Copyright, Trademark, and Intellectual Property for Designers

Lesson Info

IP Infringement Clause

So the other thing you want to have is an I p infringement claws and this is something that one of my clients was a designer learned the hard way so this clause is protecting you in the event that you put things on the web site that your client has given you so they might give you head shots of themselves they might give you a copy they might give you photographs they could give you all kinds of content that they want you to put on the web site and incorporate into the design right you have no idea what the story is with all that content that's not your problem right that's intellectual property that they're giving to you to incorporate into their web site and you're making the assumption that they own it or that they have a right to have it on their website maybe they don't you want to make sure that that's not your problem and that's what this clause does for you I had a client who has a web design studio she worked with a client to create a web site the client gave her a bunch of ph...

otos she gave her copy should give her all kinds of stuff that she wanted her to put an incorporate into the design for the website so my client does that she puts up the web site and in the photo it says you know designed and developed by her design studio well, sure enough, a couple of months later she gets a letter from getty images saying that she has infringed on this, you know, particular on getty images image that she didn't purchase a license to use it so she was infringing on the intellectual property that is owned by them by having it on this website now but just it's not her website, but her name is in the footer as having designed and developed it so getting made her responsible and served her and so she had did then they ask for feet they said either pay my r six hundred dollar licensing fee to have used the what to use the photo and then also take it down and then on top of that, you're gonna pay a six hundred dollars fee for having used and infringed on our work, and you're also going to take it down, and if you don't do that, then we're going to take you to court, ok, so if you get a letter like that from a big company, you know, you know, what were the options? At that point, she had totally infringed on their copyright, you know, on dso she paid the six hundred dollars feet on ly to find out that it was her client who downloaded this, you know, image from google and, you know, never even thought about who owns that image or getting a license to use it and she was made responsible then she had to truck going try to get reimbursed from her client which never happened s o this can happen in this context it can also happen with contractors if you've got people working under you, you have to make sure that they understand intellectual property infringement and how it works and make sure that they avoid that so you've got to teach your people how to avoid intellectual property infringement otherwise you as the owner of the studio will be responsible so that's what happened to her and luckily it was only a six hundred dollars fee it could have been a lot more and she could have been in a situation where they wanted to take her to court s o this clause will help prevent that from happening and prevent you from being responsible for it. So this says client acknowledges that it is client sole responsibility to ensure that all tools information, documentation, photos, artwork, written copy or other materials collectively materials provided by client and placed on clients website do not infringe on any third parties intellectual property rights ok, so klein is automatically representing and warranting that they have a right to use all of the content that they're asking you to put on the website and that way if you wind up getting, you know, a letter from getty images then you've also got this clause here which says client shall be liable for any damages incurred by studio resulting from any infringement of copyrights, trademarks or other proprietary rights or any of the harm resulting from the use of potentially infringing materials on clients website so you're passing the buck and making the client responsible for their own actions you know make sure that's in your contract as well and trust me this isn't my contract with my designer to okay so you want to encourage you know your clients to be responsible for you know what they're giving you and what's going to go on the website all right? So anyone who's working for you in any way or any way that you're working with people in their handing you content and you're incorporating it into your designs you want to make sure that the person who's handing that stuff to you is responsible for making sure that that content is not infringing on someone else's I p okay and there's a lot of ways obviously to get images where you can purchase a stock and you have a license to use it right there's you know a lot of ways you can use content and just purchased the right to you can like purchase a license for a font for example so you just want to make sure that people are doing that same thing with your subcontractors you want to make sure that they are taking the steps to either get a license or not using content that they're not allowed to use. So the other part of this says that the client shell not only be responsible, but shall indemnify and hold studio harmless from it against any and all losses. So that means that if, you know, you know, if it had been more than six hundred dollars, even for the six hundred bucks, but let's say my client would have been sued by getting images for for using that image on that particular website, she could take this contract and go to court and say, hey, this is not my problem. I have a closet says I'm being indemnified so it's actually the client's problem and the client needs to be brought into this lawsuit and I need to be out of it. And that's actually a strategy you can use in court to get out of the lawsuit. So this will definitely protect you if things go awry. Okay, so make sure you have it in there and if nothing else, it's a deterrent. Okay, so it informs your clients and educates them and lets them know not to hand you stuff that is infringing on other people's copyright.

Class Description

Lessons

1Intro to Advanced IP for Designers
2Looking at Design through the IP Lens
3Using your CSA to Protect your IP
4How to Incorporate CSAs into Your Business
5IP Infringement Clause
6No Guarantees & Cancellation Clauses
7Boilerplate Clauses
8Making Your CSA Work
9Copyright for Designers
10Hiring Subcontractors
11Copyright Registration
12How-To: Copyright Registration
13Design Theft Prevention
14Fair Use & Infringement