 Oh there it's time for voiceover body shop, and we have a fabulous guest tonight He's been with us plenty times before because everybody asks lots of questions of him because he's got the answers Rob Sigglin Paglia Rob. How you doing good? How you guys doing great? We're gonna have a great time We're gonna be talking about all sorts of cool stuff talking about the legal aspects of your voiceover business There's stuff you probably wouldn't even think about But if you've got a question throw it in the chat room in Facebook live or if you're watching on YouTube Throw it in the chat room there, and we will get to those questions in just a little while So stay tuned Rob Sigglin Paglia voiceover in the law coming up on voiceover body shop right now From the outer reaches they came bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio And each week they allow you into their world bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voiceover business Welcome to voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlin Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com Where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training JMC demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Be You're so glad to have that pad with all the sound effects back aren't you I am I am Anyway, welcome to our show this week we've got a great guest as we were saying Rob Siglem Paglia will be joining us in just a minute and Again, we invite your questions throw them in the chat room if you're watching us live right now If you're watching this in replay you had your chance But now it's a great time to ask your questions. So get those in right now. How are you doing? Mr. Whidham? I'm doing pretty good. I've been staying active and Counting the days for my girlfriend to come back from Iran where she is again But I'm doing fine and I'm you know We've been switching it up in studio. Sometimes we come into the studio together Sometimes we're apart each of them have their own pros and cons, you know, right when we come in together It's so much more fun in a way because we get to be together and interact But it's also a lot more challenging from a technical aspect of this aspect Aspective. I just made up a new word To to make it all look good. So, you know, I there's pros and cons But again, I like having my big colorful buttons Over here, which I don't have in the other studio. So we have the same buttons over here, though We can but I don't know long enough. I have to reach over the desk and push my finger in front of suit's face To teach suit which buttons are witchy. There we go. She figured it out already. She knows that board already Well, let's get on to our guest tonight Rob Siglampaglia and by the way, I'm the only person licensed to be able to pronounce his name right Is currently a practicing attorney as well as an actor and accomplished voiceover artist Rob hosted a local radio program back in the mid 90s Just like me called the law show mine wasn't about the law and more recently hosted a radio show called ask the lawyer But we're gonna talk about Voiceover and the law he's also The author of a great book that we should all read which I've read several times Especially when there's something going on that I like what does a romp have to say about this called voice over legal Let's welcome back to voiceover body shop Rob Siglampaglia counselor welcome back Good to be here. How you guys doing Doing fabulous. It's just great Great to have you back on the show and you know, we have you on every few years and uh People you know the questions start to accumulate, but there's a lot of stuff going on out there But the thing but let me lead off with this. I mean you do everything I mean, I keep making the joke about you're also a floor wax, but we'll drop that one tonight Uh, I mean you're you're a lawyer. You're a voice actor You're you know an actor and a producer and you got a lot of films coming out right now Where do you find the time to do all of these things successfully? Aren't you a dad too? Yeah, I mean yep dad. Well now my kids are grown. So I guess we a little more time My youngest is in a senior in college. So oh man, congratulations. All right Yeah, almost I'm paying for that one. Yep. Yep. I still have to pay for the older ones though So how is it that you you do all these things? I mean, how did you end up this this and that? I mean one thing kind of led to the next and I mean everything revolves around my legal career. So that's kind of how everything evolved as well The acting in the and the voiceovers there are things I I make time for because I I love doing it um producing Came out of me being a lawyer because I learned the business side of things by representing film producer clients And then because I always did the on camera myself I knew the the creative more creative artistic side of it. So that's how I ended up Being a producer I got asked by you know, some of my producer clients If I would come on on the projects and be a producer then I just started my own company Back in 2015 Valor productions and that's where I started to do my own films my own projects Getting my own team assembled I'm actually shooting A sizzler the sizzle reel pilot night. We're starting next week here in canada get from so that's uh, You know things are they're going well and it's uh, I I love doing it. So I find the time so That's great. Now producing is all about using somebody else's money, right? It's about finding the money. Yeah, I mean, uh, you know There's different sources different ways of finding enough money and enough resources to get things done. So I like that part that seems like one of that would seem like one of the hardest parts to me That is one of the hardest parts, but it's also for me. It is that's a challenge. So, you know, we You know, there are many ways to get a film done Um many different ways to get the resources that you need um, so it's uh, every every project's different Every project has you know different ways that uh, that the financing is done that you know, the resources get together um, and you know, I uh because I know guys like you I could get talent together that want to Put their energies together and come up with a project. So that's that's the way that A lot of them are done. I'm like a motivator cheerleader in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's you know, we We'll get uh, we'll collaborate We'll get uh, you know Try to find a nice script that we want to shoot that everyone gets a nice part in and then You know, then everyone it's easier when you have a team Obviously than one person that do we're trying to do everything themselves at least for me I like to the collaboration part is the part that I really I really enjoy so Yeah, that's always the most fun part of any project and as this actors generally were alone Uh, I don't really get to work with anybody unless you're doing a remote session with somebody And uh, you know those and that that makes it all worth it because that's a lot more fun You know the the thing is is there are all sorts of issues facing freelance voice talent today I mean freelance anything uh as far as business goes and people You know, I'm sure you find these people don't read contracts or even have them in many cases What's the most important thing to remember? When you land a gig Well, I would say most artists don't read contracts not most No So that's the difference between like the production the business production side and the artistic side So that's when an artist when an artist gets a gig they need to Just take it treat it like a business like like that's that's the biggest tip I can give You know when once you get when you get a gig it you're now you're in the business side Now you're gonna be talking about how much pay you're gonna be talking about usage You're gonna be talking about all the things that are going to affect your business life And it could you know If you're giving things away it could affect your entire career So, you know the first thing to do is just read the contract because a lot of times you can you'll be able I mean almost all the time you'll be able to see if there's things in there that you don't understand or you do understand You know if there's things in there that that look like they're red flags. They probably are red flags You know, you may or may not need your agent or an attorney to look over the contract I mean if you don't understand what you're signing, then it would probably be a good idea to get a professional to look or even just a Even a professional talent that's been doing it for a while, you know to look over the contract um Just read it. I mean that that's that's the best advice That you gave Dan like read the contract like that that's That's that's what that's what I do I mean, you know and you and you start to look at them. I mean a lot of them are fairly but I guess we call boilerplate Uh, and and some of them, you know things are hidden in there and you've got to read them You know first like it always starts off This is the party that is doing this and this is the party that's doing that And you know defining who everybody is and then Here's the scope of the work and then the scope of compensation and all those things So if you understand what each section is about But then they throw it into into legalese and how do you decipher that kind of stuff if you're not quite Uh, you know good at that sort of thing Well, see what I what I propose what I usually propose the talent is they be the ones that send out their template or their memorandum because They're going to be getting something unless the unless the Person is in the voiceover Industry, they're going to get a contract that is not really going to fit What they're doing So they should be ready to send out their own contract their own memorandum whatever you want to call it You know, if you don't like to you call it a contract because you think it's going to scare away Your client which I've heard that before, you know, just call them Or an agreement right agreement is also you can use that word too. Yeah memo right memo or an agreement and just send it out That has all the basic laid out, you know, like you said the party's names Of course the the uh, the amount you're going to get paid um scope of the work How many rereads you're going to do if any? um, how how long the uh, the reading your pages are going to be you know, is it going to be a page? It's going to be two is going to be three How long it's going to be used? So is it going to where it's going to be used? Is it going to be on the internet for a year or is it going to go on national tv? You know for 13 weeks So like those are important things to have laid out It's a good idea to get ahead of it instead of waiting for the The client or whatever to supply you an agreement you have right you have your agreement Just with that everything is do you expect it to be and then you May even be stuff in there that they didn't think about or anticipate. Exactly. There there will be unless unless unless they're involved somehow In the voiceover business like they're this voiceover producer or an agent or a casting person, you know, you're gonna Their contracts are not they're not going to be exactly a good fit for For the voiceover business. That's why I always I tell clients just you know, send out your Have an agreement ready and send it out and nine times out of 10 clients are going to sign it No problem. You know, you they may say they need legal to look it over. Whatever. That's fine but You know, you're not going to get all those some of the contracts that I see that come from from clients when they're sending them To all their general contractors and they include, you know, voice talent as a general contractor You know, some of the things in there crazy I just had one of those the other day that I that came in it was like, I don't know I think it was like 16 pages or something like that It was it was insane and it had all these crazy provisions About, you know, having to have two million dollars of general liability and five million dollars workers comp and all this crazy stuff I was like, no, no, we need to cross that crock, you know Most of the stuff just in the job was already done too. Like it was There have ever signed the contract after the job was was She already ever sent the files in so it was even more crazy at that point Yeah, that's that's the interesting thing, you know, I've you know I've signed a lot of nDAs and a lot of contracts and really I look at nDAs Well, this looks more like a contractor than an nDA and the nDA is sort of built into the contract and stuff Right in non-disclosure agreement for those of you who have never heard of that before Uh, because you know companies are like, you know, we don't want you telling anybody what it is We're working on because right it's a surprise or it's some proprietary information but You know, I look at these contracts and you know, most of the time it's like Yeah, I don't have a problem with this unless they're not going to pay me You know or you know something along those lines But I I'm I'm always looking for well again You were talking about usage and where are they going to put this and is it different from what they advertised say when you were Uh, you know when you were auditioning for that sort of thing, right? What what sort of things would you look for? Well, that's that happens all the time where the the audition says it's got to be a An internet thing and then you get your contract and they want In perpetuity use for all media And it's like wait a minute. I auditioned for a one-year internet Why don't we put that into the why can't we put that into the contract? You know and if you get pushed back on that that should be a major red flag that that pops up So, you know that that's one easy example Of that, um, you know of the usage part of it Um, and it does happen a lot So if you can even incorporate the terms of the listing of the audition Into the contract so make it make it like schedule a an attachment, you know, that's that will Clarify things as well. You know that will help Define what the terms are and what the usage terms are Based on what you thought they were when you auditioned versus what they actually were when you got the piece of paper and you know, obviously I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and You know, I would say that that was a mistake You know when they use the form contract and they didn't They didn't define it as as per what the audition stated. So You know, I would approach that more of a You know a mistake if I was Going to be negotiating it versus just saying hey, hey, you're trying to you're trying to rip me off Kind of thing, you know what I mean? Oh, I always take the I always take the It's the I always give them the benefit of the doubt when I approach it because I don't you know A lot of times that it actually could be because Many times the you know, the people that are actually the ones that you're talking to in an organization You know or are not the ones that are making the decisions It's someone above them and then the people that are above above them send out their agreement And you know, the people that you're you're talking to Don't even really know what's what's in the agreement. So another reason why it's really important to read read it because You know, you got to make sure that Everyone's on the same page. So that's what that's what a contract is for Making sure everyone's on the same page Yeah, it's in and you're right because you talk to people. Well, what's this about? Oh, uh, yeah, I got to get back to you. So it's like all right, clearly. This is an underling Uh, who who hasn't read the contract themselves and perhaps they should understand this kind of stuff themselves as well Right. So you say the legal wrote it. That's that's the answer you get Yeah, legal legal. Okay, great Um, you you were just talking about getting pushback and stuff like that. I don't recall ever getting pushback on something where Uh, you know, I've said I I'm not sure if I can agree to this or something like that Well, I say no, no, well, we're not gonna do it. They're they're generally if they want you They're going they're going to not bend over backwards But they're gonna try at least meet you halfway on stuff and at least try to come to a Something that's going to work for everybody. Yes. I mean it depends on the issue, of course, you know, like Usage is usually one where that could That could cause a deal to fall apart. So but that's one we have to try to get a happy medium, you know because I mean if they're asking for in perpetuity usage Forever in all mediums, you know, you got to try to You got to try to pin the client down because you know, they're not going to use it forever And you know that you know, it's not going to be air on all medium So you got to try to pin them down as to what they're they're actually The possible uses are going to be they don't even have to actually know exactly what they're going to use it for But they have they have to have an idea of what they want to use it for So that's that could go into the contract But that would be that would be I've seen pushback on on that issue Of course pay, you know that There could be a pushback on that issue, you know trying to try to reach a price Um So that's just but you that one. I mean usually works itself out You're just going back and forth and negotiating and haggling and that that one's usually, you know, just takes a little time but You may not get exactly what you want, but You can always tell a good negotiation if the other side doesn't get exactly what they want and you're not getting exactly What what you want? That's that's how you know you struck a good deal. So Good good point, uh, you know and of course, you know getting paid like Making sure you look at you know, what are the terms, you know, we'll pay you within 90 days Or something along those lines. Uh, and that's also something you need to pay attention to Yes, yes corporations and larger companies, you know Some can take up to six months or even put in the contract that they're going to take up to 180 days Six months to to make a payment. So, you know, that's something you should know at least know up front And then most of these contracts you're giving up your Ownership rights in copyright. So right what I what I try to do To limit that is I say I'll put a limit in that that you're you're not giving up the copyright until you get paid So I'll write that in To almost every contract that I see, you know, because that's a way to protect yourself where you're not going to you'll retain rights as owner to the files until Payment comes in. So that's a good way to protect yourself to get paid as well so If you're just joining us where have you been? Uh, we're talking with rob siglum paglia who is A voice actor but even more importantly. He is an attorney dealing with all the issues that we talk about with Voice over from a legal aspect and he's tops in the business at it And that's why we have him on our show if you've got a question for him Again, throw it in the facebook chat room or on the youtube chat room Uh in the comment section there and we will get that that question here I know jeff holman is out there somewhere probably in his den or somewhere Writing all this stuff down and getting it to us. So we'll be able to talk to rob about this in the next session Uh in about well after our first break um Let's talk a little bit that we're just talking about you know usage and stuff like that Big issue that is coming up right now and this is really one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this week is dealing with AI voices And taking people's voices and I know you're involved in a couple of cases Where talent have felt they've been taken advantage of or the the client was not honest and is I wouldn't say stealing their voice, but is You surping their voice or how would you describe that and and what are what are some of the cases you're working? Yeah, I mean it's it's using it without without the authority that they had in the original agreement Like you were just talking about so that that's basically what they're doing so You know so that the typical case is you know a few years ago Talent would be approached to you know read a thousand lines of text You know for some kind of translation or some kind of kind of educational piece um and You know getting paid a couple thousand two to four thousand dollars and then all of a sudden, you know, it shows up Somewhere else You know like two and a big a big text to speech usage, you know like one of the cases is tick tock You know using Bev standing's voice um That's exactly what happened to her. She had done a job I don't know about four or five years ago It was you know supposed to be used for translation and it ended up Being the text to speech voice for for tick tock. So these voices these cases are more much more common now um, I've I've seen I've worked on three personally so You know it's The good thing about Bev is she didn't really have a contract. There was no contract saying what the usage were but now The the all these firms that are recording text to speech to speech voices are getting They're getting contracts signed and they're taking all rights So a case like Bev's If she had signed one of these contracts I see today would not exist because She would have signed all her rights away So it's something and there are there's different kind of contracts that I've seen for the artificial intelligence You know some I like and some I don't like So I mean, I'll be glad to share the differences with you Please tell us. Yeah So the ones I don't like are the ones that just say, you know, here's record 2000 lines of copy And you are giving us complete ownership rights to this To use however we want in perpetuity and we could sell it or transfer it to third parties That's the basis of the agreement. Of course there's other stuff in there But that's that's the meat of the agreement. Those are the bad ones And then they you know pay it a thousand two thousand three thousand You know, I haven't seen more one greater than five five thousand dollars So You're not getting a lot of money For the usage that that and the ownership that you're giving up The good ones that I've seen are the ones where They're cloning your voice they're You're taking you're giving a license to the company to use the voice And if they Sell or transfer to a third party you're able to enter into an agreement with that third party And so basically it's just and you get paid a percentage you get paid a percentage out of whatever Revenues generated by your clone voice. So, you know, that's basically just the A clone to you that's making kind of residual income, which those are I like those contracts And I've seen a couple of companies out there. They're doing those types of contracts It's getting to the point where there's Starts they're starting because some like some buzzwords or jargon for these types of contracts So you can say I'm looking for a Synthetic voice. That's what they're called Um, I call them clone voices, but you know synthetic or text-to-speech Those you know, it's that's what they say or art even see some say artificial intelligence. So those are the buzzwords And you're looking for a non in perpetuity contract you'd be looking for yeah, either um, uh Either something where you're giving up the ownership ship But it's limited in time for usage so that they can use for a year or two years Or it limits the scope that they can only use it for internet Something like that Or it's the ideal is license you're like you're you're gonna keep ownership of your voice your clone voice And they're gonna take a uh revocable license I mean even if it's an irrevocable license As long as they as long as they have something in there that says that if they sell that voice or it's transferred somewhere else that you have a right to You know basically Do a contract with those that you're not licensing for that purpose you're licensing it for Who's ever you're doing the job for So because I mean what they do with the text-to-speech Companies the ones especially the ones that just buy you outright or they go and sell them You know to like tick tock or wherever you know speech or whatever whatever platform they're putting it on and then they uh They they'll get a lot of money for the files, you know 25 35 thousand dollars or they just put you on a roster So you're you're recording a thousand or two thousand or ten thousand lines or whatever and then you're on a roster of AI voices, right? They're just you know, not that you're not getting paid You're not getting paid for when then people go up. In fact one of the cases I had that Just settled a couple weeks ago The person's client had gone to the Done exactly that gone to the database and Instead of hiring the club that artist To do an update to the job They use the the AI voice that was online So they caught her out with her own voice But her voice got was up on the platform without her like it said in her contract that that could not have like it's expressly said in the contract She she was had the fourth thought to put that in her contract that you can't use my voice For they hope they won't get caught right was this like something where it's not being released to the public some some some some of them I think uh Like the the way that they approach the talent where they say that uh, you know We're doing this for an educational thing or for a translation I think they know ahead of time that they're not going to do that Others this particular case I was talking about happened to be I mean at least they told me and they you know resolved the case based on the fact that it was an accident where they they had given money to the producer And a release to the producer to give to the to the talent to sign and give them compensation for that but the The third party kind of uh Didn't do what they were supposed to do we'll put it that way Yeah, I mean and how are you gonna find out about this stuff? I mean unless you hear your voice on national tv or a national radio spot Unless somebody else is like hey, did you do this spot for so-and-so and you like when let me look Oh, yeah, I heard of this app. He called tick tock That's the way that they find out. Yeah, someone won't go but everyone that that I represent at least That's how they found out by other people You know their family or friends hearing hearing their voice somewhere and tipping them off and that's the way that yeah, that that's uh That is true. It's how do you how do you find this? How do you how do you know? How do you know your voice if you get a really huge harry looking contract like an electronic form Do they often get delivered as pdf's nowadays not a you know physical mail There a lot of them are just docusign, you know some kind of electronic Can you do a control f? And type in words like perpetuity Unlimited And look for red flags that way. Yeah, you absolutely you absolutely can yeah, that's a it's a good point I mean, that's hard to change those contracts. Right. That's the challenge So we have to at least you get a little tip off Right. I have to actually print them and scratch You know like that's how I have to change you can't change them a lot of times You can't change the pdf online. So it makes it a little harder for me Right to mark them up. You know if it's in the word format I can mark mark just mark it up And well if you're on a mac you could be using preview and pull up the markup toolbox and you can immediately type over I mean, yes, you can do it, but it's still it's It's still a little it's more complicated. You know, you know what I mean? It's to use the markup tool and typing it's still a little Yeah, it's not any it's you have to be a little savvy to to do that. Yeah, right Once again, we're talking with Rob Siglum-Pagley here on voiceover body shop If you've got a question about some legal issue dealing with freelance voiceover activity Write it in the chat room right now and we'll get to him in just a couple of minutes Yeah, I'm gonna combine these last two questions because it's like, you know When do you know it's time to get an attorney? And should you get an attorney? on retainer See how I neatly combined those two questions. Those are definitely So You need you need to get an attorney when if you read a contract That you don't understand If you don't understand the legalese hire an attorney to go over it um I mean, obviously if someone contacts you Saying, you know cease and desist from putting stuff up on social media You know, that would be that'd be a great time to call to call an attorney. You know, obviously if it's something legal related, you know Someone's threatening to sue you or something like that That's the time to talk to an attorney You know, but every day business It's really what you're gonna get a contract in and you don't uh, you don't understand the the terms So, you know have a have an attorney Go over the terms with you explain them to you Tell you what to take out. What you know what not to take out what to change um, and then If you're if you are using an attorney to draft contracts for you Or if you don't want to have to bother doing that yourself Or and every contract comes in you want an attorney to review Then you can actually pay a retainer. So some kind of fixed a monthly amount to an attorney To do all all of that for you on a monthly basis So, you know, it would be like you pick a number of hours and you'd set up an hourly fee and and that would be the That would be the retainer amount that you pay You know, most of the time it's just a job by job thing The way that I work, you know, because it's a contract comes in I look at it I give a quote and we do it it's because There's usually I mean there's usually not a steady amount of of work to retain an attorney At a fixed monthly amount, but I mean that's the time that you would like if you're spending a lot of money and on attorneys every month and There's a fixed number of hours that you're using an attorney It would make sense to retain attorney be an attorney Because you know, you'll save money that way right and that's for somebody who is constantly working and constantly, you know booking, you know, large jobs Where there's contracts with each one of them. I mean, I I don't see a whole lot of contracts A lot of it is like here's what we're going to do and generally they'll just send you an nda as as we were saying Which is essentially a contract too, isn't it? Yeah, an nda is a non-disclosure agreement Not does not disclosure contract, but it could be you could call it ndc But it basically just says that you know, you're not you're going to keep everything that you've been Given or told confidential and you're not going to put it up on social media And most jobs now these days and even auditions will make you sign Some kind of competency on your nda so that you don't go put up those things on social media. That that's the real reason they're having you do it these days because I don't know voice talent like to put things up or even actors like to put things up on Every time they get an audition they put it up on social media And you know, that's that's what they're trying to to kind of um fight back on a little bit your enthusiasm Yes, everybody. I think they're just trying to intimidate the rest of us It's fine to put stuff on social media. Just, you know, don't do it if you sign an nda Right It's fine to put pictures of your dog on there Anyway, uh, we're talking with rob sigl and pagley again If you got a question throw it in one of the chat rooms And uh, we're gonna get to those questions right after these important messages. So don't go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our buddy Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you stick around? You don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable. Okay. Maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please New Mexico necessita un cambio la representante michelle lujan grisham ha luchado por nuestro estado en la cámara de representantes Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos.com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom They're finally here Voice over essentials has finally received their shipment of the portabouth pro 6.0 Like every business they had long shipping delays to contend with But those portabouth pros are in their warehouse now and shipping out rapidly They made as usual a number of improvements to the new booth Including more reliance on renewable infrastructure material like bamboo They redesigned the cross bracing velcro front tabs for an even more rigid assembled booth and introduced their new clip script light Now there are two led flexible lights with two brightness levels for more or less light on your vo copy And for the first time you can power the script clip with batteries or usb Of course, they continue their exclusive use of world-renowned orlex studio foam Used by major recording studios everywhere the harland hogan portabouth pro 6.0 powered by orlex If you've been waiting get over to voiceover essentials.com and get your portabouth pro 6.0 now Getting into vo is quite an accomplishment and accomplishing anything in the world of performance can be really tough Getting great information is tough getting the right advice and mentoring is tough Simply getting ahead is tough and the best way to get ahead is to simply get started Let's make it simple to get started in voiceover. The best way is with vo heroes free online course Getting started in voiceover You'll learn everything you need to know to create a successful satisfying and profitable voiceover career The link is really simple here. It is vo heroes.com forward slash Start again. That's vo heroes.com forward slash start get ahead in voiceover simply by Getting started go to vo heroes.com forward slash start Yeah, hi, this is carlos. I was rocking the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop And we're back. I love hearing those spots that were recorded in the studios over the years because it just Kind of takes you back and you can kind of hear the Environment of the studio. It's I don't know. There's something nostalgic about it. Not just hearing the voice. It's kind of cool Well, it's great that we have all those people with us every now and again and it's like, you know, you cut up your liners for us It's great. Once again, we're talking with rob sigl and paglia of voiceover attorney If you got a question again, throw it in the chat room. We got a bunch of great questions here One last thing I before we we get to some of those You've got a book out voiceover legal. Tell us a little bit about that and where they can get it Sure. Yeah, it's talks about all the things that we were talking about contracts. It talks about Whether to set up your when and whether to set up your your llc or your corporation Um talks about all the uh talks about agencies talks about unions talks about all the things that that you would Need to know as a voiceover artist or even an actor And you can get it on amazon or you can get it at voiceover legal dot com All right That's a great book. I you know, I've got a copy of it every now and again. It's like, it was rob say Okay, you know, so it it makes it it's important that you know these things I think I think a second edition will have to be Absolutely along soon with all these new cases, huh? I've been talking about that for a while. I gotta Talk it up. See there you go. Where do I find the time? There you go. I gotta find some times Good point. All right. Why don't you get that first question from hulu. Yo Perez, george Yeah, hulu says as we all know many companies are turning to ai to attempt to satisfy voiceover needs using synthesized voices They're also trying to maliciously imitate voices of bona fide talent without their knowledge as discussed in the may 11th 2021 article in v obs sponsor voiceover extra dot com Regarding bev standing's lawsuit against tiktok for using her voice in an unauthorized manner I'm I'm aspiring to be a voiceover talent and in working. I've been working in it For many years. So this is a valid concern What can vio talent both current and aspiring do to legally protect themselves when drawing up contracts with companies and or agents to minimize If not completely eliminate Such malfeasance from occurring to them What type of language should be added to contracts? So it would be forbid those clients from using voices of talent without their knowledge Using the voices of the talent without their knowledge in order to skim payments And royalties now we talked about this a good deal But I don't know if you can put a cherry on top of that discussion. Sure. Yeah I mean, like I said before you have the bad contracts and the good ones. Yeah For that's the legal term the official legal term bad versus See there's legalese right there for you guys The ones that are that are negative the bad ones um I have it's really hard to get them to change get those companies to change their contracts because that's their business model is to put as to get as many not as many but they're going to pick a number of Um synthesized voices and they're going to put it up on a roster on their website and let people go on there and just put Their scripts up and and read the you know, whatever they want. So Those contracts say that they're going to you're selling them your files and your copyright forever In perpetuity and then they they can use it for whatever they want They can sell it to whoever they want transfer it to whatever they want. So And the only thing you can do in those contracts is make sure that you're getting enough money So you got you got to negotiate the pay, you know, they're paying a couple of thousand You know, you have to decide like if you're never going to see another dime from this job Are they giving you enough money? Right that it was worth your time. Do you really want to give that up? Yeah, yeah, because and you know To me, that's not worth it. You know a couple thousand dollars Yeah, the the the ones that are positive the good contracts They they say that they're not going to take ownership of your files They're going to let you own your your own cloned synthesized voice so you're licensing the use of your voice And it also gives you the right if a third party were to use those Use that voice by sale and transfer otherwise You can you have the opportunity to make a contract with that third party for compensation And also there's a component of um paying residuals paying some kind of You know Percentage for every every time that they the voice is sold You know for so someone goes up and uses your your your voice for their copy and you know, the company gets paid Whatever hundred dollars, you know, you're going to get some kind of percentage Out of that and the percentage is you know, that's kind of open, you know, I've seen like eight percent I've seen 20 percent. There's all they're all over the kind of all over the map. It's really what you negotiate Those I think are very positive because you know, that's a That's an alternative stream of income It's it's residual income that you know, so you're going to do the work up front You're going to do you know our 10,000 lines whatever of copy or many hours It takes you to do that, but that's going to pay that's going to pay the dividends in the future the residuals in the future So those are the those are the two types those are the two camps that I've seen for text-to-speech Contracts out there and obviously, you know The ones that are favorable to the talent are the ones where you're getting a piece of the action In in my opinion, he also said he also asked about, you know, what type of language Would you recommend that he? Probably read your book. Would he pick up some good tips in terms of what to what do you think? Like the language the language That's what i'm saying like the ones that Where their business model is to create a bank of synthetic voices They're not going to change and they're not going to change our contract. That's been my experience They're not going to let you cross out in perp and they're not going to cross out the ownership They're going to want ownership and they're going to want in perpetuity because that's their business model That's what that's so they're they're they're very i'm so they're going to just move on the next talent, right? Yes, I've had zero Changed to date zero. Yeah, so all the talent that came to me. I tried to negotiate zero I've had zero I'm saying can I take this car for free because I would I was hoping this car to be free today No, we sell cars. Okay. It's not it's not free. That's the thing They they pay like I said two to four grand or two to five grand And they've got a line out the door of the people that want that car You know what I'm saying? So that's that's the problem like right? That's why we need to do shows like this to tell it like stop doing those All right, and then the other thing about here's the other thing that you need to know that's really important about ai garbage in garbage out So from what I understand From the from speaking to people that actually create the voices So there's there was On the news they were talking about like they would pay People like you know a $50 starbucks card to go in and say a whole bunch of lines in the studio Right, and that's where they were getting some of the text speech Of data voices From what I understand those voices are the ones that sound Much more like the computer voices and don't have the proper tone intonation and all that So that's why they pay voice talent You know two to five thousand dollars, which they think is good to Do a professional job because those are the ones that make the ai voices sound when you say they think that's good The problem is there's too many voice talent. I think that's a good deal Correct because they see that money and they go yeah Yeah, no that I mean on On its face two to five thousand dollars looks like a lot of money But when you think about what if you step back and see what it's being used for I call a career suicide That's what I say it's career suicide. That's what you're doing You're you're taking five thousand dollars Even if it's five thousand dollars and you're giving your voice to this data bank and and I mean maybe now Because talent will say well like it's a computer voice and you can tell that it's a computer voice So, you know the people are still using me if they want me to that might be true now Five or ten years from now as the technology gets perfected. They don't need to have you rerecord stuff They can just use the stuff that you've already done And adapt it to the the new technology So it will make the voice sound much more realistic So and and the technology even exists now Where you don't even have to they can just take they can take this show The vlbs show take your voice dan your voice george and create a voice a synthetic voice Out of all those shows. It's you don't even have to record So I've had talent that's 11 years audio content. Yeah, they could scrub thousands of hours of stuff I had I had one talent that's it was Said the the company said it was okay for them to send an audiobook a six hour audiobook over and they could do The voice out of that so So and that's there now the technology is you don't even have to go into the studio to record They could just use Stuff that you you've already done. There was that thing about roger ebert. I think it was on uh ted talk Where he said he had already lost his ability to speak. Yeah, his job was gone like val killer So yeah, oh, yeah, oh, I didn't know that so yeah, so they're able to grab that Years and years of audio and synthesize a voice. It's expensive But it's getting cheaper to do of course and right new technology, right? Yeah, but they they don't have to have you record new stuff They can grab it from what's already been recorded right and it's it's like it's it's like any technology in its infancy It's in its infancy. It's just starting. So You know any technology is gonna it gets better over time. That's that's the that's the nature of technology so that's what a voice talent has to be Aware of and keep in mind that this is just the beginning of this and you know 10 years from now Those files are recorded 10 years ago those 10,000 lines. They can live, you know way past your lifetime I mean which is kind of cool in a way it is kind of cool in a way when you think about it You know your voice lives on but you know What voice talent need to be concerned with because it's their business is how that you make a Compensated for that so yeah in your family in your family Right. Yeah question from amanda brant related to this regarding ai Do you have legal action if these companies and generally they seem to be are overseas and how do you deal with that? um That's a very good question because They if they're overseas then you'd have to get someone overseas that can pursue them Or if they're doing business somewhere here in the united states, which a lot of time These companies are they're bigger companies. They're doing business here Then you can come then you can bring action here in the united states so Like tiktok has had has that office a huge office that they opened in new york city So that's why we were able to follow the case In the southern district of new york federal court the top four floors are the attorneys probably Just like water brothers where are they you know the most offices except by the beside the producers are the attorneys Right. Good boy. You want to get the question from chris thorn there george? Sure. Um chris says my question is in regards to using commercial music and podcasting Specifically during intro outro and as bumpers. What do I need to know? And how cost prohibitive prohibitive is it to obtain rights to use music and shoe? Who do I Contact to ask permissions So there's all kind of as you know george and dan there's all kind of royalty free Databases out there or you're hearing in commercials small around royalties. I recognize some of that royalty free music Yes, yeah, I mean obviously you have to make sure that's use it's usable for commercials. So That's called royalty free music folks But there are databases where you can get get them where it's legal I mean if you're good if you're talking about Getting a popular song some kind of well-known song that's under a bmi or ask cap or you know It's gonna be a lot of money. You're in the tens of thousands in order to To get the license I mean, maybe if it's a little teeny piece, you know 5 or 10 seconds You may be able to get away with it for thousands, but you know, generally it's gonna be It's gotta be up there. They're gonna they're gonna want a lot of money to license I guess if you have a really low circulation podcast You know, if you're my like most podcasts exactly well, I mean you can get you can get the covers So, you know like you can get you just write to harry fox agency And you can you pay based on on the amount of downloads And then you could cover the song so you could play it on your own piano. You know, whatever you want to do That's cheaper, but if you're gonna get the actual song Because you know the publishing house Is the one that owns the rights and they're the ones that are getting the add the you know The royalties under ask happen bmi and that's why it costs so much money to license it. So, you know, it's funny I've noticed lately The netflix and other programming i'm watching online is using way more like big-time commercially released You know pop music On their shows, you know, they know they're definitely is that well my theory is that they own The content because it's universal Whole Warner Brothers or so exactly that's what I was saying That's why the big studios partner up with record companies Because then they can they have that whole library that they can use for their for their shows and movies So exactly netflix obviously like partnered up with somebody. Yeah, so Alrighty a question from larry g um Does rob's book cover everything that we might encounter or should we need an attorney at some point? second question If you're a complete novice What crucial steps for example one two three would you recommend? Just starting out if you were talking to your younger self That's a deep one That's a good one. Yeah First one the first one is my book does cover everything you're going to encounter So it will give you a good background on pretty much anything that you're going to see come along in the voiceover business Except for maybe ai is going to be a new chapter because that's new but You know, I I wrote the book Because I used to get a whole bunch of questions these same kind of questions from voiceover artists and I wrote them down And then I put it into a book. That's how the book came about. So it's all the all the basic questions that that that come up That's what the book covers So, I mean you still may need to hire an attorney for more complicated Contracts to review contracts Um, you know, if there's some things that you don't understand Then you'll you need to hire an attorney But the resources it will point you in the right direction the book that that's the that's the point of it It's to give you the basic knowledge so that you know if you can handle yourself or you need to go to a pro Um, that's where you're going to get your one two three steps, by the way They're like written out there That's true. Yeah, the book kind of lays it out because it did you know, it talks about how I started to Talks about how I started in the business You know and so if I if it was mind yourself or it's just like me talking to a client that calls me That's starting out in the business like because I get I'm sure you guys get those calls too I get those calls, you know about how you start out. What should I do legally? So I always ask them first of all Do you have anything that you care about not losing? Do you have a job? Do you have a house? Do you have money in the bank? Do you have anything? So if you do then you should start an llc because llc's are so easy to start like I have one for every one of my films You know every that's it's kind of that's the business practice and film is when you when you Do a film you start an llc for that film because that film has its own life It's you know, it's got its own accounting. It's got his own investors. It's got its own producers So that llc stays separate from everything else in my life that film So same thing when you're starting a voice over business You want that business to stay separate from everything else in your life? And that's what the llc does it shields all those assets that you want to keep So, you know, if you're just starting out at a college Then then you may want to go sold prior. That's fine for a little while And you know until you start making some money and then start the llc But even then it you know starting the llc is not going to hurt anything. So it it That's the smart move is to set up the llc right out of the gate And then legally You're going to have the contract in the book So have that ready to go When you get the first When you do your audition you get your first offer make sure your contract's ready to go out because that's the next hurdle that I always get The next call. Oh, I just got a gig. I got my contract and I don't know what to do So, you know, that that's the next one and then, you know, you should really learn about You know learn about go look at the resources about rates, you know, because that's that's the other That's the other big thing that um talent do talent have uh that they're intimidated about you know, how much do I charge So there's plenty of resources out there, um where you can check out What the going rate is for different types of jobs So those are the things that I would concentrate on when you're first starting I mean, there's many things that Many things that you can get bogged down on but I wouldn't get bogged down the details because that's that's just going to make things Make things much harder than they have to be so those are those are the big things We got one more question here from the one and only j.s. Gilbert. So you can Expect what's going to come out of this? Uh, I have a question for rob j.s. How you doing? Yes, can we be expecting you in a future sharknado sequel? There aren't any so Well, rob it is always a pleasure having you on and uh, you know, I think we we need to make this an annual thing We used to and you know since yeah, kovat came around and suddenly it was like Okay, we yeah, we just sort of lost track of that but we appreciate you coming on how once again How can they get a hold of voice over legal? Uh voice over legal calm or amazon Excellent all righty. Thanks for being with us rob. It's always a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for having me All right, and we will see you soon Alrighty, we got a couple of messages here and then george and I are gonna wrap it up and re-rack it for tech talk So stay right where you are. We'll be right back You are watching v obs dot tv I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Hey, it's the time of the show where we talk about our lovely sponsors source elements the creators of source connect and tons of other really cool tools for Collaborating and working remotely with your studios and other producers and directors and clients and everybody around the globe And source connect is available That it's an application that runs on windows or mac It is certainly a primarily a mac focused app Windows support is lagging But it is coming along. So if you're stuck on windows, you can still run source connect 3.8 But 3.91 standard on mac is really the application you want to get you can get it as a subscription Or you can just pay for it at once if you don't like subscriptions now I recommend the subscription because You're getting support along with that subscription And you'll need when you need support. I'm not saying you will need it But when you do you want it to be available to you right away because those sessions are very time sensitive. So Really, I recommend the subscription But if you're just not even sure about any of that just get a 15 day free trial I'll just go over to source dash elements calm Just get your account set up and get it tested. That's what you need to do Anyway, thanks source elements. We really appreciate your support of v obs. We'll be right back to wrap it up Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Oh, it's always great having rob on the show always something interesting stuff. We don't normally think about But constantly should especially these days with some of the things that have been going on Uh next week on this very show or you can stay and watch it live if you're here Uh, we've got uh tech talk number 64 And we got lots of cool stuff to talk about with that. So make sure you tune in next week for that Uh, who are our donors of the week? We've got donors. We've got lots and lots of donors. Thank god donors Jill goldman with a big explanation point somebody new Uh rob rider patty gibbons antland productions michelle blinker christopher epperson sondra man willer philips appear tray moseley thomas pinto Greg thomas shana painton baird marthe con don griffith steven chandler robert ledham michael cairns And graham spicer. Thanks guys. We really appreciate it. Hey, you can join our mailing list too If you're watching tonight because you saw That I put it in the mailing list. Hey, we got rob siglum peggley on this week You get those kind of notices so you don't miss a thing and that's really important Also need to thank our amazing sponsors who have been with us below these many years because they know We're talking to the people that want what they have Uh, for instance harland hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements boheroes.com voice actor websites.com and Jmc demos. All righty. Thanks to jeff holman for being in the chat room tonight and getting those questions back to us And our amazing technical directors sumer lino Who gets in here every week or every other week and coming from all the other jobs she has And getting all the buttons pushed here and making sure that we look and sound fabulous Yeah, thank you. She's a modern woman and the and the woman in the gig economy That's right and we're glad to have her and of course lee pennie for being lee pennie Well, that's going to do it for us uh this week for voiceover body shop Thanks for tuning in and again join us on facebook and get in our mailing list And we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio next with tech talk Which we're going to re-rack for so don't go away. Anyway, that's going to do it for us for now I'm dan lennard. I'm george winham and this is voiceover body shop or vo b Great week everybody. Bye