Legally Branded Podcast – Copyright Ownership
What exactly is Copyright? It’s a basic, fundamental question that people often ask me. In this episode, I dive into copyright essentials in order to address gaps in your knowledge of copyright or any confusion you might have around particular facets of the subject.
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Topics Discussed in this Episode:
- Examples of copyright
- Reasons why you might want to have copyright.
- Some ideas on how to avoid some common copyright problems.
Key Takeaways:
- Copyright is one of the core three IP rights that impact every single business and is very wide-ranging in scope.
- Examples of what copyright protects include photographs, images, maps, drawings, typefaces, music, films, works of art and performances, software, books, videos, content on websites and logos.
- Copyright is highly relevant in today’s digital environment because most of the ways that businesses operate involve creating different copyright assets.
- In countries like the UK and former Commonwealth countries like the USA, Australia and New Zealand, it’s not necessary for a work to display a high degree of originality in order to qualify for copyright protection.
- Names are not, as a rule, protected by copyright under the law. Instead, they are covered by trademark law.
- A copyright work is an asset. If you don’t own the copyright of an asset that you use in your business, it means you’re licensing that work effectively.
- Copyright automatically belongs to the creator and not to the person who’s paying for it. The only exception is if a contract states otherwise or if the work is undertaken for you by your employee during the normal scope of their duties.
- Content online is not in the public domain.
Action Steps:
- If you’re from a copyright-dependent industry, find out a lot more about copyright.
- Copyright should be an uppermost consideration. Make sure that the works you’re having created will belong to you. And if they’re not going to belong to you, then make sure you negotiate all the necessary permissions that you’re going to need for your intended use of that copyright work before you commit to using someone’s services.
- If you engage someone to do work for you, such as to build a website, before you engage their services and give them your best ideas, make sure your written agreement with them covers copyright ownership.
- Find out what the copyright rules say in your country and how they impact your plans. In an increasingly global marketplace where it’s quite common to engage the services of freelancers based in other parts of the world, you should agree which country’s laws will govern your contracts.
- Don’t leave copyright discussions for later. Pay close attention to define details at the start of a project.
- Don’t assume that your web designer or other professionals whose services you engage know what materials or images they may or may not use. Do your own verifications.
Shireen said:
“Strategic use of intellectual property makes a big difference to a business’ fortunes. So IP is a very important consideration in any venture, whether you’re starting, growing, or exiting a business.”
“Think of copyright as you might think of a plot of land… The copyright owner is the person who has the right to exploit the rights in their assets, just as the landowner can exploit the rights in their land.”
Thank you for listening!
It’s really worth having a process in place in your business to cover off the copyright risks that you run. A really easy way to do this is to buy my Legally Branded Academy Course. It has everything you’ll need to address these copyright risks as well as cover other IP issues to bear in mind in your business.
To access the free audio on How to Trademark a Name, subscribe to this podcast and download all the past episodes, and send an email to [email protected] saying what time of day you did so.
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Links to my books and online courses:
- Books:
- Legally Branded
- Intellectual Property Revolution
- Legally Branded Academy Course
- Legally Branded Monthly
More from Shireen Smith:
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