If You’re Going to “Wing It” as an Entrepreneur

December 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment

“Yay!!” by Subharnab Majumdar from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Plenty of entrepreneurs start out as a person or two, a business idea, and a shoestring budget. They know their craft but have limited or not experience starting or running a business. They don’t know what they don’t know – and that’s what gets them into trouble.

Many entrepreneurs employ the “we’ll learn as we go” approach to operating a business. Often times these are smart people, but if they get too focused on doing their business that they don’t take care of business within their operation, it can lead to costly mistakes: thousands of dollars in legal expenses and painful heartache to try to fix a problem that was completely avoidable.

Real-Life Facepalm Moments
I’ve had countless times where a business owner comes to me for help and I cringe and think, “We could have helped you avoid this if you had come to us sooner.” This is just a sample of my facepalm moments as a lawyer:

KAWS “At This Time” Sculpture by Guilhem Vellut from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

  • Owners who don’t create a business entity: put their personal assets at risk if the business gets sued;
  • LLC with multiple owners and no operating agreement: painful business “divorce” when things didn’t work out between owners;
  • Filing a trademark application with the USPTO that wasn’t trademarkable: the application might have had a chance if the description of the products and services was written more effectively;
  • Not filing a trademark and your competition files a trademark application that’s confusingly similar to or the same as yours: costly to make a claim against them and it may not be successful, which could force you to rebrand even though you were using it first;
  • Flawed customer contracts: doesn’t fully protect the company’s interests or address all likely contingencies;
  • Hiring a third-party contractor without a contract: if the person is hired to create an original work for the company, the company won’t own the copyright in what they hired the person to create and may have to pay to acquire it;
  • Working without a contract: so many problems. Whenever I get a call about a business deal gone bad, my first question is usually, “What does your contract say?” (Ideally, you want to be in a situation where, if the other side doesn’t perform as you agreed you can essentially respond with, “F*ck you, pay me.”)

If You’re Going to “Wing It”
If you are starting a business, my unsolicited advice is “Do your homework.” Invest the time to learn what goes into running your business and figure out what you don’t know. Reach out to established entrepreneurs to ask for their advice and avail yourself to resources in your community. In Arizona, we have dozens of these organizations like Arizona Small Business Association, Local First Arizona, and SCORE.

Even if you don’t think you can afford it, look into hiring a business and intellectual property lawyer for an hour. Bring them your ideas of what you want to do, and ask for their recommendations on how to make it happen. A good lawyer will respect your budget and tell you what you can do yourself and what you should hire a lawyer do for you. They can also recommendations resources to help you based on their experiences helping others.

If I’ve learned one thing as a lawyer it is that it’s easier and cheaper to prevent problems than to fix them.

True Story
Years ago, I worked with a new company where the owners hired me to create their operating agreement. I asked a lot of questions about things like intellectual property rights, compensation, and worst-case scenarios (e.g. disability of an owner) to create custom provisions for this document.

A few years later, the owners realized it wasn’t working out between then and decided to part ways. Their operating agreement dictated how they would address this situation, and they hired us again to revise the agreement to account for the exit of one of the owners. The process was professional, respectful, and cost-effective. I’m sure there were hurt feelings on both sides, but having this operating agreement helped the owners mange them and made for a smooth transition.

If you want more information about the legal dos and don’ts of starting and running a business, you can send me an email (Note: I can’t give advice to non-clients), and I maintain a mailing list where I share my thoughts about being a lawyer/entrepreneur, updates about projects I’m working on, upcoming speaking engagements, and I may provide information about products, services, and discounts. You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Filed Under: Business Law, Intellectual Property Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Starting a Comic Book – What Does it Cost?

June 8, 2016 by 2 Comments
Atom vs. Ant-Man (334/365) by JD Hancock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Atom vs. Ant-Man (334/365) by JD Hancock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

I had the privilege of doing two panels at Phoenix Comicon this year: Fan Art/Fiction and Fair Use and Comic Book Creator Rights. The latter was a panel with writer/artist Josh Blaylock. He has experience licensing others’ work and creating his own.

Someone in the audience asked us how much a person should set aside to cover legal fees when starting a comic book.

Create Quality First
If your goal is to create a comic book and possibly a business from it, start by working on your craft. You won’t have any legal issues if no one cares what you’re making.

Start with a Consultation
When you’re ready to take your work from a hobby to a professional endeavor, schedule a consultation with a lawyer. Choose someone with experience in entrepreneurship and intellectual property – business formation, copyright, contracts, and trademarks. You need someone who can help you understand when you need a lawyer. Expect to pay $200-350/hour for a lawyer’s time, more depending on where you live and the person’s experience level.

It doesn’t cost much to get started with a new venture, but you do want to be thoughtful about what you can afford and act accordingly. A good lawyer will respect your budget and tell you what you can do on your own, and when it’s imperative to hire a lawyer. For instance, in many states, it’s easy to file your own business entity. Check with your state’s corporation commission for instructions and the forms. In Arizona, you can file an LLC and complete the requisite publication for less than $100.

Nuts and Bolts information by Josh Blaylock

Nuts and Bolts information by Josh Blaylock

Protect your Intellectual Property
The most valuable asset in your work is your intellectual property. Before you fall in love with a name for your comic book, run a search on the USPTO trademark database to verify that someone else hasn’t claimed the same or a similar name. Even if you can’t afford the $225-325 filing fee to register your trademark at first, you can put a superscript “TM” next to your work’s name, logo, and anything else you claim as a trademark. The USPTO has videos about how to submit a trademark application if you want to try to file your own, but I usually recommend that clients have a lawyer shepherd their application through the process. If you want to do this, expect to pay an additional $1,000 for their time.

In regards to copyright, I tell my clients, it’s not if your work gets stolen, but when so plan accordingly. For a new comic book creator, my recommendation is to register each edition with the U.S. Copyright Office. Their website is not the most user-friendly experience, but you can hire a lawyer for an hour to walk you through your first registration and then you can submit your subsequent copyright applications by yourself. The filing fee for a single work is $35-55.

Manage Relationships with Contracts
Every relationship related to your business should be documented with a written signed contract. This applies to co-owners of your business, writers, artists, colorists, licensors, licensees, vendors, and if your comic book turns into a job offer, your employment contract. Contracts are relationship-management documents. They keep everyone on the same page in regards to expectations, compensation, ownership, and they provide a course of action if there is ever a dispute. A contract is an investment and worth the cost to hire a competent lawyer to write or review your document to ensure it is effective for your needs.

Additionally, every entrepreneur should watch the video Fuck You, Pay Me, featuring Mike Monteiro and Gabe Levine. They have excellent advice for all entrepreneurs, especially those who work in creative services.

If you want more information about the nuts and bolts of starting a comic book, check out Josh Blaylock’s book How to Self-Publish Comics: Not Just Create Them. If you want more information about the legalities of starting a business or working in the creative arts, you can contact me directly or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn. You can also get access to more exclusive content that’s shared only with my mailing list, by subscribing to the firm’s newsletter.

Filed Under: Business Law, Intellectual Property Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Legal Issues with Periscope

July 8, 2015 by 5 Comments
Vents by SecretLondon123 from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Vents by SecretLondon123 from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Have you tried Periscope? It’s one of the new live streaming apps where you can let everyone into your world and they can post comments and questions. I’m on it. It’s pretty fun – except when it overheats my phone.

Of course, being a social media lawyer, I started thinking about what types of legal hot water someone could get into using this or any other live video app. Here’s my preliminary list:

Copyright
You own the content you post via Periscope, but you grant Periscope and anyone who has access to it permission to use it.

An artist may be upset with you if you use Periscope to display, distribute, or perform their work without their permission – i.e., if you’re playing someone’s song, doing a dramatic (or not so dramatic) reading, or showing someone’s art (even with an attribution).

Trademark
If you’re using Periscope to talk about products, make sure you’re not confusing people by giving the impression that you represent the company.

Federal Trade Commission Rules
If you are lucky enough to have sponsorship or otherwise be compensated for reviewing products, make sure you disclose that too. If you’re doing reviews on periscope, you’re legally required only to give truthful and accurate reviews of products and services. Otherwise, the FTC could fine you up to $11,000.

Trade Secrets
Every company has secrets that give them a competitive advantage. Make sure you don’t accidentally disclose your company secrets on your videos.

Privacy
Although there is no expectation of privacy in anything you do in public, there are a few exceptions for bathrooms, changing rooms, medical offices, lawyers’ offices, as well as within the walls of your home. Be thoughtful and respect full when it comes to shooting videos of others.

Remember, you have no expectation of privacy in anything you post online.  Just like people have been fired for other social media posts, you can be fired for a Periscope video. You could also do tremendous reputational harm to yourself.

Defamation
I can foresee people using Periscope to vent when they are angry. Be careful that you don’t cross the line and tell a lie about another person. Even if you didn’t intend to tell a lie, you could still face a lawsuit for defamation. If you are especially upset, it may be best to wait 24 hours to calm down and verify your information before talking about the situation on live video. Think before you speak.

These legal issues apply to all live streaming video apps so be careful before you jump on your virtual soapbox. The FCC does not regulate online streaming video, so there are no “deadly words,” but there are also no 7-second delays or buttons to bleep you out.

These are my rules of thumb when it comes to posting anything on the internet:

  1. Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t put on the front page of the newspaper.
  2. Assume everything you post will be seen by four people: your best friend, your worst enemy, your boss, and your mother. If you don’t want to one of those people to see what you’re thinking about posting, don’t say it.

This is an area of law that is still new and developing. I’m excited and curious to see what legal cases will come out of live video apps like Periscope and Meerkat. If you want additional information about the legalities of social media, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. You can also contact me directly or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Filed Under: Internet law Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Exciting News: I Joined Venjuris!

January 14, 2015 by Leave a Comment
My Business Card for VenJuris!

My Business Card for VenJuris!

A few months ago I made the important decision to join a law firm in Phoenix called Venjuris. The firm used to be Venable Campillo Logan and Meaney but they recently rebranded. I’m excited to combine forces with them. I’ve been getting settled in to my new office during the last two weeks and getting hooked into their computer file and billing system. I’ll be seeing clients again starting next week. Check out my new bio – I’m blonde!

Will the Type of Work I Do Change?
Not really. I will continue to work on copyright and trademark matters; website terms of service; business formations; contract negotiation, drafting, and review; and offer consultations for clients who need help with related to business, intellectual property, social media, and flash mob law issues.

What do my New Colleagues Do?
Venjuris is mostly an intellectual property firm. They do patents, copyrights, trademarks, and licensing. We also have an attorney who does intellectual property litigation. They also do a lot of international intellectual property work. They’re all awesome people. (I wouldn’t have joined the firm if they weren’t.)

What will happen to Carter Law Firm?
Nothing! I will continue to do professional speaking and writing under Carter Law Firm, but all new client matters will be handled under Venjuris. I’ll continue to write blog posts and make videos for Carter Law Firm on at least a weekly basis and I’m putting more energy into public speaking. I have gigs lined up for San Francisco, Las Vegas, and London in the first half of this year and, of course, I’m doing The Undeniable Tour starting in March.

I will be revamping this website to shift the focus to speaking, writing, blogging, and vlogging during the next few weeks (maybe months). But in terms of what I do and how I do it, not much will change.

Where’s my New Office?
1938 East Osborn Road, Phoenix, AZ 85016

Will Rosie Still Come to Work with Me?
Yes. For now, she’s allowed in the office one day a week. Hopefully my colleagues will see that she’s not a distraction and actually helps me work better and will let her come more often.

Want to See my New Office? I made a Video!

How can you Contact Me?
If you’re interested in hiring me for legal work, contact me at rcarter@venjuris.com.
If you’re interested in hiring me to write an article or post for you or speak at your event, contact me at ruth@carterlawaz.com.

Email is usually the fastest way to reach me.
Of course, you can always connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Starting a Business in Arizona

January 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Little Waitrose - Birmingham Snow Hill - Colmore Row - Now open - sign by Elliott Brown from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Little Waitrose – Birmingham Snow Hill – Colmore Row – Now open – sign by Elliott Brown from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Starting a business is exciting and can be overwhelming at times with everything that has to get done. I wish more business owners put more energy into creating structure within their business when they contemplate and launch their endeavors. It will save a lot of pain and frustration in the long run. If your plans for 2015 include starting a business, make sure these steps are on your to-do list in the first month or two of starting your company.

Discuss with your accountant what type of entity you should form. Every company needs an accountant. In Arizona, you have the option to create a C corporation, an S corporation, a B corporation, or an LLC. I tell all my clients to meet with their accountant to make sure they select the right entity and understand the corresponding tax implications and other responsibilities.

Check with the Arizona Corporation Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to ensure that the name you want for your business is available. Many companies make the mistake of assuming that just because the website domain they want is available that their desired company or product name hasn’t been registered as a trademark for another company. If you use a name that has already been registered by someone else in the same or similar industry, they can make you rebrand.

Submit the necessary paperwork and fee with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Consider filing your trade name with the Secretary of State’s Office as well. The forms to file your Articles of Incorporation or your Articles of Organization are on the Arizona Corporation Commission’s website. Make sure you get all the supplemental forms you need. The standard filing fee is $60 for a corporation and $50 for an LLC. The filing fee to register a trade name with the Secretary of State is $10. (Registering a trade name prevents other companies in Arizona from using the same name. It is not a substitute for filing a federal trademark.)

Create a separate bank account for your business and set up your accounting system. It’s imperative that you keep your company’s corporate veil intact. I strongly recommend using an accounting system like QuickBooks. It makes life so much easier when you’re reviewing your books and preparing for taxes.

If your LLC has more than one owner, create an operating agreement. If you have a corporation, write your bylaws. These documents will dictate how you will run your business, including how you will divide responsibilities and how you will address problems when they occur. They will help you decide in advance how you will address situations that are likely to occur.

Create the contract templates you will need for your business. If applicable, write the terms of service for your website. If you are going to be hire to provide a product or service by multiple customers, you will want to have contract templates for those interactions. This creates consistency and uniformity which will help you build your reputation as well as be more efficient. You can customize your templates to suit your needs. I encourage business owners to look at others’ templates for ideas of what they might want to include but be leery of using someone’s template unless it’s been reviewed by your lawyer.

Discuss what intellectual property your business will or might create and what strategies you will use to protect it. Every business has intellectual property: copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. It’s often the company’s most valuable asset. It is important you understand what you have and the best ways to protect it.

Ideally, you would have a lawyer involved from the beginning of your business, if only to tell you what you should do and when you’re better off hiring a lawyer to work for you. Even if you’re on a shoestring budget, you can find a reasonably priced business lawyer or resources for startups to assist you. It’s also prudent to schedule an annual consultation with your lawyer to educate yourself about what legal issues might be on the horizon and to get advice about what more you should do to protect your business as you have the ability to afford it. It’s easier and cheaper to prevent problems than to clean up the mess when something bad happens.

If you want to chat with me about starting a business in Arizona, feel free to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me.

Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

Filed Under: Business Law, Featured Post, Intellectual Property Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is It Fan Art or Copyright Infringement?

June 3, 2014 by 12 Comments
Toying with the Men by JD Hancock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Toying With The Men by JD Hancock from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

I have the pleasure of speaking about copyright and fan fiction and fan art at Phoenix Comicon this year. It’s always fun to hear about the projects fans are working on, and to see that so many of them are mindful about the copyright. I wish I had more black and white answers for them about what they can and can’t do.

Fan fiction and fan art falls squarely into the murky realm of copyright and fair use. The owner of a copyright controls where and how their work is copied, displayed, distributed, performed, and what derivative works are made. Fan fiction and fan art can be derivative works but they also may be protected by fair use.

Fair use is part of the copyright laws that acknowledges the fact that many works are inspired by past art. This law allows artists to build on existing works in creative and innovative ways. One thing to always remember is that fair use is a defense, not a permission slip. There is always a risk that the copyright holder will claim you’re infringing on their copyright and you’ll have to basically tell the court, “Yes your honor, I used their work but it’s OK because . . . .”

When a court considers a fair use case, these are some of the main factors it considers:

  • Purpose and character of your use of another’s work (Is what you did transformative and did you do it for commercial use?)
  • Nature of the copyrighted work (What did you copy?)
  • Amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work used (How much of the original – quality and quantity – did you copy?)
  • Effect on the market (Would someone seek out the original and accept your work as a substitute?)

These are some of the main factors, but the court can consider others if it wishes. This is also not to be treated as mathematical equation. Regardless of how many fair use factors favor you, you can always lose.

For Phoenix Comicon this year, I wanted to create an easy mnemonic device that fans can use to remember the fair use factors; and here it is: PAIN.

P = Purpose and character of your use

A = Amount of the original used

I = Impact on the market

N = Nature of the work you copied

Another thing to consider if you want to use another artist’s work is how the copyright holder historically responds to fan fiction and fan art. Some encourage it; some are OK with it as long as you’re not making money off of it; some are OK with it as long as it’s not sexual (i.e., slash fiction); and some dislike all fan fiction and fan art and will try to lay the smackdown on you if you create it.

If you want to talk more about the legalities of fan fiction and fan art, come see me at Phoenix Comicon on Sunday, June 8th at noon. Both talks will be in North 130. I’m also doing a panel on Creator Rights on Saturday, June 7th at 10:30 a.m.  You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

Filed Under: Featured Post, Geek Law, Intellectual Property, Photography & the Law Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

To Watermark or Not To Watermark

January 9, 2014 by 5 Comments
How to Create a Watermark in Photoshop by Michele M. F. from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

How to Create a Watermark in Photoshop by Michele M. F. from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

I was recently asked to talk about whether there are benefits to putting a watermark on your photos before posting them on the Internet. Is it worth the extra effort? Do they really prevent people from stealing your work?

Like all legal questions, the answer is, “It depends.” But let’s look at it.

When you take a photograph, you have copyright rights in your work the second the image is put on film or saved in your camera. You have the exclusive right to copy, distribute, display, and make derivative works from your picture, even if you don’t register it with the U.S. Copyright Office  or put the © [Your Name] [Year] on it. If you want to sue for copyright infringement if someone steals your work, you have to register your work and if that’s the case you should consult a lawyer to determine the best copyright protection strategy for your work.

I look at watermarks similarly to home security. Your home doesn’t have to be fortress; it just has to be less appealing than the other houses on the block. A watermark makes your photo less appealing to potential infringers who can probably find (and possibly steal) a similar image elsewhere that doesn’t come with a watermark.

For people who understand copyright, a watermark is a visual reminder that they don’t own the image and they should contact you if there’s an image they really want to use. The problem with watermarks is they can obscure the image itself and interfere with people’s ability to enjoy the image which was the purpose of posting it online in the first place.

You could try to avoid this problem by putting the watermark in the corner so it doesn’t obstruct the image, but then you open yourself up to the possibility that someone will steal you work and crop off the watermark before using it. If an infringer does this, it is a separate additional penalty to copyright infringement. If you sued the infringer you could ask for damages for the infringement which can be up to $150K if you qualify for statutory damages and up to an additional $25K for removing or altering the “copyright management information.

So, should you take the time to put watermarks on your photos? It’s your call. You can deter potential infringers with watermarks and/or using software that prevents them from downloading your images from your website. But if someone is dead set on stealing your work, there’s probably nothing you can do to completely stop them. The questions then become how much energy are you willing to put into prevention and how do you want to respond if someone steals your work. How you want the situation to be resolved usually tells you what you have to do on the front end to set yourself up for the desired outcome.

If you want to chat with me more about this topic, you can connected with me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. I’m also available to speak at events on Copyright for Creatives.
You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

Filed Under: Intellectual Property, Internet law, Photography & the Law Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

New Stance on Blog Copyright Registration

May 30, 2013 by 11 Comments
Hey you! by QuinnDombrowski from Flickr

Hey you! by QuinnDombrowski from Flickr

Grrr . . . It seems like every time I call the Copyright Office with a question about blog copyrights, I have to change my stance on how and whether anyone should register their blog’s content. Mind you, when I wrote the Legal Side of Blogging last year, my research and ideas were approved by my cyberspace law professor and another internet/copyright attorney. We all got it wrong.

I used to think that bloggers should register their new content every three months because the Copyright Act says you’re eligible for statutory damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit if you register your work within three months of publication or one month of learning of the infringement – whichever is first. In a previous call to the Copyright Office, the representative said it was permissible to register all your content as one work and that subsequent registrations would be derivative works of the prior ones.

A few months ago I was informed that content that is only available online (including blog posts) doesn’t count as “publications,” so that rule about registering within three months of publication doesn’t apply. For unpublished content, you have to register you work prior to the infringement occurring to be eligible for statutory damages. If you wait until after your work has been stolen to register you work you can only collect actual damages, which will be low unless you or the person who stole your work has a financially successful site.

I called the Copyright Office yesterday and was told that you can’t register posts that are released on different days as one work (though my experience is proof that you can) and you can’t register the same post as an individual work and as part of a larger work, (though I think there’s some wiggle room here).

So here’s my new stance – registering your blog content is not worth it for most people. The exception to this rule is you might want to register your work if you think it will be stolen by someone who can afford to pay potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and attorneys’ fees. If you’re in this boat, or think you might be, you should submit your application to the Copyright Office before you release the post on your site to ensure that your application will be in before any infringement can occur.

This is more proof of how behind the times the law is and that you can’t apply logic to copyright on the internet. I think it’s moronic that online content isn’t “published” when it’s released on the internet. I think this definition will change in the near future with so many publications switching from paper to being online only. As the law is written and applied the law seems unfair because it makes it harder for online writers to protect themselves.

There is a special copyright registration for “serial works” but so far the Copyright Office says blogs, including those that are released on a strict schedule like other serial publications, do not qualify. I think this is wrong and needs to be challenged.

For now, I’ve added a disclaimer to my ebook on Amazon that states that the copyright registration chapter is inaccurate and will be updated this summer. I hope to add the revised chapter to the book in the next month once it gets through legal review and editing.

Filed Under: Intellectual Property, Internet law, Legalities of Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FAQs about the Legalities of Social Media

April 25, 2013 by 1 Comment
Carter Law Firm's Official Postcard - let me know if you want me to send you one.

Carter Law Firm’s Official Postcard – Let me know if you want me to send you one.

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Public Relations Society of America’s Western District Conference last weekend. I led two sessions: “So you want to do a flash mob” and “The Legal Side of Blogging: 10 Questions to Ask Before you Hit ‘Publish.’” Both sessions were great and I wanted to share some of the frequent questions I get when I talk about the legalities of social media.

What should you do if you’re outsourcing your blog content?
You need a kick ass contract that clearly states who owns the copyright in the content that is created. If the hiring company obtains copyright, does the blogger get permission to put a copy of the work in their portfolio to obtain other work? The contract should also state who is responsible if there are any problems related to the work (i.e., copyright infringement claim) or if there are any disputes related to the contract.

What should you do if you want to use a photo from a company’s site, such as if want to write a positive review of their company?
There’s a chance that using the photo could qualify as fair use; however it’s probably best to avoid the possibility of being hit with a copyright infringement claim by asking the company if you can use their photo. You never know who owns the rights to an image and if there are any restrictions related to using it.

What’s the worst case scenario if you use an image from Google Images without verifying that it was available for use with a Creative Commons license or had been released to public domain?
You could be sued for tens of thousands of dollars for copyright infringement. I always say that just because someone sues you that it doesn’t mean they’re going to win, but in this case, they might. You can still be sued and lose even if you didn’t mean any harm.

I get permission to use every photo on my blogs or use photos that are available under Creative Commons licenses that allow me to modify and commercialize each image.

What if you’ve been using Google Images or you haven’t kept track of what images you’re allowed to use?
Probably no one wants to hear this, but I’d rip every image out of your site and start over, making sure that you own or have permission to use every image on your site.

These are my rules of thumb when it comes to social media:

  • Assume everything you post online will be seen by your best friend, your worst enemy, your boss, and your mother. If you’re not ok with one of those people seeing what you want to say, don’t post it.
  • Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t put on the front page of the newspaper.

For more information about the legalities of social media, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.

You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
You can connect with me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me.
Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

Filed Under: Business Law, Intellectual Property, Internet law, Legalities of Blogging, Photography & the Law Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sending a Bill When Someone Steals Your Work

April 11, 2013 by 6 Comments
Mushroom? by Oslo in the Summertime from Flickr

Mushroom? by Oslo in the Summertime from Flickr

I’m a member of a Facebook group for people to discuss and share instances where other people use their work. Most of the members are nature photographers who do gorgeous work. Most of them have no desire to sue people who steal their work, but they would like to be compensated. And some of them are getting pissed when they find that someone has stolen their work and have started sending bills to people who use their work without permission.

This isn’t a bad idea. I’ve had a friend get a bill in the mail when he used someone’s photograph without permission that he found via Google Images. You can view it here or below.

When someone comes to me and wants to send a bill to anyone they discover is infringing on their copyrights, I suggest they add information to the website where they show their work about licensing terms and fees. This makes it more credible when the artist sends a bill that essentially says that by using a photograph, the infringer has agreed to pay the fee and abide by the license’s terms. As long as the infringer complies, they are no longer committing copyright infringement.

The downside of this strategy is many people will ignore such a bill if they receive one. Then the question for the artist is “What’s next?” Do you sue them? Send a DMCA takedown notice to get the work taken off their site? Call them out publicly for using your work without permission? Do you drop the issue?

My friend who got the bill for using an authorized image earlier this year got a bill from a company with a track record of suing people who don’t pay the bill and winning. In his case, he choices appeared to be pay the bill (or try to negotiate a lower price) or get sued. If you don’t follow up when people don’t pay the bill, it’s kind of like the photo radar tickets. If you get one in the mail, you can deal with it by paying the fine or going to traffic school or avoid service for four months until the court drops the charge.

I’m not one to tell people what they should do, but I advise people to think their plan of action all the way through before selecting a course of action. If you need help deciding what’s the best strategy for protecting your copyrights, please contact a copyright attorney in your community.

For more information about copyright and blogs, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.
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