133: Protecting Your Work: Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents and Trade Secrets

I think one of the most really confusing and important parts of being a creative is knowing how to protect our work. Now, our work is called our intellectual property. And so when you start thinking about this, there are many different ways to protect your work. You can protect it via a copyright, a trademark, a patent, or even something like a trade secret. So today I'm going to walk you through the legal landscape of protecting your creative work. What the difference is between all of these types of intellectual properties, how to get started in protecting your work, and how to go about using the one that I think you'll use the most often, which is copyright. Now, before we officially dive in, a bit of a disclaimer. Because I am not a lawyer, so this is not proper legal advice, even though I have done my due diligence. And so this is good information. But when you have a question, I suggest always going to a lawyer or someone who specializes in intellectual property to make sure that you have your questions answered and you confidently know how to move forward. Now, the other thing that I'm so excited to share with you is the freebie for today's episode. Now this freebie is one that I actually hope you you'll never need, but I do want you to have it just in case it's what to do if your work is stolen. We are mapping out step by step in what order of action you should take if you ever come across someone who you think or know has stolen your work. So in order to get that, head on over to professionalcreative.com and check the show notes for today's episode so that you can download it and be prepared.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and

experience the same success.

I'm here to help you spend your life together doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

So let's just start off by going over the four different types of Intellectual property. So intellectual property is kind of this big umbrella umbrella that has different parts underneath. The first one is copyright. So copyright is a form of protection that's really granted to the creator of the original work or authorship. This includes arts, literary works, dramatic works, musical works, any other intellectual work, both published and unpublished, which we'll talk about more in a minute. So copyright protects the way an idea is expressed rather than the idea itself. For example, covers something like a painting or the lyrics to a song, or the design of a fabric pattern. Now, copyright automatically protects your creative work from the moment that it's created and fixed into a tangible form. You don't need to necessarily register it to have copyright protection, but registering it has a lot of additional legal benefits, such as the ability to bring a lawsuit for infringement and the possibility of statutory damages as well. So we'll come back to copyrights, but next, I want to define a trademark. Now, a trademark is a symbol, a word or a phrase that is legally registered or established by use as representing a company or a product. It's different than the actual finished work because it often protects things like brand names and slogans and logos. So you can think about something like the Nike Swoosh or the product name like Coca Cola, or a tagline like Just do it. So while you can establish rights in a trademark based on use in commerce, registering your trademark with the appropriate agency, like the US Trademark Office, will strengthen your rights and provide you a lot more protection and make it easier to enforce that trademark. The next one is a patent. So a patent is an exclusive right that you get for, like, an invention. So when a product or a process has a specific way of doing something, or it offers a new technical solution to a problem, that's when you would want a patent. It allows the inventor all the exclusive rights to the patent process or design or invention for a certain period of time. So for this, you'll think about things like technical gadgets, like a new type of camera or a chemical formula, like a new pharmaceutical drug, or like a mechanical process, like a new type of engine. So a patent requires a detailed and very technical application process that generally requires the expertise of a patent attorney or agent to navigate that successfully. And the last one is a trade secret. Now, trade secrets are practices or designs or formulas or processes or information that's not generally known or readily attainable by the average person. So typically, these are businesses that have an advantage over their competitors or customers. Customers based on the knowledge of that trade secret. So trade secrets kind of depends on maintaining secrecy Meaning if the secret is let out, then the protection is lost. So you can think about things like this for recipes. So something like a famous restaurant's famous recipe or a business strategy, like a company's marketing plan or a manufacturing technique, let's say a unique way of producing fabric protection requires taking steps to keep the information confidential. So this often involves things like internal company policies and practices and non disclosure agreements for employees and partners. So each type of these intellectual property types serves to protect different aspects of your creative and your business activities. They're in place to ensure that your original creation and your brand identity can be safeguarded. So when I think about these, the ones that I suspect most of you will be most interested in is copyrights and maybe a trademark. A trademark, a patent and a trade secret are all things that I would highly suggest working with an IP specialist and lawyer for. So they're a bit more complicated, they're a bit more expensive. But copyright is something that you can do and I suggest that you do for your creative work. And so I understanding copyrights is what we're going to focus our podcast on to today. So again, a copyright is an automatic right that is created the moment that you create an original piece of work. So it covers things like artwork, writings, music and so much more. So the real power of a copyright though, lies in its registration. Registering your copyright, especially in the US grants you the legal standing to enforce those rights in court. So this can be really important in case of a dispute about your work or who created your work, or potential infringement. So the registration process is actually pretty straightforward. In the US it just involves going to the Copyright Office website, that's copyright.gov you'll create an account and fill out using a questionnaire about your work. So the process might vary in other countries, so it's important for you to check your local regulations. But if you're in the us, know that it's pretty straightforward and actually pretty simple. Now there's something that you can do called group registration. So for artists, registering every piece of your work individually can be tedious, but more so kind of expensive. So there's an option to register your work in bulk, which is known as group registration. So for example, a surface pattern designer might upload a surface pattern design collection in order to not have to register each and every pattern separately. So this is the most cost effective option and it's really efficient as long as you've done it before your work has been published. So we'll come back to that word, published. So the term Published or publication in the context of copyright law, refers to any kind of distribution or copy made of your work shown to the public. So it's really a key factor in determining how you register your designs. So for unpublished collections, you can use group registration, but once they're published, each design has to be published individually. Okay, picture this.

Have you ever spent hours scouring through your video or maybe your podcast content trying to find that one place that you said that one thing? Or if you've forgotten or never found it and you had to rerecord everything. I've been there and it's so frustrating and honestly a huge waste of time. But it hasn't happened to me ever since I started using Searchie. Searchie is the software that I use for all of my videos and all of my podcast content because it not only transcribes it, but it makes it searchable by key word. And so for you to see this in action, I have an example set up for you over on BonnieCristine.com resources. Again, that's BonnieCristine.com resources and you can actually play with Searchie and see how it looks on one of our videos because once you understand what it does, it's a game changer. I also host all of my workshop and my class, my membership and course material through Searchie as well. So students can search for any question that they have and go to the exact time and place where I talked about that one. And just imagine this. If I ever do a Q and A and they want to know if I answered their question, all they have to do is search for their name and see if I did or not. It's literally like having your very own personal search engine for your content. So no more wasting time scrubbing through your video or audio to find that one golden nugget. With Searchie, you can easily find what you're looking for in seconds just to just type in a keyword or phrase and Searchie will pull up all the relevant content. It's a game changer for anyone who creates audio or video content. But honestly, that's not all. Searchy's new AI powered transcription and captioning tool makes it easy to create accessible content that everyone can get access to. And with their customizable player, you can embed your videos and your podcasts on your website or social media channels in a way that looks and feels so professional. So if you are ready to take your video or your podcast content to the next level, head on over to bonniecristine.com resources and just give Searchie a try. It's incredible. I think you're going to love it and I can't wait to see how it revolutionizes the way you create content.

So let's talk about published versus unpublished. A published work is a design of when it has been made available to the public in any capacity. So this includes selling it or distributing it, or putting it on a print on demand site, or displaying the design in like an exhibition or a trade show, putting it on any public platform which includes like an online portfolio or social media. So basically, if you've shown the work anywhere for any reason, then it's considered published. Unpublished is when you and only you have really seen it. You haven't published it in a public capacity at all. This is important because once a design is published, it no longer qualifies for the unpublished group registration. So again, you would have to publish those pieces individually. And the main difference here is the cost and the time. It takes more time to do it individually and it's much quicker to do it, you know, in a group. So I believe the last time I checked, an individual copyright is about $45 and a group registration is $65. So you can imagine if you have 10 prints, then you have to register them all separately. If they've been published, it's $450. But if you do it as an unpublished group, it's only 65 bucks. So the biggest question that comes up around this is around timing. It can be difficult to know when to copyright your work because sometimes you might not really be finished with it, but you want to show it online. So really you've got to figure this out for your own workflow. I think the ideal time to utilize group registration is after you have finalized a collection of work, but you haven't released it to the public or used it on any products. That timing really ensures ensures that the designs qualify as unpublished and then you can register them as a complete group. So for you, you'll have to develop a strategy for when you like to copyright your work. It's wise to do this once your designs are again finished, but before they've been shared. And so, depending on how frequently you create new work, you might choose to do this several times a year. Now, the other thing to consider is do you want to copyright your work? You know, I know many artists who do and many artists who don't. So this begs the question of how much legal protection do you want and is it a piece that you would absolutely want to be able to stand behind and take to court if you needed to. Or is it a design that you really don't maybe care that much about? Maybe it's something super simple. Maybe it's something that doesn't represent your signature style and if it were to get copied, you wouldn't take legal action towards it. So I suspect that most of you will probably copyright all of your work. But it's worth sharing that some artists choose not to copyright some of their work, and some choose not to copyright any of their work because they just don't want to mess with the process and they're not going to take legal action even if they were to get someone copying their work. So for you, you'll have to decide on your own what you want to do with your work. So let's talk about the reasons that you would or would not copyright your work. Reasons that you would copyright your work Obviously Legal protection. So copywriting your work offers the most legal protection against unauthorized use. This means if someone copies your work without permission, you've got legal standing to take action against them. Again, I've got to mention, go over to professionalcreative.com and download the freebie for today's episode because we have outlined every single step we suggest that you take. If your work does indeed get copied, the next one is control over usage. So registering your work and getting a copyright grants you control over how your work is used. For instance, you can decide where, how, and for what purposes your designs are used. It also adds a level of professionalism to your work. You know, when companies see that your work is copyrighted, they know that you're serious about your profession and the protection of your ip. And finally, peace of mind. This can be especially important for designs that have significant personal or commercial value. Let's say they really represent your signature style. Now, here are some reasons why some people choose not to copyright their work. Cost and time the process of copywriting does incur costs and it does take time. So for some the investment just doesn't seem worthwhile. Others seem to perceive it a bit unnecessary because copyright technically automatically applies to your work as soon as you create it. So some artists feel that the formal registration isn't really necessary, especially if they don't anticipate any legal disputes. Other times it may be because of a short lifespan. So for designs intended for quick or temporary use, or those that may not have long term value, the effort in copywriting doesn't necessarily seem worth it. Again, lack of legal intent. So sometimes artists or designers or creatives just have no intention of ever enforcing their rights and they're just not concerned about potential infringement, so they may not see the value in a formal copyright. So what I want this episode to do is just really help you embrace the knowledge. Knowledge is power. Embrace copyright as an essential part of your professional journey, but also know why you may choose to do it for certain pieces of work and why you may choose not to do it for other pieces of work. By taking those steps to protect your work, you're going to be building a strong foundation and I want you to just be really clear and have clarity around when to do this and why to do this in your career. So my friends visit professionalcreative.com to get your download today where we take you step by step of the actions you'll want to take if your work ever does get stolen. And always create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you. I'll see you next time. Sat.