Non-compete Agreement Help!!

[vidguy101]

Hello Gentleman,
Hope your holidays are going GREAT!
I am a LONG TIME LURKER here... I am not in the
adult business, but have often thought about entering...

I have a Business question for some of you seasoned pros...
although it is NOT ADULT, there are at least some similiarities
that bring me here for advice...

I realize that we are all busy, so, any feedback left at all
is GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Ok, here goes... I have trained martial arts for several years. Part of this training included several dozen trips to in BRAZIL, where the martial arts are HUGE.... And, I have become very good friends with some of the best MMA and jiu-jitsu fighters in the world...

One of my very good friends just approached me looking for
help since i have a very strong business/internet/computer/video/ background... My good
friend very recently completed a large multi DVD set showcasing his skills... He was paid several thousand
dollars, slightly under $20,000....

At the time this seemed like a good payout, however,
these sets retail for about $100 and have a very niche
market. even with all the pirateing the publisher stands
to make several hundred thousand dollars.... which is fine,
this guy is a business man, more power to him. what sucks
about the deal is that my friend signed a 10 page non-compete which states that he cant be in another
instructional video or dvd for the next 2 years....

My friend holds multiple black belts, has trained for 15 years, and just got accepted here as a US citizen... he
does not want to stay with this producer, he want to
form his own company and shoot his own videos and
sell them online on at his gym.. he wants to partner
with me, however, I am concerned about the non-compete...

I am getting close to paying for legal advice, but i wanted to get some feedback from some of you smart online
people that produce content/dvds and work with performes
all the time..

my friend, the martial artist, recieves no future commisions
or royalites, was payed a one time lump sum of money,
and now he is locked in for 2 years??? I could see this being legit for an actor getting TONS of cash, but less than 20K??? we found out that this producer has a TERRIBLE reputation in the business and is known for being very pushy..

the video producer lives in new york, and that is where
the dvds were filmed and the non-compete was signed..

my friend is moving to california with me and we are going
to be running an academy and hopefully shooting dvds
together....

1) will this non-compete hold up in court???

2) could i get sued in court if we form an LLC?

3) what if we went TOTALLY out of the country
and setup the business, the servers, the merchant
account, and the address all on forign soil and just
shipped the DVDs here... would we be pretty hard
to touch?? mind you, these are martial arts dvds,
not adult. the only reason to go overseas is to make
hard for this guy to harass us....

gentleman, THANKS SO MUCH AND HAVE
an AWESOME NEW YEARS!!!

[directfiesta]

buy yourselves out of the contract ... or live by the contract for the remaining of the 2 years ... gives you time to setup, shoot, edit ...

Release after the 2 years.

but this is an opinion, not a legal advice.

[lacuna]

The non-compete clause is invalid as too broad. To be enforceable, they generally must be limited to a geographic region. For instance, if your friend sold his dojo/studio in New York, a non-compete clause forbidding him from opening a new dojo in New York for two years would probably be valid.

[Fluid]

it's a non-compete agreement, he signed it. Regardless of what he was paid, and who thinks the payment was fair or not, it's a contract and if you start doing instructional videos or even forming a company to produce them (with someone else doing the instructions) he's likely to find himself in court

[PowerCum]

Ask a lawyer. When it's something that is worth more than $1000 then better ask a professional than sorry.

[vidguy101]

non-competes

Here is my question. although it is a non-compete, how
could somtehing like this get enforced??? if a porn star
signed a non compete, she in essence couldnt work for
a period of 2 years then???

I realize that my friend was naive for signing..

you guys run into similiar situations in the adult biz??

[directfiesta]

Vivid Girls

The company is best known for its "Vivid Girls", a collection of porn starlets. These women made their names in other companies' productions, then moved to Vivid once they had become famous. The Vivid Girls are retained on exclusive contracts much like those of bygone days of the Hollywood studio system. They reportedly command a higher salary than do free-agent performers and produce only a handful of films per year (in 2004, Jenna Jameson told an interviewer "you probably have more shags than I do - I only film a couple of scenes three or four times a year").

[vidguy101]

enforceability...

the thing is, the vivid girls get contracts the gurantee
them more movies, health insurance, etc.

this poor guy from brazil got locked into a contract,
collected just shy of 20,000 USD, and now he CAN
NOT be in any other dvd for 2 years??

this is his primary profession, martial arts...

what if a vivid girl left? could vivid sue? I mean,
in the court room arent they going to protect a
vivid girls "right to work". and, in the case of
vivid girls, shoot sex on film.....

[pornlaw]

Please get a lawyer. You are talking about a contract in general terms without posting the actual contract. A lawyer will need to read and analyze the contract to really be able to give advice specific to the terms.

Spend a G and get at least an informal opinion. Its well worth the money spent.