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

Okay, hello everybody. Welcome to the latest edition of my Legal Live. So I'm going to give it a few minutes and let it jump on. Okay, sorry, I'm trying to get Facebook and Instagram all— hey guys, can we jump on? Tell me where you're from and/or tell me what type of business you have. If you only had to put it in one word, what you do. I know sometimes that is really tough for us creatives and entrepreneurs and what we do. But, um, so yeah, share where you're from and share what you do, and, uh, because it's always especially fun if there's someone else in the group, in the audience there. Um, you guys can connect over what you do, make friends, you know, win friends, influence people, all those good things. Okay, um, and then I'm gonna get started. Sorry for being a few minutes late, but I was trying to get all the questions together because I had some on my post and then some in my Instagram story, so And we're going to try to get to everything tonight, and I'm also then going to take any questions that you guys have. So if you have things that are coming up— ooh, clay and fiber artist! I love, gosh, working with fiber. You know, if I ever quit this day job, then I'm, I'm going to be with you guys. So I love knitting and crocheting. So too, um, okay, I— first things first, I do have to share my little disclaimer because like, what kind of attorney would I be if I didn't have some sort of little disclaimer, right? Okay. So my name is Brittany Ratelle, and I am an attorney for creative entrepreneurs. That's my jam. That's what I do. I'm licensed in Utah. I'm licensed in Idaho. And depending on what I do for clients, I have clients all over the US. So, and, but this, this, this, and this is not an attorney-client relationship. This is not official legal advice in the sense that you take everything that I have to say as gospel and you run with it and you don't check anything about how it applies to your business, your particular set of facts in your jurisdiction. Okay. So, if you have any questions or follow-up on what I'm talking about tonight, please go talk to somebody. Go find someone who does small business law, who does transactional law, who knows about social media law, internet law. You know, some of these are kind of newer areas of law and so not all attorneys are well-versed in them. So, you know, do your homework, ask some questions, but find someone who can help you whether or not that's me or somebody else. So if you want to work one-on-one with me, the way that you start that is you sign up to like get on a free consult call with me and then we talk about your business. Okay, and that's at my website, um, brittanyratelle.com. Okay, okay, um, so let's get going because we've got a lot of stuff. Oh, food photography! Oh gosh, I love food photography. I mean, I love eating and like I like looking at pretty things, so of course that's all great. So I love it. Typography prints from Utah, sewist Fabulous. Okay, so yeah, tell me what you guys do when you jump on. Okay. All right. Well, I got this question in a couple different forms, so I think this is a good place to start because this is the, the question is, where do I start? You know, people saying like, I'm in the business, I'm making money, which is great. Congrats. Congrats for making money. That's awesome. You know, probably the number one thing in business that we should be working on. Um, where do I start? It all seems a bit overwhelming. Um, So I'm going to mention some resources here because, as you can imagine, I get this question a lot. And so it's a good thing, um, so I've, I've got some resources for you guys. I have some tools for you. Okay, um, so the first thing that I want to direct you to is I have a legal checklist, okay, that's a one-page that walks you through the most common things and like where you could start and looking at your business and kind of the legal areas. Um, and you can get this, this is kind of my freebie that I give out at BrittanyRatelle.com/checklist. Okay, so BrittanyRatelle.com/checklist. Okay, and yes, you get added to my newsletter, which is awesome, which includes like the link to all of these that I put out so that if you miss one of these or you want to go back and look at my archive, I, I always put what the questions are that we talked about so that you can see, oh, that applies to me. I would love to hear Brittany's answer to that. Then you can look. Um, but this will walk you through the most common areas of like where you start, and I promise I do it in a non-condescending sending non-judgmental way, um, bite-sized so that you guys don't get overwhelmed. Um, and you know, you just tackle it one bit at a time. And I think that's probably what a person was asking. You know, a lot of it is just, it's mindset. And I get that, like, legal is like— let's face it, I, I can, I can, I can be honest here— legal is not the most sexy part of running your business. Totally get this. Um, and it's right up there with root canals and buying insurance and tires and all of that. Um, But, but you can totally handle this. You can figure it out one thing at a time, one small little bite. You can make steps to get your business legit, to protect your assets, to protect your revenue streams, to make sure that you're doing things in a way that's fair to your community, to your audience, to your industry, and also protecting and keeping doors open for where you want to grow and maneuver as, as things grow and scale and you have more diverse offerings and a more diverse presence, and you hire helpers, and you sign the book deal, and you have the online course, and you're doing in-person events. Like, this is what I see happening, and all that stuff is awesome and will bring new level, new devil, and that's great, and that's okay, and you— we can handle that. You can handle that, okay? So I always recommend people, if they haven't started anywhere for their business, is to get their EIN, okay? That's their tax ID number. That's like level 1 that you can do. You can do that not tonight because Weirdly enough, the IRS website that hands those out has hours, but you can do it tomorrow first thing, okay? And set up some separate bank accounts for your business. Um, next thing I would say is go and then like your merchant processor and stuff. Um, go get your LLC set up, okay? The one caveat is that if you live in California where it's hella expensive to set this up, um, and you're making like little or like no money yet, then you could probably wait on that, um, because it's like $900. You have to pay a franchise tax fee which sucks. But pretty much any other state, it's under $100. Do not pay some online thing. Do not pay LegalDoom or like some LLC Generators with like a Z in it, you know, some like dinky thing money to set this up. Okay? You can do it on your own. Go to your Secretary of State website, like Google that for your state. It'll have an online form. You just have to like fill out the questions, answer them, and say like you're not, you know, transporting fuel across state lines or something crazy. I mean, you can set up your LLC. Okay? If you have partners with you, then go pay to have someone help you with an operating agreement. That's where you want to put your money. Okay? You don't need to pay money to set up an LLC. You can totally do it. Okay? I believe in you. I believe in you. And next thing is to kind of just start looking at where are you making your money and how can you protect that? Is it products? Okay, let's make sure that everything around products in terms of where they're sourced and how they're getting to clients is protected. Services, especially if it's client services, then we want to look at those contracts, okay, that are governing those services and make sure those are good and legit and cover what they need to cover and you're not getting scope creep and you're not having rights problems and you're not having problems getting paid and all of those. If you're a content creator, then we want to look at intellectual property because that is the money, baby. This is the money maker. Or like this, whatever you create, whether it's beautiful hand lettering or you're a video YouTuber or You're a photographer or whatever it is that you do, whatever your content creation is. You're a blogger, influencer, podcaster. That is what you want to protect is your content. So you want to be looking at copyright and trademark and some probably combination of contract to protect what you do. Okay, um, the episodes that I would recommend to you— I have a podcast— um, our episode 34 is Where Do I Start? So appropriately named, that will be— I have a really good overview of where to start. Okay, so that's Lon Witt. Episode 34. Um, the next one are, um, I was going to say the next question that I had was like, how do I copyright or trademark something? So with that, um, I'd recommend listening to Episode 24, is 6 Ways a Trademark Can Protect Your Brand, and Episode 40 is What You Can and Can't Protect. Okay, um, so that's, um, yes, you're right, in California it's waived in your first year if you don't owe that much. You're right. So that's an important caveat that, um, if you don't make that much money in your first year, it's waived. So I just always want people to know that in California there's a little bit of an asterisk in terms of the LLC cost that's not there in other jurisdictions. So, um, okay, um, how do I copyright— the next question was, how do I copyright something internationally? Um, great question. It depends on where you want to copyright something. So, um, there are different countries that have signed on to different conventions. Um, the Berne one is the Berne— Berne— Berne, however you want to say that. Um, is the, like, the Madrid Protocol is the largest one. So it depends on that country where you want to copyright, or set of countries, is part of that protocol. Um, a lot of people will register in the US first and then they will use that as the basis to register internationally. So, um, and that goes for copyright and trademark. So that's probably what I would recommend because it's likely that you are going to be selling to the US market and you want those US protections anyway. So, um, should I copyright or trademark my brand name or my doing business as name? So for this, my question would be for you is, you know, it's a little bit of a cost-benefit analysis, but if you would be heartbroken if you couldn't use your name anymore, meaning someone else has this name and you get a cease and desist someday in the mail that says, hey, we see ya, now you've gotten to be a big enough deal that we've noticed you, whatever it is that you're selling, we're gonna need you to stop because we think it's deceiving our customers and and in fact we also want damages. Um, it's likely someone won't leave with that, but you never know. People can be jerks, or they can hire jerky attorneys. Um, so you don't want that to happen. Um, or you'd be disappointed that you couldn't use your name, um, just because you weren't aware and you didn't do the homework. Especially if you get to a certain product category, like, oh, you can be in clothing, but you can't have this name and sell accessories, which can be different, or luggage, or this is your blog, but now you're doing like in-person events or something, and now you can't have it in this space. So if you have bigger visions of what you want to do with your brand, then I definitely think trademark is a really smart step. If you, again, you're, you're in love and you really like your name and it means something to you, I think trademark's a great step. So especially because part of the trademark process is doing a really thorough search to know what else is out there so you don't have any surprises, so you can really feel safe that you've done the clearance to know that you can use this, the name of this business, going forward. So, um, and in terms of logo, um, if you want to protect your logo, um, the, the steps and the two tools you can use— you can copyright the logo if it's like an artsy logo. If it's just words or something really simple design, it's not going to get copyright protection. It's considered not artistic and creative enough. Um, but, and you can also trademark a logo. So this is why I like the Nike swoosh. You know, Nike has all three elements. It has Nike, the name of the company, trademark, the swoosh, trademark as a service mark, the logo, and also "Just Do It" as a slogan is also protected, along with like hundreds of other things. You know, they have the name of product lines, and obviously they've got all the money in the world, so if they just, you know, think about offering a product, they're going to trademark it. So, and the episodes that you want to listen to again of Lon Witt are number 11 is Copyright Versus trademark. That's a really helpful one if you're thinking about which tool fits where. Episode 24, 6 Ways to Trademark and Protect Your Brand, and Episode 40, What You Can and Can't Protect— that's a more recent one that I did— um, that can really help you like kind of narrow down like what is it about your special sauce and about your brand that you can and should be putting energy into, um, and what can't you and you should kind of just move forward. And if people are going to try to copy or, you know, rip you off, like let it be. Um, that kind of goes through that dance. It's kind of the basis of what is going to be in my new course that's going to come out, Rip Off Resilient, next month. Okay. All right. So hopefully that answers that question. So let's see, did I get any follow-up questions from that? Okay. I don't think so. Okay. If you guys have follow-up questions while I'm talking about this, you can go ahead and put it in the comment box right there. Okay. Next question was, when can you quote a dead author? My follow-up question here, can you tell that I'm an attorney? I like the cross-examination. It depends if you are doing— using like just like a quote from an author. Um, you know, like for example, like I have this beautiful Golden Coil planner and they have quotes from people at the bottom of each of the pages. Like here, you know, they have like pretty quotes at the bottom. I'm pretty sure they did not go to and ask permission from Eleanor Roosevelt's estate to use that quote. And that's fine, like they're not going to get in trouble for using a quote like that. Now, if you're going to be using something that's like an entire work that someone did and you want to adapt that or use that, and the question is, is that in the public domain yet? That gets very tricky because there are different— the law has changed over time, so it depends on when it was created, when it was published, if it was registered as a copyright, and when that date was. So I recommend, um, you know, finding out what's the source material that you're interested in and then Google Cornell public domain. Cornell University has this really amazing chart that goes through and will show you, okay, here's when something was published, this is how many years plus the life of the author. If they're dead, then how many years after that you have to wait before something goes in the public domain. So generally anything before 1923 that was published is now in the public domain, which is good to know. So if there's anything you find earlier than that, that was— and that means artwork, literature, poetry, anything— you can use that. Like, all of the works of Shakespeare are in the public domain now, so that's why you can print Shakespeare. There's no one you have to talk to about licensing that. You can just do it. So, but if there's things that are more contemporary that are in from that time period, 1923 on, then consult that chart so you know for sure, um, that you're going to be in the clear. Um, okay, next question, um, was, oh, do I— if I'm sending product for free for a shout out, so kind of use like influencer marketing for something, um, do I need to send a contract or should I be using a contract? So, um, I mean, lawyer answer here is, would a contract be a great idea? Yes, yes it would. Does that mean that you're going to do it? Um, my, my thoughts here are, um, are people screwing you over? Are you sending product and it's understood that you are sending products in exchange for something, that they are going to be either creating content or giving you a review or a testimonial or a shout out or something? Um, and you guys had some sort of discussion, like you DM them or you had an email about it, and then they're reneging on that? Um, then yeah, contract would be nice because it would mean more set stone. Um, now keep in mind that if you're doing this in exchange of product for a shout out, um, they need to be doing FTC disclosures. So, um, and if it were me, because you can be on the hook and they can be on the hook for it, um, I would remind people because not all influencers are up on this and they're savvy about this and they're disclosing like they should. Some of them just think if it's like an official contract with Disney they have to disclose, but like, oh I got a free night at a hotel, like people send me things because I'm beautiful. No, people send you things because they want you to post about it. So make sure you're using, and of course the easiest way to do that is to do hashtag ad or just ad, you don't have to do the hashtags, but you can if you want to, or sponsored, okay? Things like partner, collaborations, thanks to, SP, not as clear, like nope, nobody knows what that means. So FTC, the Federal Trade Commission has given their blessing on the words ad and sponsored. So that's what I recommend to my clients. That's what I demand get put into contracts to protect everybody. Um, those are the ones that have been given the special dispensation, the magic words. So, um, as you get— if you're selling, if you're dealing with a larger influencer and you're sending them a whole bunch of product, or, um, if you are doing product and plus you're paying somebody, then I definitely would suggest that you get a a good influencer marketing, you know, sponsored content agreement. Um, I happen to sell these in my contract shop, so in creativecontracts.co. Um, and I also have a podcast episode that's all about what does a solid influencer marketing agreement— what should it have? That's episode 17. Okay, so Long Wit episode 17, so what you want to listen to for that. Um, okay, next question. Um, insurance policy. Um, someone's asked, um, you know, I've gotten an insurance policy, but they're a caterer and looking like As I'm moving up, and some venues require like a, like a bigger, you know, policy, which is true, you know, if you're catering out like some big fancy place, they're going to be like, yeah, we want to make sure you're licensed and bonded and insured and whatnot. Um, will your employees be covered by that? Uh, that you're gonna have to check your policy. So it's likely, and it should be, that in a good general liability policy is going to cover any W-2 employees, um, you know, that are working for you, any of your, you know, agents or however they describe it. It may not be as clear if it covers your contractors. So if you have 1099 people who are working for you, so that I would definitely— you're going to read through your policy, ask your agent, but read it through yourself because who knows if your agent is savvy or not, or they're just looking to make their quota for the month. Um, no, I'm not trying to throw shade on insurance agents, I'm just saying like they, they, they, they got to make money. They're going to look out for their number one, and so do you. Um, so I'd make sure you read through that. The biggest advice that I would, um, suggest when you're getting in, getting any kind of general business insurance, is just make sure that your agent really understands what your business is. This is not the time to be coy about what the actual risks are, like what you're doing. You know, if you are in a food business, then make sure you let them know, like, hey, this is what we're doing or not doing about food allergies, or this is the kind of material that we're working with, you know, at this stages in this scale. So you just want to make sure someone is really understanding what your business is doing and what it's not doing so that they can advise you properly and that you're not paying for something you don't need, but you're also not under covering— you're getting— you're in an undercover situation because you weren't really up, you know, you weren't being upright about what your actual needs were. What your actual needs were. So, um, forthright— that's the word I was looking for. Okay, um, so that's about insurance. So another, you know, sexy topic, almost, almost up there with the, with legal stuff. Okay, um, next question that someone had is, how do you stop an aggressive competitor from trolling your business? Oh, this is a good one. Okay, um, I guess my follow-up here is, what exactly do you mean by trolling? Like, are they leaving nasty comments on your posts? Are they like copycatting you? Are they ripping you off? Are they like, you know, whatever, whenever you post, they use the same text and just redo it? Um, are they taking your pictures? Are they DMing you bad stuff? Or are they, are they in a very similar space trying to what looks like doing a very similar way of doing business to you? Um, and that would, I guess, determine what the appropriate level of response is. Obviously you can block them if you want to so they can't follow you. If that's an issue. If they're making any threats of violence or harm against you, that's something you can and should take action on. If they're just being a jerk or being rude, legally there's not really anything you can do. Like, is that a scummy way to operate as a human being? Yeah, definitely. And then in terms of copycatting, I would refer you back to go listen to my episode number 40 that I just came out with, along with what you can and can't protect. Is going to really help you work through some of the things that are protectable elements of your brand, your business, your content, um, and what is not. And we'll let you— we'll get you in a better headspace to try to make those decisions on what you should be investing in and what you should put energy into protecting. And hey, we're going to draw a line in the sand here. This isn't good for our industry or community or the arts, um, and this is stuff we got to let go. So for lots of different reasons. So Okay, next question was, how do I use a phrase from a movie on like products or merchandise? So, and can I do that? Okay, technically no, but do people do it all the time? Yeah, they sure do. So technically anything that has been in a movie is going to be protected by copyright. I'm sure they register the copyright for the movie, which, you know, would include all the words that were part of the script. However, a movie is a big, big work, and if you're just taking one line, you know, "Hasta la vista, baby," okay, that'd be from Terminator, then that's just one tiny, tiny little piece of a really, really big work. So is that going to be considered copyright infringement? Probably not, you know, but is it worth it to build a whole product line around that? Maybe, you know, I don't know, because yeah, are there people who they do that and they put something cool on a bag or a tote bag or on a shirt and they sell it on Etsy and they sell a bunch and they don't have a problem? Yes. And then are there companies that are super aggressive about their intellectual property and might come after you? Disney. Yeah. Um, and that's typically more for like licensed characters. You see that. Um, I, I don't see that as much in terms of quotes from movies, but it's just something you need to be aware of in terms of, um, if you're going to invest a whole lot of money, just be prepared that that could always happen, that you could get a cease and desist. So I just, I don't want it, I don't want to lead you astray. So as much, which is I know painful to hear because I love movie quotes, I love TV quotes, um, it's one of the pillars of my, of my marriage with my husband. And yeah, it would, that I know that's, that sounds like a bummer that you can't use all this good material out there, but, um, just be aware that technically It could be considered infringement. Okay, um, let's see, next question. Oh, sell on Etsy, do I need a business license or an LLC? Um, you don't need a business license. I mean, it's your city's prerogative. That's who cares about business licenses, or your city or your county. And most of the time, like, I've seen those localities, um, don't care about your business unless you have people in your home or some sort of like footprint. You know, if you're running a virtual business, if you are making screen printing vinyl t-shirts in your house and then sending them out, they don't care. They don't— you don't need to have a business license. So if you have stuff where you're, you know, using chemicals or there's noise or there's people coming to your house, I would get a business license. And then LLC, you know, goes back to my, my first answer here. It just depends on if you want that protection that comes from an LLC. An LLC, a limited liability company, puts a fence in between your personal property and your business property. So it makes a nice little delineation. So if anyone has a problem with your business, it stays with your business and it doesn't touch your personal things. So that's really great if you get sued. I mean, it's not really great to get sued, but you know what sucks when you get sued is that you get sued and it kills your bank account, your personal bank account, or your equity in your home, or what's in your 401(k) or what you own with your spouse. So LLC puts a nice little fence in there that says, hey, I see you, I see you messing with my business. Good thing you can only touch my business. You can't touch me over here where I have my personal assets. So depending on what you do and how much money you're making, an LLC is a really, really smart thing to do. And in terms, it does not change your tax liabilities. It's pass-through taxation, so it doesn't change anything about taxes. Now, if you want to be taxed as an S-Corp someday, what's cool is an S-Corp is a hybrid where you get to stay as an LLC and then get taxed at the corporate level. And that's usually advantageous for you when you're making and drawing around like a $50,000 salary from your business. So, but it's an accounting nerd question. So, mm, accounting nerd. That's a lightsaber. That's a lightsaber, guys. Okay, that's my nerd symbol. So that's something you want to be checking with your accountant with. So hopefully you have a good accountant or a bookkeeper who's keeping track of your numbers, and they will like raise a hand up and be like, hey, I think we should switch to an S corp this year, okay, or this quarter, because you're doing awesome. So it's a good problem to have. So just FYI, okay. Um, but on Etsy, the thing that I'm always more— and I tell my Etsy-ers— is that make sure that your name is not something that's the name of another company, because I have had multiple clients that I have helped who were running Etsy shops, and then when they started doing really well and making some traction on Etsy, um, that's when they got a cease and desist letter that said, hey, that's my name of my company that I sell in and that I've trademarked, and, um, you're gonna need to knock it off. And now they have to rebrand and close their shop and, um, and do all that. So, which is not fun. And then try to scramble and get a domain. And anyway, so, um, that's what I would be more concerned about, is, um, make sure you have the rights to use your name, whatever your cute name— I'm sure it's cute— of your Etsy shop is. Um, okay, next question is, can photographers charge to shoot like MLM products, like stock photos? Um, this one is a little tricky because if you're taking the picture, like you have a right to take a picture of something, um, you'll own the rights to it. Um, but the question is, are these pictures— is the content gonna look like it's, um, because it's showing labels, you know, product labels that in which likely have trademark and have, um, you know, licensing. These are licensed licensed logos or licensed names or products on there? Are they going to look like that you are— that someone's going to confuse those with property, intellectual property that belongs to actually that MLM? So that one, I'm going to say I need some more time to look into. So I certainly— I think that's a really great business idea to do that, but— and it might depend on what— if there's any restrictions that those companies have put on terms of using product photography. And saying like, hey, if we don't allow shots, you know, that you just have to use our product shots that we provided with you, which would be silly, especially now because so many people like their, you know, if you're an essential oils influencer or whatever and that's what you're selling, like you're gonna want natural shots of those in like cute little flat lays that you're doing. So my guess is yes, but you might just want to be, you might have to be just careful and disclaiming and making sure people understand that you are not representing, that you're affiliated with the company, um, that's, that's making these products. Um, anyway, and that's not what you're selling. So, um, okay, next question. Basic way— what's the basic way to draft a contract? So, um, go to law school. No, I know that's a flippant answer. I'm sorry. Um, uh, yeah, okay, so if you— so I'm just— I'm gonna pretend like if you have no budget for legal, like if we're looking like a big fat like verruca goose egg here, Um, um, you want to have something in writing, okay? So that's going to protect you. Something in writing is always going to protect you in something that's not, um, in writing. Um, and then it's good to have just what are the basic terms, what are you guys agreeing to do? So, um, if you can describe that in language that you understand is clear to both of you, that's better than nothing, okay? I would suggest you listen to my episode, that's episode 13 of Law and Wit, is 10 Contract Terms You Need to Know. So this will walk you through kind of the most important terms that I see people not paying attention to or overlooking or not understanding in contracts. And this will kind of get your juices flowing of things that you need to address. And if you have a little bit of budget, or if you're working towards— what I would put next in your budget is go buy a decent template. And yes, I happen to sell these. So is that a complete pony-up plug for myself? It is. Yes, it is. So I have a template shop, creativecontracts.co, where I sell legal templates, the most common ones that I get asked out again and again because I think it's ridiculous for you to have to pay an attorney, you know, hundreds. I've seen thousands of dollars people have to pay, and people have paid to get some of these really simple agreements. And they're all attorney drafted by me, industry tested. I don't put things on there after unless they've gone through a couple derivatives and I've edited them and seen what do people like, what's confusing. They all have like custom color highlighted so you can make sure this is stuff you maybe want to use. These are the 4 different ways you can choose to get paid. Pick your adventure. These are terms that you should keep in. These are ones you could delete if you're not running like social stuff on your website. You know, I make it really idiot, idiot-proof. Not that you guys are idiots, but getting this stuff wrong is idiotic, okay? So that you can use it for your business. So anyway, I just had a sale on that stuff, so I'm not going to have another sale. Until November, um, but I really try to price them competitively in terms of what's out there. So, um, so take a look if you need a legal— some templates, especially if you need your website bundle. If you need your privacy policy and your website terms and you don't have any disclaimers or disclosures, or are not sure if you need those, um, uh, it's $199 for all of that, plus all the instructions on how to put it on your— and what you need, walk you through, um, That's my website bundle, and that's my most popular thing that everyone needs. So, um, which brings me to my next question: what does a privacy policy and website needs for your site? Um, and yeah, the basic question there is you do— your answer is you need both of those for your website. So no matter what kind of website you have, if it is— you are hosting it. So like, if you are on Etsy, you don't need this, but if you're on anything else, doesn't matter your platform that you're using, if it's a Wix or Squarespace or Shopify or WordPress or whatever, um, you need these two legal documents. You need a privacy policy and you need website terms. They should be in your footer. They should be available from one click away from anywhere on your website, and they need to discuss what info you collect from your website, what you do with it, what you store it for, how long, if you have any other apps or service providers or third-party integrations that use data. Like, this is all stuff that needs to go in your privacy policy. It needs to discuss the age for kids and if you have any content for people under 13, um, so it needs to comply with COPPA and CALOPA and GDPR. So, um, moral of the story is you might just want to buy a template that covers all this and that has— that walks you through so you know that you're good to go. Um, your website terms should cover if you sell anything, it should cover, you know, how are you going to sell, it should cover copyright and licensing. Of the content on your website, your refund policy, your exchange policy, your chargeback policy. Um, you should cover shipping. It should cover, um, if you have any social elements on your website, what are the rules. It's, it's like your clubhouse rules for your website so that you're setting up. So, and then if you need any disclaimers or disclosures, you need to have that. If you have anything bordering on, uh, you know, a professional advice field, if you are giving out legal advice financial advice, medical advice, mental health advice, or anything that looks like that kind of advice— hint, hint, anyone in health or wellness, okay, because you guys play fast and loose with, um, the medical advice stuff all the time— then you need to make sure you have appropriate disclosures, disclaimers. If you are talking about your earnings, you need that on your website. If you're, if you're using testimonials, you need to make sure those are legit. If you have ads on your site, if you have affiliate links on your site, then you need those legal documents. So all of that is all included in my website bundle. Okay, so I put it all in there for you. It's the one thing you need to buy to solve that big headache, and it's done. All the hearts, that's what I thought. The Doyle rules. Okay, I told you guys I really like legal quotes. Okay, um, and the last question I have here, and then I'll get to anything else, um, so you guys queue up if you have any other questions. Um, do I need a cookies disclaimer? I know you guys have probably seen this all over. This happens because of GDPR, which came out last year, the European Data Regulation. Um, and basically the law says that if you have people from the EU on your websites, that you need to tell them if you're using cookies, um, or not. And a lot of websites, because they're not confident that they can screen whether someone's from the EU or not, like everyone's just decided to put these disclaimers on your website, the cookie notice. So, um, your options are you can go and look for your And you can— there's a couple like WordPress plugins or plugins or whatever that can say, hey, we can, we can screen people from the EU and we can just give the cookie notice to them. That's great if you have confidence in that solution. If not, then you can put a cookie notice on the bottom for everybody. Um, so it's not as big a deal if you don't have a lot of traffic from the EU, but if you do, or if you just have a lot of traffic period and the juice isn't worth the squeeze, then I would make sure you have that on your website. So, and the good news now is now because we're a year out from GDPR, most of the websites and website platforms have some implementation and features that address this because they know it's a big deal to you now. So the same with like your email marketing opt-ins, everyone's making sure that when you give a freebie for somebody, you're making it very clear that they can get the freebie and that they're being added to your list. We're not playing like, we're not pulling a fast one on them, like, ooh, we're over here in the corner adding your email to our list and no one knows that this is what's going on. Like, yeah, okay. All right, I'll, um, jump in again. I'm not forgetting about my Facebookers here. If you guys have any questions too, um, lay them on me. Okay, um, someone's asking, I came across several websites that are using my actual photograph from a product I'm selling on my website. Is there anything I can do? Yes, um, that's not okay for them to use your actual photograph. You own the copyrights and the rights to that photograph unless you've said in writing that someone else can use it otherwise. So, um, what I would do— excuse me, um, I have a whole, uh, podcast episode, episode, um, number 11. I think it's 11, so hold on, I wrote them all, I brought up all my thing. Um, yeah, it's episode 11, What to Do When People Copy Your Stuff, and it walks you through the steps. Um, but I'll give you quickly, briefly, you want to document, screenshot, because you need some evidence in case people aren't listening or this happens again, um, ask nicely for them to, hey, take it down, that belongs to me. If that doesn't work, do a DMCA takedown notice. That means going to the platform and using— they usually have a box where they'll say, hey, this is where you put in, um, and you explain to someone, this is my content, please take them down. Um, that sometimes works quickly, sometimes it takes a while. Um, it just depends on the platform and how big of a deal you are and you know, whether monkeys are running the algorithm that day, like all kinds of really silly things. If that doesn't work, then you can try to reach out to them in a more, you know, official capacity. Just FYI, attorney, you know, letters on attorney letterhead get taken more seriously. So I've done that to people and that's like your classic cease and desist letter. If that doesn't work, then that's when you proceed to like litigation, mediation, arbitration, whatnot. So that's kind of the list of escalating conflict stuff. But just FYI, it's a good practice to know it's not okay for someone to use your photographs and your content without your permission. Which that means the opposite is also true on the other foot, guys. Do not use other people's content without their permission, even if you're tagging them. I'm going to say that again for the people in the back. Do not use someone's content unless you have permission. Tagging them, crediting them, giving them a virtual high five doesn't make it okay, all right? Doesn't make it okay. Best practice is to ask permission, okay? Unless you're doing like an in-app share feature, okay? If you're on Instagram and you're using the little paper airplane and it's gonna share to your stories, that's fine because Instagram has already asked for the rights to share that within the platform and you're just piggybacking off those rights that Instagram has, okay? What's not okay is to screenshot, is to use the repost app, and then to add it to your feed because it's so cute and it matches your brand colors. Not okay, all right? And if you're a creative, if you are a content creator, you of all people should appreciate and respect copyright and people's right to protect and to be able to monetize and safeguard their own content, okay? Oh, that's— we all need to do better at that, guys. So be an ambassador for that. Okay, um, another question: I don't have any designs copyrighted at this time, but I'm seeing exact copies of my work showing up in other small business pages that are exact replicas. Can I do anything? So, um, similar in terms of the steps you can do. If your work is visible and out there, then, um, and you, and you think that it's affecting in terms of your ability to monetize, or it's affecting your sales, or You want to be able to have some real power to stop them, then I suggest you register the copyright to it. It's not that expensive. It's $55 if you're an LLC. It's $35 if you're like just going to hold it as an individual, the copyright to something. But it means you don't get just a fly swatter. If someone takes your stuff and you're like, hey, that's my photograph, that's my picture that you just posted, that you have not registered the copyright, you just have a fly swatter. Like if they know anything about the law, they're like, come at me, brah, and you can't do anything. Because in the US, the Supreme Court decision that came out this term says you cannot file a lawsuit until you've registered the copyright. And guess how long that takes? A long time, because it's our government, guys. It can take 8 to 9 months for that to happen. Ergo, if you have something that's really visible, that's popular, that's making you a lot of money, or that you think is highly stealable, Register the copyright. Register for it now, yesterday, as soon as you can, because you will get some extra benefits, especially if you can do it within 3 months of when it's published, okay? When it's like live or put out on the internet somewhere, okay? You can get statutory damages, and then you can collect attorney's fees if someone uses it, which means you can get some real money if someone takes it. Even a big old brand, you can get them to play ball and pony up some serious cash if they take it from you. If you don't, then you are like a little fly swatter against a giant, and they're just gonna laugh at you. Yeah, they're gonna laugh at you as they rip off the stuff that they found on Pinterest, and they're gonna send it to their supplier in China, and they're gonna say, hey, we want it to look just like this, and they're gonna print 1,000 of them, 100,000 of them, and sell them in HomeGoods, and then you're gonna find it. True story, okay? True story. Story. All right, what kinds of clients do you normally work with? Mostly creators and small business owners? Um, both. So I kind of call myself attorney for creative entrepreneurs, but I have clients that are bloggers, um, that are, you know, YouTubers. I have clients who have product-based businesses who sell a product, you know, um, and online. And then I have clients who are service-based businesses. So they are— I have clients who are photographers, graphic designers, um, wedding planners, interior designers, um, people who have stock photography, stock videography, stock music websites. So kind of a whole smattering, but most of them are smaller business owners. A lot of them are women. I have some male clients, and I, I love my male clients, um, but most of my clients are women. And a lot of them are kind of either in the creative arts or kind of a creative lifestyle brand. Um, and anyway, that's kind of my specialty, is being able to help them with all their legal issues and get them all ready to go and all legit and on their way. So yeah, great question. Um, okay, any other questions that we have? Okay, what about just a plain old portfolio website? Um, yeah, if you are collecting any information from your portfolio website, I'm guessing this is about getting your website policies in place. If you have a contact us box or form, then you need a privacy policy. If you are running Google Analytics, which you probably are because it's free and you should be because then you get information about traffic, then you need a privacy policy. So yes, you need a privacy policy. It's 2019. The data and our— and where we're going in terms of being concerned about data and data use and privacy law is only going to be swinging in this direction that we care more about this and we want more transparency. I highly doubt it that we're going to be going the opposite direction. So it really means that we all, yeah, we all got to pony up and do our part if we're going to be online and have a digital presence. So, okay. Yes, is the juice worth the squeeze? Exactly. Okay. For a t-shirt design that is all words, would it be a copyright or a trademark you need to register for? So it'd be a trademark. Copyright does not protect short words or phrases, so it'd be a trademark. Um, you have to be careful about this though, because a trademark protects the source indicator of the goods. That means that trademark protects Fruit of the Loom, which is who makes the t-shirt. If you have a t-shirt and you put Fruit of the Loom on there, it only protects it if that is the name of the brand and the trademark office is loath to pass that and to approve that if it thinks that you're just trying to get around it and protect the design that will go on a shirt. It's a lot easier if you have it like on the tag, on the hang tag, because that's where we're used to seeing the name of the company. Or if you have like the little logo on like the breast pocket, because that's again where we're used to seeing like the source indicator of a company. So it's not to say like if you have a brand that you also like, because Nike, you know, you can't put Nike on the front of a t-shirt, that would be trademark infringement. But it's also because that's a true source indicator, you know what I mean? So for that, I really, I recommend working with an attorney me or someone else who does trademarks. Um, otherwise I see those getting rejected all the time. I see like the graveyard of like legal doom, do-it-yourself trademarks that people have done to try to protect stuff like that and put it on, you know, um, mugs and t-shirts and whatnot, and they don't go through. They get rejected. So, okay. And then you just go online to complete the application to file a copyright? Yep, yep. You just go on the ECO, the Electronic Copyright Office. Um, So, and I have a course that's coming out on this soon, Rip Off Resilient, that's going to be all about how to do your own copyright registration, how to do your own basic trademark search, um, how to do a bunch of the stuff that you can do on your own to really protect your stuff, how to ferret out like what should be protected, what should not, what should I let go. And they'll address some of the mindset and kind of the myths about creativity and originality, um, a lot of the stuff that I see float around and that really can hamper on both sides of the spectrum where people can be paralyzed by like, "I can't do all this stuff," or, "I'm not going to create things because it just keeps on getting ripped off," which is unfortunate because it means that their good work is not going out in the world. And I see the opposite end of the spectrum where someone's like, "I'm not going to do anything. People can take anything they want. I can't do anything about it anyway," which if everyone acted like that, then we would not have the music industry or the film industry or the art industry. So like, at some point we need to help each other and create, you know, an accountable community that takes a stand and says, hey, this is not okay. So, and there's a happy medium in there. So, um, how much does it cost to meet with me for more than a 20-minute call? Um, I have— you can book consults on my website. So I have 30-minute, um, is, uh, because my billable is $225 an hour, so I think I just charge like $125 for a half hour. Or you can book an hour-long consult. So, but look at BrittanyRatelle.com, and I have my calendar on there that you can book if you want like a sit-down where we can work through like all of your questions. Where are you at in your business? Where do you wanna go? And I can help address all of that for you. So, yes. Yeah, if you're subscribed to my email list, I will be sending information on this course when it comes out. So, and I'll be having some workshops and stuff before that will cover some of those things and let you know. And then the course is gonna have some access to me and support. There's gonna be a private Facebook group with it so you can start working on this stuff to protect your things and you guys will all be able to help and then have access to me as you work through this stuff. So yeah, I'm glad you guys are excited about it. I'm really excited about it. So I know I was hoping to release it this month, but anyway, life, life, guys. So it turns out courses are like hard to get out or something. Who knew? Okay, thank you guys so much for all showing up and I appreciate all my friends who gave shoutouts today. To say, hey, tune in. And I try to do these every Tuesday night, guys. So if your question didn't get answered tonight, or if you have follow-ups, or if you have more questions, show up next week. And, um, and don't forget about my free resources. Tune in to my podcast, Lon Witt Creative Council for Entrepreneurs. I come out with episodes every week. I put lots of tips and tricks on my Instagram, so tune in there. And then my newsletter, so if you're not signed up for that and you want my free legal checklist go sign up for that, brittanyratelle.com/checklist, and you will get that one-pager to get you working and even just thinking like, what questions should I be asking? Okay, or if I'm gonna look and maybe start talking to an attorney, where should I start for my business? That is your place to start. And then, or decide like what you want to do on your own and maybe what you want to hire out. So, um, okay, okay, um, and thanks so much for showing up. I'll have this posted on my stories and saved And then I'll also save this and put it on my YouTube channel, and I'll send that out in my email link to my newsletter. So if you're not on the list, get on it, okay? And have a fabulous week, and remember that you are a real business owner, so you should own your business in every sense of the word, okay? The highs, the lows, the boring stuff, and the exciting stuff, and everything in between. Thanks so much. Have a good night. Hey Andrew, I'm just signing off. Buh-bye!