Category: Written Content

The Media File that Could: Why Obtaining Full Copyright and Intellectual Property Ownership Matters

Your mother may have told you that sharing is caring, but sharing isn’t always caring when it comes to copyright and intellectual property law.

With the growing popularity of social media platforms, people are sharing images more than ever.

Unfortunately for the creators of the shared media files, few people understand that they are violating copyright law when they upload and post creative work without the authorization of the creator.

Sharing Isn’t Always Caring

One needs only log into Pinterest to find numerous copyrighted images that others have “pinned” or uploaded to the Pinterest website without permission from the image’s owner.

Innocent though it may seem, every time an image is shared without the creator’s permission, a blogger, artist, photographer or graphic designer loses credit for her work and possible income that she could have generated from that work.

This proliferation of copyright infringement can understandably leave a creative feeling a bit down and discouraged.

After experiencing infringement of her work, a freelancer may even wonder whether she can continue to make a profit when her time and hard work easily become mute at the hands of copyright infringers.

After all, a creative can easily put in hours, if not weeks, of thought, work, and editing into a single creative work.

That photo, logo, or written content represents the freelancer’s professional image, work ethic, and indeed, livelihood. Nobody knows better than a freelancer that the widespread violation of an artist’s work equates to theft.

Creating the Media File that Could: How to Protect Your Work

Creatives may feel like they are constantly fighting an uphill battle against technology and social media. But Continue reading The Media File that Could: Why Obtaining Full Copyright and Intellectual Property Ownership Matters

Copyright to Class Notes: Do Students Own the Copyright to Their Notes?

Photo Credit: Notes by Brady Withers used under CC BY 2.0.

Even as a law student, the very idea of who owned the copyright in the written notes I took in class was not something that ever occurred to me, let alone whether I was actually committing an infringing act by lending the notes to one of my friends.

Admittedly, this was way before copyright permeated into nearly everyone’s lives via the internet.

Now, a student’s class notes are just as likely to be uploaded to blogs, websites and forums, or even distributed as e-books.

They can be shared, not just between a few friends in class, but with an infinite number of people on the World Wide Web.

This has led some US states and universities to take steps limiting just what students can do with their class notes, which raises the question of whether students, or lecturers own the copyrights?

Universities and Publishers Clamp Down On Class Notes

This clampdown seems to be partially in response to the widespread and lucrative business of students selling their class notes to website publishers who make this material available to others for a price.

It is now such a problem that universities have Continue reading Copyright to Class Notes: Do Students Own the Copyright to Their Notes?

What Every Freelancer and Graphic Designer Needs to Know About Copyright

Before computers became the main instrument of design, graphic design was a labor-intensive process involving scalpel blades, spray mount, toxic chemicals and hours spent in dark rooms.

Post-digital, a few keyboard strokes enables the process of design to print and be completed in a matter of minutes.

For both designers and freelancers, the creative process has moved on and graphic design is now a broad term covering all ends of the creative spectrum from package design to multimedia development.

Unfortunately, copyright law has struggled to keep up with the new technologies and things do not always appear to be black and white. Here are some pointers:

What is Copyright?

Copyright gives the owner of original, creative works the exclusive right to copy, publish, distribute and adapt their works.

Essentially, this gives the owner the right to stop others copying, adapting, publishing and distributing their work without permission.

When does Copyright begin?

Copyright begins as soon as Continue reading What Every Freelancer and Graphic Designer Needs to Know About Copyright

What is Kunvay?

Nine months ago, we set out on a mission to find a better way to transfer and own creative work.

That journey led us to create Kunvay, the Paypal of copyright and intellectual property ownership (IP) transfer.

With our launch today at the International Startup Festival in Montreal, we make it easy to transact the sale of knowledge work and transfer copyright and intellectual property (IP) ownership online.

Kunvay is where creativity changes hands in an end-to-end transfer process as easy as a click.

As you know, the sale of knowledge work is considerably more difficult to transact than the sale of physical goods due to the legal complexities surrounding the transfer of IP.

Today, many buyers acquire knowledge work without receiving full ownership rights, unknowingly exposing themselves to significant legal and financial risks.

On the flip side, contracting to provide IP transfer can be onerous, often discouraging creators of knowledge work and freelancers from bidding on small projects. Freelancers loose the work, and clients lose the benefit of the freelancer’s creative expertise.

Enter Kunvay. Continue reading What is Kunvay?