inventions which is sort of the closest thing to an idea, but you have to have actually iterated a version of the invention based on the idea in order to have a patent prototype, essentially, it has to be a unique and non obvious invention, development of some sort technology, and then trademark law is what really protects the brands, the names that we give to our show, our product, the segments of our show, things like that. So when I put a TM after podcast prenup or the podcast lawyer, TM, that's me telling the world that I'm claiming trademark rights to these and actually, it's just about time now that I've been using it long enough people recognize that and I'm going to go ahead and register my trademarks. But yeah, that's that's about protecting the the right to be in the marketplace without unfair competition from people creating confusingly similar brands. Yeah and using them to market.

Matt Cundill  20:01  
Yeah. So I'm going to take a guess here, and that one of the biggest things people might come to you for is I have a podcast. It's called this, and there's another podcast that just started out, and it's got the same title. What do I

Gordon Firemark  20:14  
do? That is a pretty common consultation in my firm, my practice, oftentimes they've waited too long, and there's not that much we can do other than again, if they haven't registered their trademark, then all we can do is sort of let the other side know, hey, we're using it. We claim common law trademark rights to this, and if you don't stop, we'll have to do something about it. I'd say 810, eight times out of 10 they oops, we didn't know, sorry about that, or sometimes they say that, but it's different. We don't care. And then we have to have a conversation about, is it worth filing a lawsuit and relying on state law and common law and the registration makes all of that easier, and frankly, it just has the the weight of a US Federal stamp of approval saying, Hey, you get to use this name, and nobody else does. That's the other thing about trademarks is they're territorial, so a US trademark doesn't do me a whole lot of good in Canada if a Canadian someone comes up with the same brand, unless I've also registered in that country. So it can get complicated

Matt Cundill  21:21  
quickly, I was, um, wondering about music, and why can't we use music in in a

Gordon Firemark  21:27  
podcast? Well, it's not that we can't, it's that we need permission to do it. And the truth is, you need permission to use a piece of music When you broadcast it on the radio, when you put it in a television program, or as part of the background or score of a motion picture or anything. That's what copyright is, is you need permission of the author, owner in order to copy, distribute, perform, display, or make derivative works based on the copyrighted thing. So in the end, this is one of the areas where radio folks come up and say, Well, I'm just going to drop a song in here. No, you can't do that. And the reason is you need is you need to get that permission. Radio stations have a deal. Every radio station in America has a deal with there are actually four of these companies, ASCAP, BMI, which is broadcast music Inc CSAC, which is the Society of European songwriters and composers, or something along those lines, and and another one called global music rights. And these organizations collect royalties for the songwriters and the music publishers that own the copyrights in the songs that have been written and composed. There is no similar right in America for recorded music in regular radio. But it only that rule only extends to regular broadcast radio when you're including it in something digital. You then also have to contend with the copyright for the recorded version. That's the record label. So now you have at least two rights holders. You have to get permission from to use the music in the way you plan, and that is to embed it in this new production you're making. So there's a derivative work, it's a copy and a performance, and then also to stream and make it available for download, which is more copying and performance. So it's sort of four different rights that are being implicated all at once from four or two or more owners. So it's not impossible. You can get that permission if you go ask, but you can't just rely on these organizations like ASCAP and BMI, or in Canada, it's, was it Socan? Socan and resound, yeah. And then in other countries, every country has these so and again, with podcasting, you put it up on an RSS feed, it is now available worldwide unless you set up complicated geo fencing and things. So you're gonna have those rights holders coming at you from all of these different countries. Best thing you can do is go get that permission directly from the owners of the copyright to give you worldwide permission in perpetuity. Well, you can imagine how they might feel about that when you're offering them exposure because exposure books don't keep a roof over your head or put food on your table.

Matt Cundill  24:01  
And let's understand too, that it's for podcasts. Because podcast is a download. It is you are making a copy of a song, and this is what makes it really, really complicated. It's not like, I'm going to set up an online radio station and just pay the bill every month. So,

Gordon Firemark  24:13  
you know, yes, it's possible. And there are some successful podcasters out there who have deals with record companies and publishers that they can use certain pieces of music, you know, for whatever. I know, there's a, well, I think he passed away, but a fellow had a show where he used a famous piece of music as the opener for his show. Is a money show. And the, I think, the title, the song, was taking care of business or whatever, and bad company, I think.

Matt Cundill  24:37  
And that's Bachman Turner, overdrive, right, right? And they're, they're from where I am right now. It's uh,

Gordon Firemark  24:42  
Winnipeg, yeah. And so he made a deal. It was like 100 bucks a year, which is a sweet deal, but this is at the very beginning of podcasting when nobody knew what it was or what to think about it. I dare say they wouldn't have made such a sweet deal nowadays. So gotta get that permission. That's the bottom line. And

Matt Cundill  24:57  
royalty free is not royalty free. It's not necessarily. Free. It's royalty free. And there's a difference.

Gordon Firemark  25:02  
Well, a royalty is really just a payment to the Royal, to the landlord, the owner of the property, whatever you want to call it, for the use of the in the old days, it was the use of the land. If I'm going to grow a crop, I'm going to give a percentage of the crop to the landlord. I was a royalty paid up the chain to all the way up to the king. Same idea with with copyright holders is we're paying a percentage of revenue or royalty or some other fixed dollar amount or something like that, and it would be based, usually on the size and scale of the audience or how many downloads, or something like that. So royalty free is a nice idea. It doesn't mean you, as you said, you go to the royalty free libraries. What their promise is is that you pay a one time fee or a subscription fee for access to that music, and you don't have to then keep accounting for it as your audience grows, as episodes get downloaded and reused and things like that, but you pay for the right to use the music in the first place. Tends to be smaller, more affordable stuff. The other thing you have to be careful with that is Read the License Agreement really carefully. I'm a strong advocate of using royalty free music, but be careful, because sometimes it's single use licensing, and if you're putting that single use license to use in every episode, say as the opener or closer, you're gonna end up getting a bill for 35 bucks or whatever you pay for each episode. And so it may not be royalty free, but it sure feels like a royalty So

Matt Cundill  26:24  
earlier in this episode, let's say, three minutes ago, you just mentioned Bachman, Turner, overdrive and taking care of business. And I know a producer here who's going to want to just slip in a little clip. And would I be able to argue and say, whoa. Well, that's fair use. Is it fair use? What is fair use?

Gordon Firemark  26:39  
The answer to the question is maybe or maybe not? Because, you know, that's the way lawyers answer questions. Fair use is a US based principle comes from our Constitution, the First Amendment of the Constitution here, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Many other countries, Canada, UK, have similar principles, often called Fair Dealing, that allow for certain kinds of uses of small amounts that aren't going to impact the market for the original in in order to advance a cause that we believe is worthwhile. So freedom of speech in the context of cultural criticism and commentary, or education or news, is an important component where we don't want to have the newscasters hands tied by and not being able to do something, you know, to be able to use a small piece of something to illustrate a story they're telling. So maybe it depends on the context, in the context where I just mentioned it, and you want to just roll in a little bit of the of the intro, of that under, underneath, or something, I would say it's probably not fair use, because we're not talking about BTO and the song itself and how it influenced society, or, you know, those kinds of things. So it's not really the first amendment kind of use. It's going to look more like a copyright infringement kind of a use. But your mileage will vary depending on what country you're in and and it's a four factor analysis in under US law that has to be done for each clip each time and so. And the other thing to remember is that it is not just a free pass, it's a defense in a lawsuit. So if you're going to say it's fair use, you're probably going to say it when somebody has already filed a lawsuit against you, and you've had to hire lawyers to argue it for you, and you want to talk about an expensive proposition, there you go.

Matt Cundill  28:19  
Yeah, there's a little fafo behind that. That's going to be expensive, right? Exactly. So the Canadian government, they love to find ways. They're looking for ways to sort of roll the traditional radio rules into anything online. They've been trying this now for a couple of years. Speaking of again, fafo, they've sort of struggled with Google and Facebook and trying to sort of squeeze money out of them. But the thing came up about YouTube and how, you know, YouTube, in terms of content creation, could be labeled Canadian, promoted, or I'm possibly censored. We're not. They never really use that. But where would fall under the microscope, but I'm most concerned or interested in the RSS feed. To me, I get the feeling that the technology feels fairly borderless. And you I'll just go back to the to the music, you know, example, you've got to go get the rights for every country where your show is going to be downloaded. So can a government really get in there and get their fingers all over an RSS feed and regulate it in some particular way? If

Gordon Firemark  29:13  
any one entity can, it's going to be a government just, you know, by force of economics and the will to do it legally, can they? I don't. I mean, here in the US, the government wouldn't be, well, everything is is up in the air right now in the US and how things operate. But the common understanding is the US really can't. The government can't get involved in telling us where we can publish, and what we can do and not do with our content, and so on and so forth. I'm not exactly familiar with that the Canadian rules around broadcast radio, because I just haven't had occasion to get into it. But it does strike me as this is that area where the differences in the medium will really become visible quickly. Just because you're making a piece of content doesn't make you a radio station. And a radio host, it means you're a content creator, and if you could make that content and post it on YouTube, why shouldn't you be able to post it on a website with an RSS feed? And I think that the risk is that you'll see creators starting to create and host on non Canadian servers using VPN technology to upload and download. So the Canadian government won't be able to prove won't be able to prove that it was ever that it originated in Canada, unless the host says so. And I don't know what the consequences of all that might be, but it is definitely something that I think podcasters in Canada need to be paying attention to and reaching out to their elected representatives to protest this kind of

Matt Cundill  30:41  
trend. What is something that I haven't considered about podcast law that we haven't talked about today? Yeah, I think

Gordon Firemark  30:47  
you've, you've hit most of the high points. I mean, there are always variations on the relationships between co hosts and things like that. I guess the the overriding principle, I would say, when it comes to the the relationships, is get things in writing with everybody who touches your show, not just the guests, but also if you've got a co host to do a co host agreement, if you're hiring them, or if it looks like a hire, then it should say so, and identify who the owner of the show is. If it looks like a partnership or a joint venture, then say that too, and figure out the what if questions about the end of the relationship ahead of time. If you're doing a deal with an advertiser, a sponsor, make sure you get that in writing and be being as precise as possible with the language, especially in the advertising deals. Another scenario that I had happen is my client came to me after he made a deal with a with a sponsor. The sponsor loved the show. It had, you know, in the 10s of 1000s of downloads those reasonably successful show. And this the deal with this advertiser was 1000 bucks per podcast for the sponsor message, and the sponsor handed over credit card, and so the podcaster starts hitting that credit card every week for 1000 bucks a year goes by before the advertiser Go figure. Didn't really notice until the years gone by and says, Wait a minute, you owe me 51,000 bucks back. You overcharged me because it was 1000 bucks per podcast. Came down to, what does the word podcast mean? An undefined term, and had they been more careful and precise about it per episode released approximately weekly, something like that. This would not have been an issue. So we ended up having a pissing match. The sponsor threatened to bring the police and the FBI into the equation. It was, it was a nightmare situation, and we ended up negotiating a settlement. Again. Everybody sort of walked away equally unhappy, and that's the best solution you can get in those

Matt Cundill  32:39  
scenarios. Gordon, this has been an absolute joy. I've been dying to do this podcast for a number of years. I absolutely love it, and thank you for doing

Gordon Firemark  32:46  
it well. It's been a lot of fun. I'm great to grateful to have been here and invited. Thank

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  32:50  
you, Matt. The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at soundoff podcast.com you.