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The guys end the week by talking about the patently unfair contracts that contestants for American Idol must sign. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to our business law podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to it. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Well, thank you for joining us once again on this Friday episode where we’re covering your favorite show pretty much of all time or is it just top five? MATT: Of mine? Bottom five, maybe. I don’t know. NASIR: So, American Idol is coming back this season, right? It seems to be coming up soon, if it hasn’t started already. MATT: I can’t say I even know if it’s still around or who the people are. All the original people are off of it now, aren’t they? I think that happened a long time ago. NASIR: There is Ryan Seacrest and I think that’s all I know. I think that’s the only person I know that’s still there. MATT: The original one was Simon something. NASIR: Cowell. MATT: Simon Cowell and… NASIR: Paula Abdul and… MATT: Paula Abdul. NASIR: And the dog guy. MATT: Randy. NASIR: Randy. MATT: And Seacrest. Is Seacrest still there? NASIR: I’m pretty sure, yeah. MATT: Probably. Sure, he is. NASIR: Those were the classic days of American Idol. MATT: I might have watched part of the first one with Kelly Clarkson. But I don’t know if I watched any other ones. NASIR: That’s strange. I thought, since it was your favorite show, you’d watch it more. But I guess you just kind of like it from a distance. MATT: And the reason I don’t like it is because they require their contestants to sign these oppressive contracts that just take advantage of the people that go on and, you know, I’m a little bit conflicted on this just because you’re never going to get this sort of publicity anywhere else because I’m sure it’s still watched by millions and millions of people. NASIR: Sure. MATT: It’s kind of like Shark Tank in that most people wouldn’t find out about your business unless you went on the show. But one winner with the unfortunate name of Phillip Phillips… NASIR: When I was Googling it to do more research, I was trying to figure out if that was just, like, a mistake. No, it’s basically the same first and last name with an S difference, right? MATT: Yeah. So, he was doomed from day one by his parents that named him that for some reason. I guess he was a winner a few years ago in 2012 and he’s trying to get out of his contract that was signed saying that, you know, it’s just really patently unfair and we actually have some – what we believe to be some – excerpts from the agreement. But, you know, a couple of things he’s saying, he got uncompensated for a show, he did a performance for an insurance company that was an endorsement deal and he was only paid 20 percent commission when he was supposed to be paid 40 percent. I mean, those aren’t as bad things as if you actually read the agreement itself and, like I said, I think we have something that seems pretty legit in terms of what’s in the actual agreement. You pretty much sign your whole career away to American Idol or 19 Group. NASIR: Yeah, 19 Entertainment I think is the proper name and it looks like, I mean, I don’t see this in this contract but I’m seeing other people say that the initial contract extends for three years although 19 Entertainment continues to collect a percentage of some of the contestants’ earnings for ten years. So, even though the contract may only be for three years which, okay, I don’t think that’s totally abnormal for these kind of agreements, but the problem is that, basically, they sign an agreement as a contestant saying, “Okay. If you reach this top ten, you’re basically required to sign another management agreement with 19 Entertainment and with these certain terms.” And so, when they’re first signing that, you know, they’re practically nobodies so, of course, they don’t really have much negotiation power. But then,