Copyrights and Copywrongs: What you Can and Can't Protect - 40

Law and Wit Episode 40: Copyrights and Copy Wrongs: What You Can and Can't Protect. Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Hello, Longwitters, and welcome back! I'm just psyched to be here on this beautiful spring day to be in your ears and to be talking about how to help your creative business and about what we can do to try to navigate the kind of tricky part of maybe owning a creative business and untangle and, you know, blow away some of the smoke that goes on in the back end of making all this stuff work in a modern digital economy and just the creative wild, wild west world that we're dealing with here. So thanks so much for being here. I don't take it lightly to have your time and attention. As I've mentioned, I'm podcast junkie myself. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen to them on double speed, which is probably a little bit of a problem because, as you might have noticed, I'm a bit of a fast talker. And so sometimes when I slow it down to the normal speed that people talk, I realize how much I probably need to speak more slowly and methodical so that you guys can understand me. So I'm working on that. But If you have a hard time understanding me, then I'm sorry, and just know that I'm just trying to be mindful of your time, okay, and get to it, which is why, like, let's get to it, Britt, okay? Okay, so today, um, I am kind of wrapping up our series on our Business Foundation series about kind of the essential business legal systems that you need to get your business to set up right and set up right from the get-go so you can get your legal ducks in a row so that as you grow, um, even if it just means from maybe switching from a sole prop to like, I'm a real LLC now, I'm going to pay myself I'm going to pay my other people now and make sure I'm taking care of this stuff. Two bigger growth steps, maybe your first hires or your first major contracts that you're landing, or working with clients, or looking and maybe collaborating with other people and growing and offering, you know, goods and services and offerings, all of that. We just want to make sure we're doing it in the right way and that we're not closing doors. I was talking to someone today, and, and I was talking to her about kind of what a trademark could potentially do for her down the road and why it's important now in the startup phase that she research the name that she she was interested in. And she was like, oh, that's really exciting to hear, like, other things. I hadn't even thought of those other things that she could think about, because hers was kind of— it's an in-person business. But I said, you know, in this space, that, that's one thing, you can certainly grow that, and that's wonderful. Um, and not to say that, oh, you need to be always bigger and better, because I don't always believe that, that that's a good fit for everybody. But also think of ways that you can teach other people to do what you do. Um, how can you, um, you know, turn that into other offerings? Are there— what other things do people need when they're buying this from you? Um, and it's just, it's a good way to be asking yourself how can you better serve your clients, and that's where you're going to get probably your best ideas of what you should be moving forward with in different directions. So, okay, before we go any further, disclaimer, because I'm an attorney. Um, I'm Brittany Ratelle and I'm your host here, and while I'm a licensed attorney, I'm not your attorney unless you want me to be, and then I would love that. And then you can also quote and say, hey, um, Brittany's my attorney, which, um, I love. Someone had my back because someone was like spam spamming one of my old posts, um, and a friend of mine, client of mine, jumped on there and was like, um, hey, random like legal bot online, um, Brittany's my attorney, thank you very much. And I just love— it was Brittany Bottain— and I love that she got on there and defended me. Um, so if that wants to be you, then that's awesome. Or you want to at least explore that idea, let's talk. Book one of my free consult slots online on my calendar. We'll chat about your business, about, um, Maybe if you need to be working with me one-on-one, or if there are other solutions to the issues that you're having in your business, like through my contract template shop, if that's a good fit for you, I'll let you know. And that's what that will look like there. And if you decide to work with me one-on-one, you'll sign a thing, you'll know, okay? That's not what this is. This is only for informational purposes only, okay? So I just want to recap real quick if you missed the other things in our series. We started off with episode 34, which was Where Do I Start, okay? So if this is your first episode and you're like, "Brittany, you're cute, but I don't even know what you're talking about, girl," I would maybe suggest starting there, okay? That's where do I start in terms of business foundations, where do you need to be going and first looking at in your business, okay? Episode 36 of Lom Whit was about getting your website legit. Episode 38 was on contracts and protecting your revenue stream, okay? Really important to protect that actual stream, like how are we making our money, okay? And this is obviously more so if you are a service-based business. If you are a product-based business, then those, you know, are going to be covered in episode— in the website stuff, because that's your terms of service. But even, you know, most product-based businesses, I— most of them that I know don't operate in a vacuum, and they have other people that they're working with. They have helpers, they have people helping them with fulfillment or shipping or photography or videography or website managing and all kinds of other stuff, community management. So those are— you have relevant issues, so don't skip on episode 40, okay? Because there are nuggets in there for you, okay? I wouldn't leave you hanging, okay? And so this episode 40 is going to be all about what you can and can't protect, okay? And why that's great news, guys. Why there are— in the universe, there's supposed to be stuff that you can't lock down. Because guess what? The fact that you can't lock it down also means that someone else couldn't lock it down, and that's why it's available. You know, it's part of that general creative milieu of stuff that you can draw from and remix and recreate and, you know, use your beautiful, amazing creative mind to come up with it in a new style that's your way of doing it, which is going to be different from someone else's, and that's okay. I think when I, you know, I see both sides of the spectrum on this issue. I see people who are— who get really hurt and upset about their things being taken, about being ripped off, about being copycatted, and I totally understand that position because when this is what you do, when you are creative, when you are a maker, when this is not— it may be a mix of your passion and how you support yourself and your family and your business— then it can be really emotional and gut-wrenching to have someone rip off your stuff and to take it. And for people to do the whole Groupon, either they just, they take it and run with it, or, you know, major companies rip you off, or people don't credit you like they should, or yeah, they're not giving, you know, credit where credit's due, that you're the one who taught them everything. You know, there's a lot that can go into that. Um, and then I also see some people who are very laissez-faire about it, um, and who, you know, think that, look, everything's a remix, and, um, you know, there, there is nothing you can do, and you shouldn't worry about it anyway. You should just always direct your energy forward. And I think there's— there needs to be a really good healthy balance of that, because, um, certainly there are things that you cannot change, and that the worst thing possible is for you as a creative is not to be putting your amazing work out in the world. I think that's the, that's the worst case scenario, is that we as a group are lost because you didn't create what you wanted to or what you needed to create, and we just didn't see it. You know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, like Wayne Gretzky says, um, and the world misses 100% of the work that you don't ever create. That you don't ever put out there. We never even get the chance to see it, you know? It lives and dies in your head, in your beautiful head. So I think there needs to be a healthy balance of there, and so we'll kind of talk about that, and we'll really talk about it if you are interested in my Rip Off Resilient course, which I'm working on right now that really digs into my first module that I have is all about this mindset of like, what is creativity? How can we get in a better frame of mind? What's the thought work we can do behind it in terms of protecting our own creativity and responding and keeping positive energy? About being in a world where we are so exposed and where our work is so exposed online, um, because I think that there's a real need for us to develop better habits, um, and language and thought about that as creatives, and especially as a community of creatives who should be supporting each other and making space for proper boundaries, um, and what those should look like. Okay, so, um, long story short, if you're interested in all of that and of course all the other real tools that will go with it, make sure that you are following me on Instagram because that's where I'm going to be releasing information as that course unfolds. Okay, so let's get into it. Okay, with copyright. So the first thing we want to talk about and what you can and can't protect is kind of the 4 buckets of what things you can protect, kind of the 4 main tools that people can use. Okay. And I will also refer you to some other episodes that I've done here that may also kind of fill in gaps. And so if this is— if you're like, yes, Brittany, I need more on this, I need this, and even in a different way, and knowing how all this spiderweb of stuff connects, Look out for those. Okay, so copyright protects an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible form. Okay. Oh, that sounds pretty legalese. Yeah, yeah, it does. I mean, this is, you know, I don't know what else— what else did you expect, guys? You know, if you're gonna go on a gardening podcast, you're going to hear things that are talking about earth and fertile and soil. If you can talk into a legal con, you know, podcast, it's going to be lawyer speak. So kind of the translation of this is it's going to be something that is original, is going to be creative. And it's not protected when it's in your brain, but it's protected once it leaves your brain and it's in something. It's the expression that we can protect it. Okay. The next bucket is trademark. Okay. And trademark is we use that to protect the source indicator of a good or service. Okay. A trademark answers the question, who made this? Who sells this? Okay, and really trademarks are for the benefit of the consumer. So when you're thinking about— obviously businesses use them and abuse them and exploit them and create a whole, you know, category and asset library of their trademarks. Larger companies can have hundreds and hundreds of trademarks and different goods or services and slogans and logos and whatnot, but it's supposed to be protecting the consumer so that when they reach for a Coke or they get a Coke, and they know because no one else can use all of these trademark elements. Everything from Coke's name to the way its bottle is shaped to its logo to, you know, Coke is protected lots of stuff as, as an older company and a very established, you know, physical product brand. So that, you know, you don't have any confusion in the marketplace. Okay, so that's what trademarks protect. And you can trademark the name of your business, product lines, sites, smells, you can protect slogans and taglines and all kinds of stuff in between. But those are the most common ones that people protect through trademark. Okay, the next tool in your bucket is patent. And a patent, there are two different kinds. And full disclaimer, I do not do patents. So if you need a patent, then you have to talk to a special kind of lawyer who's a patent attorney who does patents. So patents basically protect are a kind of a property right that let you protect an invention, um, or kind of a novel way, um, that has to be useful patentable subject matter and is novel and non-obvious. Again, another kind of legal definition. So the most common things that you see patents are inventions, machines, manufactured articles, industrial processes, chemical compositions. This is why we patent drugs, um, You know, so this is definitely usually more technical, um, and difficult. And like I said, it needs to be novel, so it needs to be— that means new, something that did not exist before. Non-obvious, so if you can like easily just, oh, here's two things together, and, um, and that's what anyone would do, then that's not something that you're going to be able to patent. I mean, it needs to be useful. So that's normally where we find, um, where creatives— why there are not a ton of patents in the creative world, just because— not that our stuff isn't wonderful and our content isn't wonderful, but it tends to be more artistic and creative than useful. It tends to be more on that side of that spectrum. So again, no slight on anything that you do, but it probably— it would be more challenging to have it fit into that useful category, depending on what you have. Although there are people who've been able to get it for business processes, you know, and other more designy type things. And there's a couple— there's two different types of patents that are different length of years, from 15 to 20 years. But again, if you think that you have something that might be able to be protected by a patent, go talk to a patent attorney and they'll let you know. They're expensive, you know, they're at least a few thousand dollars, and they can range up to $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 apiece. So it can take years. So it's a big process, so not something you want to take lightly, but it never hurts to have a free consult with someone about it. Okay. Okay, and the last tool I want to mention is trade secrets. And these are the kind of secret recipe. Again, this is like Coca-Cola's formula is actually protected by trade secret, meaning it's a recipe. And because it doesn't fit into any of these other categories, that you can protect it basically through contract. And so when someone comes to work for you, you can have them sign a contract that says, look, I will not share this recipe, um, you know, I will not share this information. And in here you would put in— you could protect through trade secret things like the way you do business, recipes, vendor lists, your business formula, your confidential business reports, your research information that you've gathered. These are things that you can protect through NDAs, employee agreements, or confidentiality agreements, which are kind of— can all be interchangeable or used interchangeably. So Someone says like, oh, you got to get an NDA for that, or you're looking for investors, or you're going to hire someone to develop, you know, be your developer for your app, get an NDA. That's what they're talking about, is they're protecting about protecting your stuff through trade secret law. Okay, and these are all done at the state law level, and it's, again, it's a contract. It's actually a written document that needs to be signed by the parties to say, hey, this stuff is secret, we're going to keep it a secret, it's not something that we're going to share because we're going to treat it as confidential. Okay, okay. So let's dive more into copyright. So, um, and as I found, as I explained this over and over to people in terms of what you can protect and what you can't, and when I get people who get really upset about things, they're like, hey, someone, so-and-so ripped off my thing. And I, and I try to dig into, well, let's really talk about what you can and can't protect and like what's reasonable and, um, and novel and new and creative. Um, I find it sometimes more helpful to list what you can't protect and then to kind of look at, oh, okay, well, these things we're kicking out of the, you know, the Venn diagram. Let's look at everything that's left. Okay, so these are things that under US copyright law— again, we're always talking about here on Law and Wit about American law, that's what I can speak to, and this is federal law— these are things that you cannot copyright or not entitled to copyright protection. And the first is titles, names, short phrases, and slogans. Okay, they're simply too short and sweet. We need to have them and people need to be able to use them and use them in the marketplace. Okay, so this is why if you come to me and you say, hey, I have been selling my t-shirt on Etsy and it's been killing it, um, and it has a cute little phrase on it, and now I see all these other shops are popping up and they're using the same phrase, what can I do? I'm gonna say, sorry, what I would do is double down on your brand, why they want to buy from you, what is about you and your story, um, and whatnot. But can you stop them from selling a t-shirt that says the same word on it or same grouping of words or same song lyrics? No, you can't. So sorry, but that is not going to be something you're going to be able to protect, okay? It's too short and sweet. You can't protect it. Now, if it were something that was a slogan that was trademark and eligible for trademark protection, that's a possibility. But again, trademark protects and says who makes something. So, and so by putting something on the front of the t-shirt that's not necessarily identified as who made that t-shirt, and so the Trademark Office is on to you. And so if you try to do a trademark like that and it's just a decoration on the front of a shirt, um, it'll get rejected. And I see, I see dozens of— I see these all the time of people who are like, oh, I'll be sneaky, I'll try to file as a trademark, um, and then it gets sent back because they look at the picture of your shirt and you're like, no, you know, you know, Fruit of the Loom doesn't have a giant piece of a grape and a banana on the front of their shirt. They have a small little discreet icon on the neck where you expect to see who made the shirt— Fruit of the Loom. So, um, so doing a trademark doesn't necessarily is going to get you protection for that. Okay, I would, I would work with an attorney on that one. Okay, number 2 is facts. You cannot protect cold hard facts. Okay, so these are calendars, lists, tables, recipes, okay? You can't copyright the list of ingredients for a better-than-sex spinach dip, which by the way, this reminds me of a really great joke, a meme that I saw where someone says, frankly, Carol, I've seen your— I've had your better-than-sex spinach dip, and I just have to question whether all of your needs are being met. And I love that so much because isn't it kind of funny that we do that all the time? We refer to stuff as like, oh, that's a better-than-sex chocolate cake, and I'm like, I don't know, frankly. I mean, it's good, but I don't know, maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's too personal. Sorry to my parents who are listening to this, but, um, but yeah, I maybe need to, you need me to explore, um, and be a little bit more adventurous or something. So because it's, it's just chocolate cake, guys. It's just spinach dip. So, you know, there's a, there's a whole wide world out there. Okay, um, and so like with the recipe, like if you're a food blogger and you're like, well, shoot, Brittany, how can I protect my stuff? Then people are just going to rip me off. So you can't protect your recipe, no, because it's just a list of ingredients. It's too functional. Like, there's only so many ways to put stuff together to make a chocolate chip cookie. But what you can protect is the photos, okay? Your photography, if you took them, then they're yours. Um, an original illustration that came with it. So if you have some fancy calligraphy or hand lettering that went with it, that's really cool. You can protect that. You can protect the narrative. Um, I know all you food bloggers, you like to talk and talk and talk all about it, and, oh, I used to cook this with my grandmarm, and, um, you know, you make us go all scroll all the way to the bottom past, you know, 5 or 6 different ad blocks to get to the recipe. I know, we're on to your game. Um, I get it, we all, we all got to make money. Um, that you can protect, that text, the text that goes in your Instagram post, um, you know, your YouTube video about it. That, that expression of stuff you can definitely protect. Okay, so not all is lost, um, but just not the actual recipe, which, yeah, I mean, that's okay because it's not just about the recipe, guys. It's about everything else that goes with it. Okay, so no one can do it like you. Why do people want to come to you and the way that you talk about making chocolate chip cookies? Okay, the next thing that you cannot protect are ideas. We kind of already touched on this, number 3, ideas. Um, when they're in and swirling around your brain, they're not We can't do anything about that because there's no way to prove that you have your idea. Okay, once you have your light bulb moment, it like flashes on, then you can take that idea and put it in something, express it in some way. Even if it's simple, you could scribble something, lyrics to a song on a napkin, and you could copyright that. I mean, you really could. You could, you could send that in, you could take a picture of it and show like, look, these are my lyrics, I'm protecting this as a poetry or a song or something, and it would be protected. You could register that, but once, but not when they're still in your head. The next is commonplace things. So things that are not unique. And in here, we'd talk about things that are like stereotypical to a genre. So in writing, they call these like, scenes à faire. I'm sure I'm butchering that, but that French, sorry. But like, you can't copy that a boy meets girl, like in a romantic comedy, that is literally every rom-com ever known to man, or the use of like spy gadgets in a spy novel. Or the, you know, other commonplace, not unique elements would be like, you can't copyright just letters, like plain typography. That's not able to have copyright protection. Really simple visual elements that are common, like geometric shapes that everyone uses, you know, arrows and circles and hexagons, not eligible for copyright protection. Okay, if it's a really simple visual design like that of a word inside of a circle, not going to be able to copyright that. Sorry, might be cool, not able to be copyrighted. The last is functional items. Okay. And this is copyright does not protect objects that have a primarily utilitarian function. Okay, so this includes clothing, accessories, and furniture. So this is different. In France, they actually can protect fashion. And that's why one of the reasons why a lot of the original, you know, and hoity-toity You know, fashion houses were protected in France and flourished under French laws because they were not allowed to copy other designs. There have been attempts to try to have, you know, similar or more protection in fashion in the US, but they have never gotten off the ground. So that's why people can rip off, and we have high fashion and fast fashion and everything in between. And the same with like accessories or furniture. So if you are in those industries or one of those businesses, what you can protect is the decorative elements on the furniture. So this is your surface pattern design, your textile design, your laser etching, your extra stuff that goes on top of it. Okay, so if you have a piece of furniture, then you can't copyright the furniture piece unless you can do it under like a sculptural work, which sometimes if it's, you know, more— you can prove that it's more of a work of art than actual for sitting, then you could protect it that way. But if it's like a real chair that like we're all sitting and we're putting our butts on, What you could protect again is like the, you know, scrollwork that goes in the sign that's purely for decoration, or the surface pattern, you know, the fabric that goes on it that's special, that maybe that you created. So, so again, so that leaves a whole category of stuff that you can protect and that you can copyright. This includes everything from literary, which is like your music and dramatic works and books, graphics, which are pictorial sculptural works. This includes street art. Some people have also been able to include jewelry and to be able to protect those as sculptural works because jewelry is kind of like mini sculptures. Sound recordings, obviously music, music compilations, computer programs, things like Adobe Photoshop and this program GarageBand, which is allowing me to record this right now. Choreographic works and pantomimes are able to get copyright protection. So although they need to be more than just a few steps, there's some people who've tried to, you know, copyright, oh, there's a cool shuffle, and then I put my hands up like that. It's going to need to be more extensive than that to get copyright protection. Obviously, movies, motion pictures, and other audiovisual works that are a mix of these different mediums are going to be able to get protection, or architectural work. So, so that's kind of the rundown of copyright and what you can and can't protect. So I'll, you know, I get the next question. Okay, so if I— do I have a copyright? Or what's the difference between copywriting? And then do I have to register a copyright? Or How does that all shake down? So here's the thing, like we said, as soon as you create something, it comes out of your brain and now it's fixed into something, you have a copyright to that, okay? You have some rights. Those rights include the exclusive rights to— but not limited, you might get more rights than this, but these are generally the rights that we talk about and that you license away and can charge people and sell to people— the right to reproduce it meaning to make more of this, okay, of whatever it is that you created. Say it's like a print, okay, say you created a print, you can reproduce that print. You could distribute it, meaning you can sell it and do it in different versions and wide and like the whole wide world, or in certain areas and markets. And that's what licensing comes into play. You can display it, meaning you can have it in a museum or in a gallery or on the wall somewhere or out in public. And you can sell and create derivative works of the original, which derivative works are not exact copies, but they're derivations that are kind of based on that. Most common one that we see are like translations. So like translation to another language from a book, that's a derivative work. An adaptation, most common here that we're familiar with, is a movie that's based on a book. That is a derivative work. The movie, you know, I think of like literary— The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. It's obviously based on the book of the same name. It's very close, follows the storyline. So that's a derivative work. The author who wrote that book entered into a licensing deal, I'm sure, with the studio and probably their publisher to negotiate that deal and what kind of percentage they would get and what rights. And, you know, did they have creative control over the movie and where that stopped? And because that movie was going to be a derivative work of the original book. So when you create these things, these are all rights that you automatically have. You don't have to do anything for them. And that's why you're able to license those other people. So if someone wants to partner with you, or you're in the business and you're really good at making art and making the content, but someone else is good at making t-shirts or stickers or buttons or making fabric or, um, you know, any of the other things that you can slice and dice your content and what you make, then that's who you're going to partner with. And that negotiation discussion in the world of licensing is what it's called when you decide how many of those rights are you going to give up at what price, for how long, and in what areas. Those are your big, you know, big negotiating terms that you have that you have to set out. And that you, you own all those rights, you own all those bundles of sticks, and then you get to decide, here's a little stick for you, here's a little Q-tip for you, here's like a giant redwood tip for you because you're paying me a lot of money and I trust you and I think you're going to do a good job for it. So, okay, so that's how all that shakes out. Now, to register a copyright— and now you're like, okay, Brittany, well, if I have all these rights in the beginning, why do people register a copyright? What's the purpose of that? So when you register your copyright, it's the process of going on to the '90s ghetto website that is the ECO, the Electronic Copyright Office, and to actually register your work. And when you do that, you basically are creating a public record that said, hey, I'm the creator, I created this thing, I think it's pretty cool, I think you guys should too, and I'm giving you notice, everyone in the whole world, that I created it at this date. And so if anyone else has a problem with it or tries to take it, um, this is going to be presumption is that I created it, I did it first, and it was available right here, and it was published at this point. Um, so what you do when you do that, within 3 months of publishing it, which a lot of people— there's some debate in lawyer circles about what does publishing mean in our day and age, but most people think it's like anytime you put something online. So I would say if you put anything on your website, if you post it to social media in any way, like I would argue it's published, and that serves you best to think of it as published that way to protect you. That as soon as you do that, the clock is ticking. You have 3 months to register this thing. And why, why, why, why, why you want to register it is you get benefits. Okay, you get some really special, ooh, sexy legal perks when you register it. Okay, you get the benefit of being able to claim statutory damages and attorney's fees. Okay, what does that mean? That means you can actually pay an attorney to take care of this and to stop someone from ripping you off. Okay, feasibly, that's what this means. Without those two things, it is very difficult for it to be worth someone's while to take on these cases. Which sucks. It sucks for small, independent, amazing artists who are doing really good work because it means they get ripped off a lot by bigger brands. They get ripped off by people overseas. They get ripped off by their neighbor who sends it to their overseas manufacturer and says, hey, I want fabric that looks just like this, can you do that? And they say, yes sirree, when do you want it, what type? And they just make it happen, which it happens a lot. So, so statutory damages mean that you don't have to prove that you lost money in something. You only have to prove that you created a thing they had access to it because you put it online and they created it and ripped it off after you. And you don't have to prove that you were hurt in any way, you just have to prove that those chain of events happen. And then you get an amount of money that can be anywhere from $70 to $130,000, okay, per infringement. Per infringement, okay? So someone rips off your whole collection, or you can tell they went on and, you know, took a bunch of your enamel pins or your you know, whatever it is that you make. There's, there's a lot of, a bunch of, you know, cases of this that have gotten more attention. Then you can collect damages and you can get people to stop, and/or you can get them to sign a licensing deal and says, okay, Mr. Rip-off artist, why don't you pay me as if we actually had a real deal, and you're going to be paying me this percentage of royalty fees for every single one of these items that's sold. So, okay, um, so that's what can happen there. And if you want more information on what to do when people rip off your stuff, okay, like a real-life battle plan, I recommend episode number 11, okay? Law and Wit episode number 11 talks all about that, what to do when people rip off your stuff. So it'll walk you through kind of the whole lineup of options that you have, and most importantly, it will talk you out of going public first thing. I know that it's the gut reaction, knee-jerk reaction that all of us want to do is like publicly shame someone and like burn their house down and like rally our community because you will. You'll get tons of people who'll be like, shame on them, and I can't believe this. But, but, but, um, and I'm not saying there might not be a place for that because there is, and that's— I talk about that, um, in, in my thing, um, in my episode. But there's also a time to look at some other options depending on what you want to happen, depending on making sure that you have full— you've had careful consideration of all of your options, um, and what you want to do before, again, before you start closing those doors, okay? Just take a deep breath, go vent to your mom or a friend or, you know, go write yourself a letter or something before you just jump online. Okay, so make sure you take a look at that. Okay, and the other resource that I want to mention— actually, I have— so besides that, what to do when people rip off your stuff— oh, and definitely on that episode, so— and you can find it at brittanyritell.com/11 if you want to go straight to the episode webpage. There is a handout that I have that's What to Do When People Rip Off Your Stuff that'll walk you through exactly. So if you don't have time to listen to that episode and you're like, hey, I just want the quick guide, that's where you're going to find that. Okay, I'll put links to the show notes. The other resource that I have for you, free resource, is I have a new handout that's kind of based— that will— that goes along with this show that's all about the top 12 things that creatives can protect. Okay. And this is in looking at what copyright law can do and not do for you, what are the copyrights and the copy wrongs that I most commonly see from people in terms of the questions, what can I protect and what can I not? This answers that, okay, from what I see in modern digital creative, creative, you know, creativepreneur businesses. So you can get that also, link in the show notes, and you can also find that at brittanyratelle.com/40, as in episode 40, 4-0, okay? And that's where you could find that resource. So, um, I spent a lot of time creating these handouts and freebies for you guys, so please take advantage of those and don't let them sit in your inbox. Don't let them sit in an abyss in a folder somewhere. Make sure, you know, take a look at them, print them out, share them, and, and make sure they're helping you in your business and moving forward and answering some of those questions that you want. So, and I understand that sometimes when you're listening on the go that you can't take notes, or you want to be able to follow up and have something to actually sink your teeth in, like a takeaway from the episode. So that's what these are about. Okay. All right. So, and that wraps up kind of our discussion of copyright. So for trademarks, I'm actually going to refer you to my past episode, which is the 6 ways that a trademark can protect your business, which is episode 24. Okay. And so that's going to give you more information about trademark and trademark law and what that process looks like and why you want to have a trademark to protect it. If you are listening to this, this week I have a trademark giveaway going on that ends on Friday, so, um, Friday at midnight. So if you're listening to this timely, make sure you've been following me on Instagram. And you have to follow me and then follow Kim Christiansen, No Talk Wordy to Me, who was on my previous episode. And we have a sweet business branding kit giveaway, and we're giving away a free trademark and an hour of kind of her copyright branding consult time, which is amazing because that's something that she charges a lot for, as she should, because she's really great and very talented at it. So, okay, so, um, that's what I'm sharing today. I hope that's helped you guys get a better handle on what you can protect and what you can't protect in your business. Um, and again, this is not to say that if I, in my listing of stuff, listed the thing that you do and you're like, well, shoot, like, I like everything I do, like, I can't actually protect it and anyone else can do it. That says nothing about your value, one, as a human, okay? I believe that you're created in the image of a divine creator, so that's pretty cool. And that you're worthy and had worth from birth as a human being, so that's awesome. Two, you are still a creator or a creative, and just because you can't protect the expression of something that you do doesn't mean that no one— it doesn't mean that other people can do it like you, okay? I really and honestly and truly believe that. And the more that I counsel and I talk with clients and we chat about strategy and what we can protect and what we need to let go and where does that dance come in between and how can they, you know, move forward and, well, there's people who already do what I do or someone already has a similar name or I don't know if I can do it. You know, we all suffer from that, you know, nagging voice in our head from the resistance that Steven Pressfield calls it. There's a place for it, and there's also a place for you to tell it to shut up and you've got work to do. Only you can do it like you can. You've got to make sure that you're feeding your mind and that you're doing your own thought work and that you're listening to the right kind of voices and influences that would allow you to have good constructive feedback, but then also to move forward with faith and confidence. That you can solve people's problems, you can be paid to solve people's problems, you can do that well, and you can do that well effectively, and in only a way that you can do it. And that's when you figure that out and you hone in and dig deep on those about what is your brand about, what is your story about, and what are you sharing with other people, um, then you're going to find that those things are very difficult for someone else to replicate in exactly the way that you do them. And you'll find that you've positioned yourself in a much better way to really, um, to use your creative gifts and talents to bless other people and to share what you love to do and to then uplift and solve problems and to make some money in the process. Okay, so, um, don't let any of this get you down, okay? Um, if you find yourself like, oh shoot, I— what I'm doing is not as creative as I want it to be. Um, and also if you've been on the bad end of, um, someone coming after you and saying, you know, I had, I had someone, you know, reach out to me on Instagram who said that, you know, because she She makes pillows, these really cute pillows, and someone had told her that her pillow, which had like a triangle on it, like leather triangle, that she had patented that pillow. Um, no, I'm sorry, I'm calling BS on that. All kinds of BS on that. You cannot patent a pillow, okay? There's no way that kind of pillow, like a throw pillow with a leather, with a triangle on it, is patentable. I'm sorry, but no. Like, Adam and Eve, I'm sure, sat on some pillows, okay? They were living out in like the Rocky desert walking around, okay, Bedouins from the Middle East who've been living in nomadic tribes for hundreds and hundreds of years, um, they are packing pillows, okay? So I'm not believing that you have some special market on pillows, okay? So if you are a pillow maker, that also should not discourage you, okay? Do your pillows, do them well, okay? Um, and also understand that there's creativity and there's parallel discovery and there's a lot that is a remix and there's and there's archetypes, and there's the hero's journey, and there's a lot that's similar and that resonates with people. And it's supposed to be that way because we're humans having human experiences, and we're going to connect over similar things. And I, you know, I totally believe in what Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic, that, you know, there is a muse, there's a, there's a force that's outside of us, that's external to us, and that gives us ideas. And when something is its time and it needs to be made manifest, it— if you won't listen and won't make it happen, it'll go to someone else. Um, and it will because things just need to happen. And there's, there's timing to that, which is why you'll see multiple people, um, will come up with similar things, or will— that's how trends happen is because it's, it's just the time for it. So that's why you'll see that happen. So, you know, you just— we need to all have a healthy, healthy view towards our creativity and the chance that we have to create meaningful work and share that with others, but also respect that there's other people in the space and that You know, we're not all— we're not all Einsteins here creating stuff from scratch, and that's okay. Okay, that's okay. Okay guys, I hope that's been helpful for you today. Please subscribe if you're not subscribed. Please leave a review if you haven't left a review. I love your stars, that's awesome, and if you can write a written review on iTunes, I really appreciate that. It allows other people to share and find the show, and it lets iTunes know that this is a legit show that's not some fly-by-night thing. Allows people to— for this to pop up in the results when they're trying to find information about being a creative, about being a creative business owner, and what that means for them. So thanks for your sharing and your shoutouts. I really appreciate all of it. It's the greatest thing that you can do to a content creator is to share their stuff. So I really appreciate that. And catch me on the flip side. I've got some more great interviews lined up for you guys and some more resources. Make sure that you're tuned in and connecting with me on Instagram. I'm @BrittanyRettell. That you're listening to my Legal Lives that happen on Tuesday night. That you subscribe to my newsletter, okay? Because I give a wrap-up from the episodes here from the podcast, and I also wrap up what we're talking about on Our Legal Lives. And so if one of those has questions that have to do with your business, then you'll see it and you'll be able to tune in. And again, you'll get dialed-in advice for where you're at in your business. Make sure to have a great week, everybody. Keep creating and just building that beautiful stuff out there. And remember that you are a real business owner. So make sure that you are owning your business in every sense of the word. Thanks.