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

Hi guys, hi guys. Um, I'll give it a few minutes to spin up and hopefully we get some questions because I didn't get any beforehand today. Um, I know this is kind of a new time, so all of you watching the replay, um, thanks so much for being here, appreciate it. So here I'm going to try to align these cameras so I don't feel like I'm— oh no, that's, that's too much moving over. So it's a lot to figure out, people, all the things. Okay, there we go. I'm gonna I feel like it's a little bit like, you know, in Moana where he's like, "You gotta pick an eye, love. You know, you're gonna drive me crazy." It's a little bit like that. Like, you have to pick an eye of the giant crab because they're both in separate places, the cameras. But anyway, this is a different time than my normal— Hi, Organized Mama! Hi! Thanks for being here. Hello, guys. Wave. Tell me what your business is and where you're from in the comments while we get started. But anyway, I wanted to try doing one of these at night because I've done all of them during the day and I know that sometimes people— Yeah, anyway. I think it's good to have a variety of times because sometimes people during the day does not work for you, that you are working and you're in a place where you can't just hop on and work on your side hustle. I get that. Or maybe you're taking care of children or you're just in a place where that's not feasible. So I wanted to give this and try this out as an option to see how this time is for people. Um, so hello, hi guys. Um, thanks for being here. So, um, uh, so go ahead and tell me where you're from and, um, tell me if you are a small business owner, what your business is, and then I'll just open it up to questions. So I'm on Facebook and on Instagram, so kind of first asked, first answered. But I'll give you a short introduction while you're thinking about that. My name is Brittany Ratelle, and I am an attorney licensed here in Utah where I live, and originally from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. And I help small business owners. My kind of ideal clients are creative business owners. I help a lot of online entrepreneurs too who kind of identify with that term, but a lot of small business owners who are hustling, making stuff happen, and a lot of my clients work in the creative field— photographers, graphic designers, content creators, coaches, consultants, people who are doing food styling and prop styling. Maybe they're working and doing social media strategy or brand strategy for people, and they're looking to get their businesses more legit, and that's what I help with. So I do Everything from kind of the beginning stages in terms of registering businesses, LLCs. I do that for people in-state in Utah. And then I also help in drafting contracts and making sure you have those relationships locked down and you have clear expectations with who you're working with. And then the other, um, let's see, the other thing that I do that I help with is, uh, is that I do IP work. So that's intellectual property. So that's copyrights, trademarks, and doing other things to kind of protect your branding and what you've invested and built in your business. So, okay, so if anyone has any questions— hi guys, thanks for waving— go ahead and put them in the comments. Okay, um, Elevate CPA asks, what are your feelings about LLCs doing their own state setup via Utah One-Stop with just the boilerplate articles? Um, that's a great question, um, CPA. So, um, I, I honestly, if you were a one-person shop, like a single member, um, then I, I definitely think you can do and do the registration on your own. So, um, and And what she's talking about is that when you register your LLC, also called, you know, forming your business, people, some call it like that, some people say forming your LLC, we're all talking about the same thing. It's called different things, but it's really the same process. And it's done at the state level. So here in Utah, like in most states, you do it through kind of a state portal. It's a kind of a wizard you go in through and you answer some questions, you check the boxes, and then at the end you're like, hey, congratulations, you have an LLC. And it forms your articles of organization for you and gives you your little, um, and you fill out and get your EIN number, which is your new electronic identification number. That's kind of your federal Social Security number for your business. Um, I definitely think that most people, um, I mean, kind of one size fits all, can do this on their own if they're a single-member business. So if you're a one-woman shop and you own a photography business and that's what you do and you want to incorporate and do that, I think that you can handle that. Um, If you are working with any partners, I strongly suggest that you look into having an attorney help you with that. The reason being is that what you really need to have is make sure you have a really sound operating agreement and that you have gone through the process of talking about how this business is going to be run. Who is going to be making management decisions? Who will be owning intellectual property of the business if you decide to invest and build up that brand? What happens when someone wants to exit the business? And this is the part that people don't like to think about. They like to think about, well, she's my friend, we're going to have this business together, it's going to be awesome. And it is awesome, it's always awesome until it's not, okay? So it's really useful to talk with someone and talk about ways you can structure equity, ways you can talk about winding up the business if someone wants to leave, whether that's forcing someone out or someone wants to leave and just wants to go on a new phase of their life, or they want to cash out, or whatever. It's really good to walk through those options and make sure that you have a sound operating agreement that's done all those things that you need to. So, um, the other, you know, caveat, you know, now I offer LLC packages, so I know that's a little bit like asking the barber if you need a haircut because I am an attorney and I do these services for my clients. But honestly, I have really pretty low rates. I'm not making a ton of money on them, I'm gonna be honest. I actually should need to probably increase my rates for it. But the reason why I like doing them for clients and why still a lot of clients come to me and have them done is because it gets done. And I know for some people that time is money, um, and there's a long list of things that you should be working on your business. And frankly, setting up your LLC is probably not the sexiest. It's probably not at the top. So, um, I, I know it gets pushed to the bottom and pushed to the bottom. So sometimes having that done for you is totally worth it. Um, and so if that makes sense for you, then I'm here for you. I have a little intake form, a Google Doc. You fill it out with info. I look at that and I use that and I set up your business and I send you everything you need in a nice little pretty email package and tell you what to do with your LLC. Now what? You know, which is another kind of important piece to realize because some people set them up and it's almost kind of like setting up a trust. They're like, well, now what am I supposed to do? I set up something up, but what does that mean? It means you should be using that when you contract. You should be signing in the name of your of your LLC. You should be setting up separate bank accounts in the name of your LLC. So anyway, long answer, as they tend to be, but that's kind of the deal with setting up the LLC. So, and then the importance of having— if you have a partner in your business, yes, and I really recommend talking with an attorney. So I just finished up setting up one of those for— and it was a 5-person partnership, and it was— it got pretty dicey, especially because it was a tech business, and so— and there were other LLC members entities owning different parts of the entity, so it was super complicated. So, um, yeah, I'm really glad that they had the foresight and wanted to work with an attorney and get that all ironed out, because without someone kind of driving the whip, driving the whip, it probably wouldn't have happened for months and months and months. So, okay, um, any other questions? I see we have a couple people on Facebook too. You guys feel free to chime in. Don't feel like I'm neglecting you just because you're You're on the big old blue F there, kicking it old school. So Facebook, Facebook. I was at a dinner recently with kind of an older group of women, and they were talking about, "Oh, I love Facebook, I love Facebook," because my point was, "I don't think teenagers are on Facebook," and they were telling me how much they love it, and I was like, "Yeah, that's kind of confirming my point." Facebook is great, but like, you know, the average age is just keeping, I think starting the median age is just starting to creep higher and higher and higher. The longer we go, which is fine. So, but it's all good. Okay, anyone else want to jump in and ask a question? I've got some time still. Anything about your business, about copyright, FTC disclosures, hiring people? You know, if it gets in really in-depth employment, then I'll let you know if it's out of my wheelhouse. But we've also got a CPA on here, so there you go. I mean, if you're Feeling that tax sexy time? I know I am, because I was working on my taxes last night and I was just reminded of how I always tell myself I'm gonna get a better system next year and here we are again in March. So next year though, I will be doing a better system. I will not be staying up late, late, late and doing all of this, so late at night. Thanks guys, thanks for the thumbs up. So no one else has any other questions? I mean, I can talk. I mean, you guys know I can talk. I mean, I do make my living off of it. So I wanna tell you, if you also don't know, I have a newsletter that I try to send out every week with tips in it. Tips, funny things, it's actually not that funny, but I mean, I try to make the tips as funny as possible, the content. And then I post the replay, 'cause I post these up to YouTube so that they're available, and I post that replay. So if you missed it or wanna pass it on to a friend and wanna know how to find it again, that's how you'd find it. So if you sign up for my newsletter, you can do that. And that's BrittanyRatelle.com. /newsletter. Okay, um, CPS again: What do you think is the most obvious and ignored legal part of having a small business? So I would probably say, other than the LLCs, which I think we covered, is probably not having contracts. Um, and the reason being, I think, is that people, um, they tend to rely— especially if you kind of slowly grow your business, maybe it started out as a hobby, you know, you— I hear this story a lot, you know, I had an Etsy shop or I was selling these things, and then They started to really gain traction and they were popular, so I started making some more, and then I started hiring some friends to help me make them. And then like soon you wake up and it's like, wow, you've got like a real product-based business. Like you're doing your own fulfillment and processing and even custom orders from people. Like you have a legit business. Um, and yet, um, perhaps this business owner has not— probably hasn't set up her LLC. Um, she probably does not have any kind of contracts with people who have done maybe her logo or her brand work or her website. Maybe she set up some of those things and sometimes those service providers and people that you hire out, those freelancers, have contracts that make it very clear that they're assigning all the rights into that. Sometimes they don't and you're like, "Oh, it was a buddy and it looks beautiful!" And I'm sure, I'm sure the work looks beautiful, but is it yours? And maybe, you know, the business keeps on moving along, moving along, and now you're hiring someone. So maybe you're hiring an independent contractor to help you with some of the work, maybe you're hiring someone to help you with the shipping or a social media manager or someone to help when you do pop-up shops, which is great, that's great, then we need to be looking at, okay, does that person have some kind of contract that outlines what their responsibilities are that really specifies that they are an independent contractor and not an employee? And I'll put an asterisk here, this is not to say that just because you call someone an independent contractor does not manifest to the universe that that's what this person is, but it's a good first step, okay? It should be your first step into proving to the IRS they really are an independent contractor, they're not an employee. And I'm sure you guys know what— that is a big deal if it's someone who's really an employee over an independent contractor, because that means that you should have been doing employer things, which, like, contributing to payroll taxes, and you should have special notices on your wall, and Anyway, it's a whole other enchilada when you actually hire your first person, so it's really important to make sure that you guys are clear about what that person is. And if you don't have that kind of paperwork, you probably haven't talked about ownership or done an NDA, you know, a non-disclosure agreement about confidentiality in your business. You probably haven't talked about a non-compete or non-solicitation. You probably haven't talked about liability insurance and what happens if they get hurt and who's covering expenses and yada yada yada. So contracts are important, and they're important even when you are doing business with people you trust, even when you're doing business with friends. In fact, I would add that they're most important when you're doing business with people because that relationship is really important to you. "Thank you, thank you, Natasha," is saying. If that relationship is important to you and existed outside before you started to do business together, Let's make sure that that stays intact. And the best way to do that is to have a piece of paper that lights out very clearly who is doing what, what are the expectations? Are we having deliverables? When do those need to be delivered? What are those going to look like? Um, if we're doing a collaboration together for an event, we're going to do a joint pop-up shop. Awesome. That sounds lovely. You guys are going to have cute balloons. Wonderful. I love cute balloons. Cupcakes. Great. Okay. Who's taking care of food? Who gets to be the one to post the photos? If you guys are hiring a photographer together, who owns the copyright to those? Are you gonna share it? Okay, um, is there liability insurance wherever you're having it? If not, then let's talk about that. Uh, what happens if you have to cancel last minute and someone else has already put money out? Are you gonna cover their fees? And up to what point can you cancel? And, um, you see what I'm saying? Like, even when you do business with friends, it's really good to have those things ironed out and so that you can do business in the way you want to and that you can make sure that you Have clear expectations with whoever you're working with. And that's really all that contracts should be. You are memorializing the agreements that you've already had as you've done perhaps a request for a proposal or talked to someone on the phone or they've seen your work and you like them and you've talked and engaged in another way. Now you're ready to make it a deal. Now you're ready to make them an official client. Then let's set up a contract. Okay. Hey, Natasha asks, "Can we talk about what to do if someone breaks a contract?" Yes, okay, and that's the other thing that you should have in a contract is you should have some sort of termination or breach language, meaning if something happens and you— someone terminates or breaches the contract, what do you do now? And I was talking with a client today about this, and because we're, we're going to work on getting her a custom contract, and in her line of work, because she's in a creative field, she knows that there's lots of milestones as she starts to work on campaign for a client. Um, maybe she sets up the photography here, maybe she decides to do the storyboard here, maybe she decides to move on to the next process and make sure we're on track for colors and fonts and how we're going to do the layout. There's all these different steps along the way where she is spending time, so really she's spending money because we all know time is money, especially when you're a creative service professional. Um, and so we need to know that if the client decides to pull the kill button, you know, or kill switch, meaning that they are out of there for whatever reason— they, they cancel, they don't want to do the deal anymore— how much money do they owe? And that should really be part of your contract. And if you are in that kind of business where you frequently, or, you know, after talking to friends and kind of doing a little industry research and thinking about, oh, you know, what have been my pain problems when I've done client work? You know, when have I seen that there were too many revisions and I didn't have good language about that? Or What was the issue in terms of someone canceled and it was really last minute and I'd already done all this work for him and I really wasn't compensated and I already put off other work because I was doing this work. And that's what we kinda need to talk about. So if you don't have those kinds of provisions in your contract, if it's kinda just more boilerplate or it says, you know, party can breach and you have to try to fix the remedy, that means if someone does something wrong under the contract terms, the other party does get a chance to fix it— it's usually within a certain time frame that usually should be within a week or 10 days or something. If not, then you should go to, well, then what kind of penalties are we going to say? What are we going to do to make this right? And there's a couple other— I won't bore you with the legalese— of contract theories in terms of, well, someone was unjustly enriched, or what do we need to do to remedy the parties and put them back in the position as they would have been in the beginning? I'll spare you the first semester of law school and contract law. But there's, you know, some common law doctrines that you can fall back on if there's nothing in the contract specifically that says this is how you can work it out to make sure to try to make the parties fair at the end of the relationship. So, so Natasha asks, "Someone hasn't paid me and it's weeks after the promised pay period via contract." So if you're in that position where you had contracted, you were supposed to get paid and you haven't, my suggestion would be to write them a letter and, you know, or email. Your contract probably says that you can communicate by email, that's fine. But make sure it's very clear, um, that they send it, um, and say really succinctly— in fact, I would quote the contract language, um, and attach it and say, um, I don't know if you're aware, but per our contract terms, I was due to have payment at this time. Um, as you also might be aware, under the contract, if I'm not paid by this date, then, um, I, uh, then, you know, then I actually— there are penalties, you know. And ideally, in a contract, you're going to have interest, you're gonna have some other thing, some other meat in there to say like, hey, you know, stuff happens, but if you haven't paid me by this certain date, then we really need to make sure this happens. You know, you want to have some skin in the game and make sure that people are being timely in their payment. You also want to check and make sure that there wasn't something that you were supposed to do on your end before getting payment. A lot of— sometimes people— and I don't think Natasha's in this case because I know she's kind of a seasoned pro blogger, but some people don't know that they're actually supposed to invoice corporate clients, especially when you're working with a larger brand, that it's actually usually part of the way they pay their bills is you invoice their account receivable. Um, and until they get that invoice in their hands, like, they're not sending checks out, you know. That's just not how they, they run their business, is they just send money out to people. Like, that would be nice if it was, but, um, that's usually not. So sometimes it's just a logistical issue, it's a timing issue of making sure Did I send this to the right decision maker, the person who actually is holding the purse strings and can cut a check in the amount to pay? Hopefully, that's the issue, because that's an easier problem to solve. If not, if after you've done that step in terms of emailing someone, reminding them of the contract language, then it's time to talk about your options of litigation. And your contract might specify that you have to go to arbitration first, mediation. Sometimes that's written into contracts because those are cheaper options.— and if they are, then that means that you need to discuss with them, "Okay, if I haven't been paid by this date—" Let's put a hard deadline in there, you know, send them a demand letter and make sure they know that if I don't see action by this date or don't hear from you or your counsel, then we're going to proceed to this next step. And just let them know that you're serious and that it's not personal, you know, it's not emotional, it's just business and you have a right to be paid for your work, especially when you've taken the steps to protect yourself. Yourself with a contract, then we should follow the guidelines of the contract and make sure that those are followed through all the way. So, hey, thanks, great. That's, uh, glad that's been helpful advice. Okay, anyone else? I have a couple more minutes if anyone else wants to jump on and ask a question. Um, there's a couple more people, so I'll just quickly reintroduce myself. I'm Brittany Ratelle. I'm a licensed attorney here in Utah, and I kind of help creative entrepreneurs— are kind of my ideal clients— um, small business owners that I help. And, uh, I've got a podcast. That's the other resource I haven't mentioned, Lon Witt Creative Council for Entrepreneurs. Um, and it's kind of a mix. I do interviews with kind of my, uh, a lot of my friends and people that I know who are entrepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs in their business. And I get a little bit of their origin story of where they got started and some of kind of the hurdles that they've overcome in their business. Um, a little bit of turning points or, or things that were tough that they've overcome and how they've been able to move forward with their business. And then we also talk a little bit about tactics, about actual things that you should be doing in your business to better understand how the law can help protect your business and help lay a sound foundation so that you can take your business where you want to as you grow, as you scale, as you decide to sign that first licensing agreement or sign your book deal, or you decide that you're going to take your service that you're going to be doing and now package it into an online course, or you're going to take your online course and move it into an in-person event, um, or all the, you know, a thousand other different ways that people are finding in this new modern digital economy to make money, um, and to be able to support their passion and also support their family, um, doing something that they love and that they find a lot of value from. So thanks, Natasha. You're welcome. Okay, anyone else? I got a few more minutes, guys, and I mean, if we're done talking, then I gotta go put my kids to bed. So by all means, ask some more questions. My time is yours. So I will say that anything we talk about today, which I mentioned my disclaimer, is just for informational purposes only. While I am a licensed attorney, I'm not your attorney, unless you want me to be, in which case go over to my website, BrittanyRatelle.com/services, and sign up for a little free consult time. Um, and we can— we'll get 20 minutes on the phone, we'll chat about your business. You can tell me what's bugging you, what's keeping you up at night, where you want to go, where you're at. Um, and I can talk about maybe some things that I might be able to do in terms of services that can help you, um, with your business. So that's how that works. Um, okay, anyone else? Anyone else want to jump on on? Don't make me do some dance moves. Nope, it's hard without any music, and you know I'm such a stickler for the use of commercial music that I'm not gonna put any on. I know, I know, I'm such a fun wrecker. So I have some clients that do that in their Instagram Lives. I'm not gonna mention any names, but you guys probably know who it is, and I'm always giving her a hard time because I'm like, I love music, I love dancing, but do you know what I don't like? Copyright infringement suits from music studios. So, so yeah, I want to make sure that we don't have any problems with putting this up, posting this up later on YouTube. So I can't put any music on. So, which actually brings me to my next point. If you are in that same business where you are creating content and wanting to do more with video, which let's face it, you kind of have to be hiding under a rock if you haven't heard that video is kind of the next big thing, you should check out Pleasant Pictures Music Dot Club because they are a stock music library and they've got like really cool modern music. So I might be a little impartial because they're a client and I helped them with some of their contracts and stuff, but anyway, they've got a really, really cool vibe, lots of sexy tunes, all kinds of fun names on them, and I know they have a package for just social media use that's a lot more It's a lot more affordable if all you're looking for is to have some cool music to be able to post stuff on social media and to be able to have clear licenses for that. So, okay, thanks guys for joining. I just have a few more minutes left, so if you want to ask any more questions, feel free to drop them in the comments box. That's how kind of these work. I normally do these during the day. I'm more of a midday person, but I thought I'd change it up and do one at night just in case some of the people that time works better. Plus I decided to go to lunch today with some friends, which was really fun. We went to Sweet Lake Limeade in Salt Lake. I don't know if any of you guys have been there, but it was a really cool restaurant. Kim from Talk Wordy to Me invited a couple of friends and kind of female business owners in the area there. Thanks! And it was really good because they had like mint limeade. I love a good— like, I'm a lemonade, limeade fan in that was really good. It was really good. And they had biscuits with like chicken on them. It was delicious. Anyway, okay, if no one has any other questions, then I'll, I'll just reiterate some of the resources I talked about. If you're new to me, if you're new to following what I do, Brittany Ratelle, attorney for creative entrepreneurs. And I do these Instagram Lives. I try to jump on here every week. The time changes slightly because of my childcare plans, which are always in flux. So fun being a mom of 4. It really is being a mom of 4, but you know, mompreneur stuff means I don't have a very set schedule as much as I'd like to. So if you want to jump on the next one or have someone else you think might benefit from this or might have some questions for me, if you go on my Instagram profile, I post it on there and my little highlights, I'll have the updated time. So that's the place to find the next week's time so you can get ready and put on your calendar for next week. I also want to tell you about my podcast, Law and Wit: Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. You can find it in iTunes Podcast and wherever else podcasts are found. And there's some great episodes on there. I've talked about LLCs, copyright versus trademarks, branding. I've had guests like Canary Jane on there, The Allison Show, Allison Faulkner of The Allison Show, Miranda Anderson of Live and Free Miranda. My dad was on there and talked about negotiation. That's actually one of the top episodes. And I'd like to think it was because it was me, but it's really because negotiation is so helpful. And I think that's really one of those skills that I think a lot of female entrepreneurs struggle with. And I have several different theories about that. We won't go into that tonight. But anyway, needless to say that if you feel like you want to have some more skills and have some more talking points in terms of negotiation techniques you can try, some books to recommend— my dad recommends some books on there— then you can all find that at lawandwit.com or you can visit brittanyratelle.com/podcast and you'll find all the episodes there with a description of each. And even some of them have extra handouts, little freebie handouts. So if you're the type of person who likes to listen but maybe also likes to have some actual notes already for you that you can kind of use and tuck away in a business folder if you have one of those. Um, and so with the episodes, I've been able to do handouts. Not for all of them, sorry, because, you know, one woman shop and all. But, um, but those are— that's a resource for some of them. So, okay, um, I have about 2 minutes left. So is there anyone else who wants to jump in and add a last minute question? Um, I'm happy to answer it. If not, then you can go back and listen to the beginning. Um, normally we have more questions. You you guys are just interested here, just thanks so much for being on and just listening to me rant about whatever. If there's any other questions, I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I have deep thoughts for today. I'm not really reading, I just finished reading a good book and I'm looking to read some more. And I'm really excited that it's getting warm, we actually played outside of the park today, which was amazing, me and my kiddos. I got to attend Alt, last week. Anyone been to Alt? Anyone loved Alt? Anyone else there at Alt? It was my first time and it was incredible. Loved the experience. So, and it's a creative blogging conference that's in Palm Springs. And everything was just, you know, beautiful colors and rainbow and creative people and fabulous dressing and outfits and guacamole. I mean, it was everything you needed and more. I mean, my aha moment was I was sitting at a table crafting because they had all these amazing crafty supplies and I was making these cool necklaces out of like, you know, roving wool and getting to wrap metallic thread around it and like put dinosaur in it. It was for my 5-year-old who loves dinosaurs. And as I was doing this, I was having a business conversation with the lady next to me and then later with in front of me and we were talking about licensing and she was telling me her horror story of what happened when she had a really bad licensing partner who sat on her designs and didn't make anything. For 2 years. And anyway, I was just like, this is what has been missing from my life. Like, I don't do enough crafting networking lunches, obviously. Like, I don't, I don't know why they don't teach that in law school. I don't know why that's not up there in terms of like, hey, if you really want to get in with creatives, you know, do '80s dance parties and make sure that you bring enough beads and crafting wool to a party, and then, you know, you'll make friends all the way around. So that's, that's obviously what what people should be focusing on. I don't know why they're talking about, you know, going to Rotary Club. That's over— overrated. Okay, Maker Valley asks, have you covered copyright law anywhere yet? Um, not specifically today. I do have a podcast episode that's Copyrights vs. Trademarks that talks a lot about the difference between the two and which might be useful for your type of business. But if you have any other specific questions, then, you know, shoot me, you can always shoot me an email, you can message me. Email is better for me because it's easier for me to keep track of. People are nice and they reach out on Instagram, but you guys know how hard it is because you can't search or like archive stuff or whatever. So send me an email if you have any questions or want to have something to be, that I want, want me to address next week. My email is hello@brittanyratelle.com. That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y-R-A-T-E-L-L-E.com. And if you have something that you want to have more specifically answered about copyrights, then we can talk about that. I'll just say on a broad issue, just, you know, of talking about copyrights. Copyrights are what you use, the tool, the intellectual property tool that's used to protect any kind of original creative work. So this is things like designs, artwork, music. Literary works. These are what we think of in terms of artistic creations, things that we create that didn't exist before. They're actually copyrighted as soon as they come out of your brain. As soon as they are what we call fixed in a tangible medium, they're actually copyrighted. However, if you want to take steps to register your copyright, you do that with the United States Copyright Office.. And that is a process that you can do on your own. That is one that I've had clients do. That is one that I also offer as well. So, you know, email me that if that's something that you want to talk about. We want to talk about how much and whether it's a single work or it's a collection and what might make sense strategy there. But the benefit to actually registering your copyright instead of just having the common law copyright is that when you register it, you can have additional benefits perks that you get to get if someone infringes upon it. For example, if you don't register it, you know, say you have this cool t-shirt design. I'm just saying hypothetically, Maker Valley. Say you have a really sweet t-shirt design. As soon as it's an original design that, you know, you did out on your own, you know, tablet and Illustrator, and you create it and someone copies it and you say, hey, that's actually my design. I don't know, but you know, I do reserve all the rights to my work, so That is my design. Can you please take it down? If they don't and they continue selling it, that's infringing upon your design, then you would have to prove actual damages, and that's the only thing that you'd be able to recover. So you have to prove to a court the money that you would have had except if they hadn't started making it. Does that make sense? So you have to prove the money that you lost because this person is stealing and ripping off your idea. It's not impossible to prove, certainly. But it's difficult. It's going to take a lot of research on your part because you're going to have to find out what their sales are and then guesstimate based on what your sales are. And you probably have to look at past sales. But what if this was like a dynamite product? What if it was unlike anything else you were saying? So it's a trickier process. If you register your copyright, you can actually get what's called statutory damages, which is we say there's actually a set fee that we're going to pay for this person stealing this design. That's it. You don't have to prove anything. It's just set statutory. You also can recover attorney's fees, which is really great because if you have to hire someone to do a lawsuit like this and do infringement, you're going to need to have an attorney. Yeah, I mean, most likely hire an attorney to help you with this process, especially to take it all the way through to litigation or settlement, which is probably what's going to happen. But anyway, you need to have an attorney help you and you can recover those costs so that you don't have to be on the line for protecting your stuff. So that's the benefit of registering your copyright. Plus obviously it's taken a little bit more seriously. When you register your copyright, you can actually use it to do DMCA takedown notices, which if you guys aren't familiar with those, that's where you actually reach out to whoever is hosting the content. So say you reach out to Facebook or YouTube or Etsy and say, hey, this is actually my stuff that's being ripped off on this account, and you show them proof of why it's yours. And then you can get them to take it down, which that is almost sometimes the most powerful and quickest tool because, you know, while you want them to stop selling your stuff, sometimes the easiest way to do that, especially if it's someone who's overseas or is using a shell company or who's kind of judgment-proof anyway, meaning they don't really have any money to recover, if you do a DMCA takedown, you kind of stop the bleeding, meaning you stop the sales from where they're at. And so you make sure that your customers are not accidentally buying their products, and you're not getting infringement. Okay, all right, so I better finish up for that because I need to hop on a phone call with someone. But thanks you guys so much for being here. I really appreciate it. If you're interested in more information, follow me on Instagram, follow me on Facebook, and subscribe to my podcast. I'm getting really great feedback from people that they're finding it useful and helpful for their business. They can listen to it on the go. It's quick, it's dirty, I get that you're busy, I'm busy too, so I don't like to waste your time with stuff that's not going to be helpful to your business. That's why I'm here. So you can find that at Lon Witt Creative Council for Entrepreneurs is the name of the podcast, there's links on my Instagram page, and you can also find information and subscribe to my newsletter at BrittanyRatelle.com/e. That's the slashy model and not the other way around. Sorry for the Zoolander quote, I cannot ever say slashy without doing that. Watched Zoolander too many times growing up. So BrittanyRatelle.com/newsletter is where you sign up. And I have a free legal checklist if you sign up for my newsletter. I get that your email is precious, precious currency and you do not want to just pass that out as if, you know, you're a pretty girl at the dance and you're just going to go like that. You know, you're not going to give your dance card out without something in return. So I've got that little one-page legal checklist for you that kind of gives a bird's-eye view of, okay, I have a creative business, what questions do I even need to be asking? And this can help you so that if you are thinking about working with an attorney or not, if you just want to know like what's in the ballpark of things that should be on my radar, what do I maybe need to look into, ask around, see what my resources are, see what I want to spend now, what needs to go on my list for later, this list will help you do that. This checklist, it will give you that bird's-eye view in terms of these are things that you should start thinking about planning on for your business so that you can get the legit business that you want and that you should deserve, okay? That you should— that you deserve and that you should have, okay? Because even if you are just a creative, okay, you are a business owner, okay? And you deserve to be treated like a business owner, and you deserve to protect your business like a real business owner. So own it, all right? Those are my parting words. Thanks so much. Good night. Good night.