I’ve written more than a few articles over the years about what happens when a performer isn’t represented by a legit agent.
It’s easy for a shady producer to abuse or take advantage of a performer when they have nobody to fight for them. Did you hear what happened to Lyra Law on the Nubile’s set recently?
The crazy part is girls who are actually with an agent, still have producers trying to go behind the agents back to book the girl directly.
Chris Strokes is a perfect example of this. He’s always hitting girls up on twitter for shoots. When they tell him they have an agent, he either insists they book directly or insults the agent or the girl.
I’m always quick to remind girls it was Chris Strokes that was involved in the Legalporno series of shoots where the performers were not paid.
But he’s not the only one who has done this and he won’t be the last. Hell even Penthouse themselves has done it. You’ll note that Naomi Woods is this month’s Penthouse Pet of the Month. They booked her behind the agent’s back.
Naomi Woods is under contract with LA Direct Models. She’s listed on their website. Penthouse has a long history of working with the company so it’s not like they can say they didn’t know she was on their website.
One would assume that LATATA, the trade organization of licensed agents, would stand up against such abuses but that isn’t the case. Then again, considering the fact that from August of 2016 to January of 2017 they had a member that wasn’t even licensed, what can you really expect?
Mark Spiegler is the self proclaimed president of LATATA so what exactly has he or LATATA done about producers trying to book talent behind an agents back?
NOT A SINGLE THING.
They haven’t even issued a statement against it. You would think that would be the least they could do.
What’s the point of even having an organization for licensed talent agencies when they don’t actually do anything?
Oh, I know. Maybe they will stand up and say – hey we don’t allow our talent to work with talent from a non-licensed agency. Nope. They don’t do that either.
East Coast Talent is a perfect example of this. They are not a licensed talent agency. They haven’t had a legit license from the state of California in years. They were “borrowing” the license from Vanguard talent for awhile (which is illegal mind you) but now even that has expired. They have nothing. And yet Mark Spiegler as the President of LATATA has said nothing about this. He even allows his talent to be booked with the East Coast Talent roster.
As the president of LATATA what does that really say about his commitment to LICENSED talent agents?
Our industry isn’t perfect. But there are things that can be done but when organizations like LATATA do nothing, it sends a message to people who don’t want to do the right thing, can get away with it.
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