Legal Q & A for Creative Entrepreneurs - Brittany Ratelle - Live IG replay

Hi, I'm Brittany Ratelle, and I am an attorney for small businesses, creatives, creative entrepreneurs, online business owners, um, all of those categories of people. I'm licensed here in Utah, and I've been taking clients in the space for the last few years and helping them with their businesses. But this year I just started to kind of make it more public, more official that I'm doing this kind of work and putting myself out there to make myself a resource. For people in the space. And so my website, my Instagram account are all fairly recent, but I've been doing this work for a while. So I'm here and I'm going to give this a few minutes to let people jump on, but I host these Q&As every Monday, every Monday at 1 o'clock Mountain Time, that's noon Pacific, for people to jump on and ask questions about their small business. So I know that attorneys can be kind of hard to get their ear sometimes, especially attorneys who get what you're doing in a modern business, especially if you have an online business, a creative business. So I want to try to break that, some of that down and make it easier for people to be able to get the answers that they need and that will help them move forward and get the resources that they need to build their businesses. So I'm going to give this a few more minutes and see if there's anyone else who jumps on before I answer today's question that I got. So I hope everyone has recovered from Halloween. I know that I still— I have Halloween down, but I haven't put up Thanksgiving stuff yet, and I'm still finding candy like all over my house. So it's a lot. I love Halloween. I really love Halloween, but it's hard to recover. So hi, Missy, thanks for joining us. So, and if you want to put in here in the comments what your business is, I always like knowing more about where people are so that I can answer their questions and kind of know and figure out more how I can better serve their businesses. So we'll give that a minute, and then I'll go ahead and answer the questions, any questions that you might have. Okay, I'll go ahead and get started. So this question was submitted today, and I knew that she told me she wasn't gonna be able to join me live, but I told her I post these to my Instagram stories and I put them on YouTube because I get that People might be busy, not be able to jump on with me, but I want to make them available after the fact. So, and the question I got was, what should I do, what should I trademark in my business? And I've talked a little bit about kind of intellectual property and the different strategies or different tools you kind of have in your toolbox in terms of what to protect your content. And the most common things that people decide to go through the actual trademark process, which is That's— I'm sure you've seen it. It's the little TM with the circle or the R with the circle. Those are the marks that designate that something's either trademarked or it's actually registered. You've actually received the registered mark, and that's the stronger one. The trademark means you've processed it, you put the application in. The R is what you get when you get it back and you get your actual fancy certificate. So, and a lot of people do their logo, and a logo obviously has graphic design elements to it. It's a graphic interface, and it will have colors. It will have, you know, a mark. It's the way you do your letters. It's going to be your recognizable picture, something graphic that someone sees and they know that's your business. So a lot of people do their logo. A lot of people do the name of their business. That's easier said than done if you have a name of your business is arbitrary, meaning it's a made-up word. It's not a descriptive mark. So that means if you are you own a pizza shop and you decide that it's going to be "The Pizza Shop," that's going to be a really hard name to trademark because "The Pizza Shop" is just a shop that sells pizza. And it's likely that, first of all, that someone else probably already has that name out there because it's not that original. And it's so descriptive of what you're doing that it's really hard— the Trademark Office has a really hard time giving you that designation and saying you're the only one who can use that because Anyone else who has a shop that sells pizza is going to have to use those words to describe what they do in their business. The more descriptive you are of what you're selling and what you're doing in terms of your name of your business, the harder it is to trademark. This is why people make up names for their businesses. That's why words like Google and Vivint and Xerox and Kodak, those are all made-up brand names. That's why it's easier to trademark is because those are arbitrary names. It's easier to get protection for those. The other thing a lot of people trademark is they trademark slogans. And this is a short word or phrase that would go along with your logo. So the kind of the 3 main ones are logo. Think of like the Nike symbol. This is a good example because a lot of people are familiar with this. The Nike, we have the swoosh, that would be the graphic element. You could trademark that. The "Just Do It," that's their slogan. And then the name of the company, Nike. So Nike has trademarked all 3 of those because they're all used as part of their brand recognition. And they're used interchangeably. In their marketing, their advertising. And so a lot of people do those main 3. And I would suggest that if you use those in your business and you are set on this is what it's gonna be, that you trademark and have trademark protection to all 3. After that, it kind of becomes a calculus of is it something that you're using enough that you wanna protect it? So if you are an online course creator and you sell an online product and it's like your main thing, like it's your main moneymaker, then it might be worth going through the trademark process for that. And you'll see some people who do that in terms of a tool or a product, a particular service that's highlighted in a certain way. You'll see them use the trademark or registered symbols because they recognize that, look, this thing is a big enough deal to me. I don't want someone using these same words in the same way. I want people to know when they see this that it's actually coming from me and it's identifying me and it's not someone else's, that it's the real McCoy. So And that's what a trademark is really supposed to be. It's supposed to serve the user, the customer. It's not about giving business owners, you know, a big old stick so they can beat down other people who copy them. It's supposed to give customers the reassurance that when they buy something that has a Nike mark on it, that it actually is from Nike. That's who made it and that's what they're buying from. So it's a way of giving them that protection. So, um, hi, I'm wondering about what kind of information do I need to have on my website, like how to gather emails for a fan base? Are there any leaves of off-calls to look out for there? Thank you for your question, Madison. So, on a website, everyone on their website, if you are collecting emails, needs to have a privacy policy. So, everyone needs to have basically a privacy policy, a user terms and condition, and this kind of sets the terms and condition of your website, and then you need to have, if you're offering any kind of advice, professional advice or quasi-professional advice, you need to have a disclaimer on there. If you're, say, an artist or creative, if you're a singer or— just spitballing here— then you probably just need to have a privacy policy and terms and conditions. And the next follow-up question I get is, well, Brittany, where can I get those? And you have a lot of options. If you want to go free, then you can go online and find some for free. But I will put a caveat on that. The issue I have with those is that a lot of people buy those policies and are not exactly sure if the promises they're making in terms of those policies match up to what their business practices are. And especially if they're changing a lot, if they're experimenting with email marketing and segmenting, if they're using affiliate commissions, meaning they're gathering information from people who are buying stuff on their websites, they're collecting cookies and pixels— sorry if I'm speaking Chinese to you— but anyway, they're spying on people who come to their website and they're doing stuff with that data. They're giving it to Google, they're giving it to Amazon, they're giving it to other applications and providers of services. So, my one caveat is, is that for your privacy policy, if you are engaged in kind of any of these extra activities in terms of, and that's the way you make money and that's what you do with people's data and that's part of your business, then I would really counsel you to consult with an attorney and make sure that your privacy policy is drafted and it's actually a good one with what you're doing. So, if all you're doing is collecting emails, then you could probably find one on the internet, a privacy policy generator, and it's probably gonna be fine. 'Cause all you wanna make sure is that you are making it clear that once you collect that email, what are you doing with it? Are you selling it? Are you gonna share it? What if you collaborate with someone someday? Then are you gonna share it or sell it? What if someone buys you out? Are you gonna pass on that information because that's part of your goodwill, part of the business assets that you have? So you wanna make it clear what that information is. So, you know, a lot of times on the email pop-up boxes, you know, that say subscribe to my list, they'll say like, 'We don't spam,' and I laugh when I see that because I'm like, well yeah, no one, duh. First of all, no one's gonna tell you that they spam, so even spammers won't tell you that they spam. Second of all, what do you mean by spam? Is the expectation that I'm just gonna get a weekly email from you? Am I gonna get more than a weekly email? Are you going to share my information? If you do a joint venture with someone, if you sign up and you're gonna have some like information webinar with someone, are you going to give my email address to them, or are you guys going to just separately have access to your email list? So, so those are some of the most common issues I see that I don't think people have quite thought through. So make sure you have gone through that thought process when you're talking about your privacy policy. So hopefully that answers your question, Madison. So, um, and, uh, yeah, the legal obstacles. But again, I highly recommend— everyone recommends you should be collecting emails. You know, the money's in the list. Algorithms change, social platforms change all the time, so you need to have control over reaching those people and have a way to get to them consistently. So you're welcome. Thanks, thanks for your question. So, um, again, I'm Brittany Ratelle. I'm an attorney for creatives and online entrepreneurs. I host these every Monday. If you have a question that you want to have, you can put it in the comments. I have just a few more minutes before I'll need to hop off and go check on my children, so So, who are playing in their playroom with Legos and hopefully not beating each other. But I help creatives, I help a lot of influencers, people who are podcasters, bloggers, who are course creators, people who own music businesses. Those are some of kind of the clients and typical business owners, small business owners that I help with their stuff. So, and some of the services that I offer, I help people register their businesses, so I help them pick out If they need to be an LLC, I help them become an LLC. I help with getting their contracts set up, so if they have customer contracts, I draft those, and I also have a library, so if one that I don't need a custom draft but I just have it, sometimes I can give a better price because I can get one of the ones that's in my library for them. Also help with contracts between people, so if you're doing a collaboration with someone. And then the other service, the other, Common services that I do for people are intellectual property stuff. So I do a lot with copyrights, trademarks. I don't do patents, but I have some recommendations if you need help with patents. If you have a question, put it in the comment box. I'm here to help you. I'm here as a resource to let you know what I can help you with your small business. And I try to get on here every Monday, and so if you have, if something is coming up in your business or you have a friend that might have another business issue that I can help with, let them know that I'm here every Monday at the same time at 1 o'clock Mountain, noon Pacific to answer their questions. And I do post these to my story, so if you miss this or you think someone else needs to hear this and they missed it, these will be on my stories for the next 24 hours and I also put them on YouTube so you can get to 'em from my website or from my Facebook page, so. Um, there's not any other questions, then I'll, I'll excuse myself and get going. Um, it's also another reminder, so if you are looking to have more help with what's the business stuff, what do I need to do for my small business, I'm lost here, Brit, I don't, I don't know anything about this, um, sign up for my newsletter, please. I have— I give out tips every week in my newsletter about maybe some stuff that you should be working on or where you should be in the process. It's totally free. I really try to make it funny and applicable to people, short and sweet. I get that you're busy and your inbox is full. We all get it. We all have full inboxes, like everyone. But you can find that on BrittanyRatelle.com/newsletter is where you can sign up for that. I also have a free small business legal cheat sheet that you'll get when you sign up to get added to my newsletter list. And that kind of gives just a bird's eye perspective, it's just a one-page sheet of kind of, these are the main buckets of things to think about as you're setting up your business. A little bit about forming a business, a little bit about copyright and trademarks, a little bit about contracts, a little bit about employment. So, and the big thing there is that make sure when you hire someone if they are an independent contractor or an employee. Make sure that you know the difference and that you've thought about their role and make sure that they're gonna be classified right and make sure that they have the same expectation too. That's where I see a lot of problems with people is that tension between that because it's a big deal if that they are— you thought they were an independent contractor and you could just 1099 them and really you're treating them like an employee and getting to control their work like an employee because then you owe self-employment taxes and Medicaid and payroll taxes and everything else in which you likely have not been collecting if you thought that they were just an independent contractor. There's a lot more that you have to think about as a business owner. So hope that you build a team, but just keep that in mind. So, alright, I think I've rambled enough for today, so I'll get going. But thanks so much for joining me here, and subscribe to the newsletter if you can. Follow me on Instagram, and I hope this is helpful for you and your business. You know, you got this. Fist bumps. #BossBabes all the way. Okay, bye.