Protect Your Creative & Brands
Find out how owning & registering copyrights protect both your Creative and your Brands
How Are Copyrights Owned?
Copyrights are not owned automatically, unless a company can prove that an employee was working within the scope of his or her employment during the entire time that the work was created. If you don't have an employment contract, work made for hire, or assignment agreement, your company may not be able to prove that it owns a copyright in the works created for your company! Even if you own the original work, because you paid for it, a copyright is separate from the work itself.
Every creative work that your company commissions should be owned. That means that your company should be able to show a signed, written employment, work made for hire or assignment agreement for you, your employees and every consultant and vendor that authors any type of creative work.
An independent contractor must sign a work made for hire agreement BEFORE work commences on a creative work, in order for a work made for hire agreement to be effective, and it must be for a type of work specified in the Copyright Act. As a fallback, every work for hire needs to include a copyright assignment, because a written assignment is necessary to transfer rights after a work is created.
This all sounds complicated, but in practice, our 'Entrepreneur's Guide' makes it easy...
copyrights
Copyright Content, Videos, Artwork, Sales Copy, Photos & So Much More...
Why is copyright so important?
Any creative work of 'authorship' is protected by copyright in the U.S. by default from the date it's created. But the rights granted by registration are incredibly important.
Sure, authors, artists and designers need to register their copyrights in creative works. But even if creativity isn't your company's bread and butter, copyright ownership & registration is still one of the best ways to protect your brand.
Everything available online will eventually be stolen, even if it's behind a paywall. But third party services, like the Pixsy service for photographers, are making it increasingly easy to stop copyright infringers, sometimes at no cost owners, giving registered copyrights a big role in protecting a company's valuable iP.
Copyright Essentials Protects Your Company's Creative
There are 3 rights that owners get only if Copyright Registration is done within a certain time or before infringement occurs. Too late, and you won't have these 3 critical rights, which can change everything when you're 'creative' has been stolen.
Attorneys' fees
Copyright registration gives you the right to seek attorneys fees after successfully suing an infringer of your copyrighted works. This right may be worth millions of dollars.
Statutory damages
Copyright registration gives you the right to seek statutory damages. This is important, because actual damages are often difficult to calculate in copyright infringement.
Presumption of ownership
A presumption of ownership shifts the burden of proving ownership on the infringer. The owner of a copyright need merely present a valid copyright registration.
Here's What People Are Saying About iPscaling...
About Chris Paradies
For more than two decades, Chris Paradies has been making it his mission to help innovative and creative business owners as their patent and intellectual property attorney and business mentor. Entrepreneurs that find intellectual property a difficult concept to master appreciate Chris’ ability to simplify difficult concepts without shortchanging the subject.
Chris’ passion for helping entrepreneurs and unique background -- graduating from West Point, serving as a U.S. Army officer, earning a Ph.D. at RPI, completing his J.D., summa cum laude, facilitating startup training, and serving as volunteer Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Tampa Bay Innovation Center -- have given rise to the iPscaling® program and the Concertina® principle.
Chris lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife and two sons.