How Mismanaging Your Copyright & IP Rights is Ruining Your Career as a Creative or Freelancer (And How to Fix It!)

Photo Credit: Money Down the Drain by Images Money used under CC BY 2.0
Photo Credit: Money Down the Drain by Images Money used under CC BY 2.0

As a freelancer, your work is your livelihood.

It’s your product, service and brand, all rolled into one.

And without a big business to hide behind, it’s just you and your creations on display for all the world to see.

This is both the burden and the blessing of being self-employed.

Managing and protecting your work, then, is critical to your progress, especially when it comes to ownership and copyrights.

If you’re not controlling ownership of your work, you could be missing out on big clients, big paychecks and big opportunities.

Unfortunately, many freelancers and creatives are unnecessarily–and sometimes unknowingly–stifling their careers simply because they don’t understand copyright and intellectual property (IP) laws.

Grasping the rules of ownership could make or break your freelance salary. So if you’re serious about your career, you need to recognize where you’re throwing money away, and then work to fix it!

I’ve identified the 3 most common copyright & IP errors, in no particular order, that lead to suppressed freelance careers and salaries.

1) Accepting Royalty Payments

First of all, you should never accept royalties as payment. I know, it sounds tempting, especially for those of you still trying to make your first mark.

But hear me now; royalties are a rip-off. You should never make your income dependent on what the client does with the work after-the-fact. Continue reading How Mismanaging Your Copyright & IP Rights is Ruining Your Career as a Creative or Freelancer (And How to Fix It!)

Copyright 101 for eBook Self-Publishing: What You Need to Know about Copyright & Intellectual Property Before You Self Publish

Photo Credit: To lay this book in my lap by Marina Noordegraaf used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Photo Credit: To lay this book in my lap by Marina Noordegraaf used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

A Bundle of Rights: Traditional Publishing vs Self Publishing

The Copyright Act of 1976 grants to the author of a copyrightable work a “bundle of rights.”

This “bundle of rights” as provided by federal copyright law invests the creator of a work with exclusive rights to control the reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance and display of his work.

Historically authors would transfer their “bundle of rights” to a publisher under some sort of contract in order to allow that publisher to “publish” or to reproduce and distribute the copyrighted material.

Today authors are able to retain their bundle of rights and full control of the publication of their work by opting to “self publish.” Self publication allows the author to regulate all aspects of the reproduction, marketing and distribution of his creative work.

How to Navigate the Copyright Minefield

It is important that a self publishing author fully understand Continue reading Copyright 101 for eBook Self-Publishing: What You Need to Know about Copyright & Intellectual Property Before You Self Publish

Top 10 SXSW Panels to Check Out or Follow at Home If You Care About Copyright & IP

SXSW LogoCreativity and copyright reign supreme this week in Austin, Texas where over 32,000 creatives from around the world have converged for the annual South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival.

The festival continues to deliver on its goal to “create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas.”

We’ve put together our Top 10 favorite panels to attend or follow at home on Twitter if you want to learn more about cutting-edge copyright issues facing the creative community.

Given our mission here at Kunvay to make the world safe for creativity, we were bowled over by the impressive number of conference sessions addressing copyright and intellectual property – subjects of great importance to creatives everywhere.

Follow our Storify feed to find out what people are saying about copyright and IP at the festival, or use these Twitter hashtags to follow the panel conversations directly.

  1. DIY IP: Protect Yo Self, Don’t Wreck Yo Self     #swsw #diyip
  2. The Artists’ Copyright Conundrum      #swsw #crightcon
  3. Copyright & Disruptive Technologies      #sxsw #copytech Continue reading Top 10 SXSW Panels to Check Out or Follow at Home If You Care About Copyright & IP

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

Your Copyrights on Facebook and Twitter: What May Surprise You

Today’s ever-evolving platforms allowing the dissemination of information raise questions regarding copyright issues.

Inevitably, these new copyright issues do not fit comfortably into the existing legal framework, and the popularity of social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter introduce new copyright conundrums on a regular basis.

As users of social networking sites, most of us are aware that copyright exists. We may never have given it a second thought, especially when it comes to our own tweets or postings.

Some of us may have been aware enough to check out the terms and conditions in relation to our material posted on these sites, and have been secure in the knowledge that both Facebook and Twitter say we retain the rights to any content we submit on their sites.

Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SORR) says ‘You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook’ and Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS) states ‘You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services’.

You Own Copyright to Your Content, But . . .

However, delve a little deeper and two things may be surprise you.

Firstly, you may own your own content, but Continue reading Your Copyrights on Facebook and Twitter: What May Surprise You

3 Ways to Protect Copyright to Your Brand and Work as a Creative or Freelancer

Part of being a professional creative is protecting your brand – for most of us, this means slapping a copyright notice on the bottom our manuscript pages or stamping a watermark over images we post online.

After all, copyright is implicit in your work from the moment you’ve put pen to paper or raised the viewfinder to your eye.

But putting a copyright symbol on your work doesn’t do a great deal in terms of providing actual protection for your work or your brand – it’s a bit like pushing the lock button on an older car without an alarm system, it’ll keep the honest thieves out but anyone who really wants to steal the car that day is going to pop the lock and drive away with it.

So what can you do about it?

Start by Marking Your Turf

Adding a copyright notice, embedding a watermark and including author information in a digital file are all adequate means of establishing the fact that YOU created something and YOU intend on keeping control over it.

None of these are going to stop a determined copyright violator, especially in a world where the internet encourages the sharing and free exchange of ideas.

But there is a difference between “sharing” and “stealing” – so your job as a creative professional has to include embedding your brand on your work to the highest possible degree. Continue reading 3 Ways to Protect Copyright to Your Brand and Work as a Creative or Freelancer