As a creative professional, you’re constantly creating new and innovative offerings. Imagination is your tool and you wield it with skill. With pride, you share your discoveries with the world - only to see it copied or sold on some online store three weeks later.
It’s a story old as time: creators create, pirates profit. While your art, music, film or app, is your passion, each one may also be your livelihood. It can be frustrating to make a living when your work is stolen and sold out from under you. So, what can you do to protect your work and avoid litigation against those who are abridging your IP rights? Better yet, what can you do to protect yourself in the first place?
The answer is due diligence and up-front planning.
Organization and due diligence can help creators avoid headaches down the line. It’s critical to keep track of the work you do, who you are doing it with or for, and take steps during the process to protect your work. While social media is great to get the word out about your latest innovation or design, move deliberately when it comes to the publication and promotion of your work. Once it’s in the public domain, it can be difficult to protect it from copying and infringement.
But all is not lost. There are concrete steps you can take to protect yourself and preserve the value of your work:
If your work is an image, sketch, painting, or photograph, use a watermark on any image you post online. This watermark provides the source of the work, and you can use a copyright notice. This is an easy deterrent against unauthorized copies and displays of the image – online or elsewhere. For music or film, you can also add digital watermarking, audio tags, or metadata, which allows you to track and monitor any unauthorized distribution of your work.
If you are posting your content on your website, disable mouse right click or copy (Ctrl + C) hotkeys on your website. This makes it harder for individuals to copy your images or files to their computer or device for distribution or illegal use.
If you are selling online, display low-res images or video so high quality materials are only available by purchase.
Take digital photos of your finished work or save it with a digital timestamp. This provides you with proof of when your work was created in the event you need to demonstrate your priority as owner, if someone copies your work.
Never forget to include a copyright notice on your work and anywhere your work is publicly available.
Your creative works – regardless of medium or discipline - are not just a product of your passion. They are an asset that must be carefully monitored and controlled to maintain value and preserve your rightful protections. While most work is created with the purpose of profit, even if you aren’t creating with the intent to sell or generate value, these assets have incalculable worth and should be strategically protected.
Contracts are Essential to Value Creation and Preservation.
If you are designing, building, or creating something for someone, with someone, or are employing someone to distribute your work, a clear, well written contract is crucial.
Contracts can apply to any number of different scenarios, and there are many things a contract can clarify when it comes to your work and how to protect it. Fundamentally, a contract is imperative in determining ownership rights to, especially if other people are involved at different levels of work creation. In the event multiple people have contributed to your work, they all own it as joint owners, unless otherwise set forth in a thorough contract.
Contracts can also determine your rights to your work when it comes to commercial sale or licensing. Contracts are a tool you can use to your advantage in the protection and management of your creative works. But a tool is only useful if it is used for the right purpose. You don’t use a hammer to put in a screw. A lawyer with experience in the innumerable scenarios where a well written contract can protect your rights and thrive as a creator is an indispensable ally in building value in your work and business, helping you create a contract tailored to you and your situation with the best tool for the job.
Original Works Worth a Copyright
A copyright is an intellectual property protection available for original works of authorship that are tangible in form, whether published or unpublished. Think of a book, an article, a musical score, a video game.
So, what does that mean?
A copyright protects original work you create, such as art, music, photographs, movies, games, literary works, and so much more. A copyright covers the actual tangible creations, not the idea itself, and it’s important to note that a copyright in your work exists automatically upon the creation of that work. Under U.S. law, a copyright applies to the work the moment it is created.
Then, I’m covered, right?
Yes. But there are steps you can take to strengthen that protection and enhance the value of your creativity and innovation. First, put a copyright notice on all your creative work. This serves as notice of your underlying claim to ownership.
Second, consider registering your copyright with the United States Copyright Office. You may be asking, “Why would I pay money for a protection that is automatically granted?”
Registration with the Copyright Office provides you with extra protections, as well as extra pathways for remedies in the event of infringement. Registering confers a public record of ownership, protects again the import of infringing products into the US, enables you to bring suit in the federal courts in the event of violations against ownership, and allows you seek statutory damages and attorney fees - all of which you cannot do if you don’t register your work. Down the line, registration of copyrights can save you considerable money and hassle. Here again, qualified legal counsel – while representing an investment up front – can protect you against challenges to ownership in the future and costly remedies to prove your ownership rights.
Don’t Back Down
So often, we see creators faced with the harsh dilemma of what to do when someone infringes on their work. Is it worth the hassle of tracking the infringer down? Will people look down on me for going after other artists or creators? Will it even work in the end? Never be afraid to defend and protect the product of your creative mind. Creative Law Network helps innovative, visionary creators across disciplines to find their voice and ensure your rights are protected. Sound counsel will ensure no one wrongfully profits off of your hard work.
When you’re designing a new video game, crafting a novel, writing music that will inspire, thinking strategically about how to protect creative work and what will happen once their labor of love reaches the world is often far from your mind. That’s why entertainment lawyers exist! It’s a highly specialized area of law that presents unique challenges for creators across disciplines. Creative Law Network was built for the arts and innovation. Count on us to assist you in protecting and controlling the creative assets you own, making sure you spend more time building, crafting, designing, and entertaining then chasing down infringers or defending your rights. We’re here to protect you and your work, walking with you at every step of the creative journey.