The Artful Jurist

The Bravo cable network has announced it's looking for people who fit the description of an "emerging or mid-career artist with a unique, powerful voice that demands a bigger stage" (which I, in my somewhat jaded view, read as "young, physically attractive, and with an overblown ego that makes you prone to being a jerk around other people"). The purpose of the search is to cast a new so-called reality show that will pit visual artists against each other in a battle over who can best perform a series of art-related assignments. (Just between you and me, I'm laying odds that at least one of the assignments will involve nudity. Anybody got a different opinion?)

If you go to the Bravo web site, you can read all about it, and you can download the application form, which, in addition to asking highly relevant questions such as "Have you a girlfriend?" or "a boyfriend?"—is this a sneaky way for the producers to determine who's gay?—the form also has eight pages of legal release language. A cursory glance at the language indicates that it's your basic release about the use of "likenesses" and such. What wasn't completely clear (and I admit I haven't studied it in detail) is whether any art created as part of the show would be the property of the artist or the producers. Television, after all, is the sort of thing that very often makes all contributions a work made for hire, which means the employer owns it, including any copyright.

Just something for an emerging or mid-career artist with a unique, powerful voice that demands a bigger stage to keep in mind if chosen to be on the show.