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Looking at Design through the IP Lens

Lesson 2 from: Copyright, Trademark, and Intellectual Property for Designers

Rachel Rodgers

Looking at Design through the IP Lens

Lesson 2 from: Copyright, Trademark, and Intellectual Property for Designers

Rachel Rodgers

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Lesson Info

2. Looking at Design through the IP Lens

Lesson Info

Looking at Design through the IP Lens

Intellectual property is everything okay? That's? Everything that exists within your business, it's, everything that you're creating, it's, how you generate revenue, it's, even your legacy. So that's, how you want to think about it when you're thinking about I p intellectual property is everything that you're creating, and you're sort of contribution to the world so it's very important, and it deserves protection. Now, let's actually look at a really specific legal definition of intellectual property. Intellectual property, according to the world intellectual property organization, is creations of the mind, inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names and designs used in commerce. My definition is a little bit different. This is, you know, sort of more plain english intellectual property is just original creative works used in business, so if you create something and you connected in some way to running your business than voila, you've got type. So that's what actually intel...

lectual property looks like? Let me give you a couple of examples if you've got a blawg, um, and in your block, you might have illustrations that you share, maybe you share images that you've created, maybe you share articles that you've written, even though you're not selling those things, you're really just putting it on your block, and it sort of content that you're sharing it's still intellectual property and still requires protection so it doesn't have to be something that you're selling directly as long as it's connected in some way to your sales so into commerce for example with most of us we have a blogger on our website where we also have our list of services that we offer that we're selling right so you know it's connected in some way so as long as it's connected it's actually intellectual property ok so that's the definition that's what it actually is and so my goal for you today is to look at everything in your business through the lens of intellectual property so when you're making decisions about you know whether to work with someone or not work with them you want to look at the intellectual property how will your ipod be affected and based on that that's how you're going to decide whether to enter into that transaction or not? Ok so I want you to think about everything in your business whether you hire a contractor to work with you or not whether you take on a project or not how you share your work on a website or not you know whether you display it in a gallery all of these decisions to be made thinking about your intellectual property because that is the asset that's sitting in your business that's where the value is in your company so you want to make sure you're always protecting it and you know if you had like physical equipment right like your computer and maybe you know all of your software on your desk and you know printers than any kind of equipment you had in your office you wouldn't just leave the door open all the time for thieves to come in and take it if they wanted to write so you have to t treat your intellectual property those intangible assets the same way and you have to take steps to make sure that they're secure and make sure that they're protected so let's talk a little bit about the value of intellectual properties you can understand that this is not just like you know just matters to big corporations aa lot of entrepreneurs think that intellectual properties for big companies they think it's something that they don't have to pay attention to but that's actually not true at all okay intellectual property matters whether you are a small company or a big company and whether your larger small the vast majority of the assets in your business probably ninety five percent of the assets in your business are actually intellectual property ok so let's talk about it the value of I pee in the u s is five trillion dollars ok that's like two times the u s federal budget so like the actual all the money that it takes to run the entire united states the entire country times that by two and that's the value of intellectual property in the u s alone and it's similar in in most western countries for example in the european union it's thirty nine percent of the gross domestic product in the u is made up of intellectual property in australia. The top one hundred companies two hundred fifty billion dollars in their assets is all intellectual property okay, so intellectual property has a huge amount of value and because it's sort of in an intangible form by its nature it's also very prone to theft so theft and intellectual property is a big, big issue and you may have experienced this already. You may have seen someone steal your work, steal your designed, steal your content from your website you probably have experienced this in one way or another already. I know I certainly have and probably every entrepreneur that I've ever talked to has experienced it in one way or another if you're running a business online in some way, if you've got a website it's just become so, so much easier for people to steal your stuff so we're gonna make it hard for them, you know have an action plan for you to do that, but just so you know you're not alone here there are large companies and small companies who are having their I p stolen every day it's a, you know, six hundred billion dollar industry worldwide, two hundred to two hundred fifty billion in I p assets a stolen in the u s annually every year. Ok, so this is something that a lot of companies are dealing with and it's something that, you know, you need to figure out your plan, okay, just because you're small and just because you don't have your own in house legal team doesn't mean that you can't take action, that you have to be a victim, so I'm going to teach you how to avoid that and how to be empowered and know exactly what to do if someone steals your work. So now you understand what intellectual property in your design business looks like. Your business is made of intellectual property, every asset in your businesses, I p maybe you've got a laptop that has, you know that some equipment that you have, maybe you've got some other equipment or some other physical goods that you know you use in your business, but ninety nine point ninety nine percent of the value in your business is all of that graphic design. It's all of your illustrations, everything that you create in your business, that that type that's where the value is, ok? So I want you to understand that on gets highly valuable. Ok, this is something that by its nature can be sold over and over and over again. This table right here right can only be sold once once it's sold that's it it's done. Okay, that's the one time you're gonna make money off of it and then maybe that owner khun sell it, you know, on craigslist or something like that but that's all you can do with a physical product with intangible assets the nature of it means that you can sell it over and over and over and over again, right? You could sell a certain designed to one client and then you could take that same design and sell it either to another client or to a large company or to, you know, some stock art site or things like that. I mean there's so many different ways you could have it displayed in galleries, you could use it as illustrations for a book so you can take one design that you create and make money from it multiple times. Okay, but in order to do that, you have to sort of understand the legal stuff. Okay, you have to understand intellectual property law and just so you know, to I a p lot was created just for you, okay was created for artists for entrepreneurs, inventors and designers just like yourself, okay, that's. The whole point of it is to promote progress and innovation, okay, it's to promote artistry and creativity. And so we wouldn't have the ability, really, to create and spend the time that we d'oh honing our process if we couldn't get paid for it, right, we have to make a living from the art that we're creating. And so that's. The whole point of law is, is there to protect you? Is there to protect your work? So, that's. Why? I want to make sure you understand what it looks like and how to use it to your advantage.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Rachel Rodgers - Copyright Cheat Sheet.pdf
Rachel Rodgers - CreativeLive Handout.pdf
Rachel Rodgers - Designer Clauses.docx

Ratings and Reviews

Hayden Brooker
 

Absolutely loved Rachel's teaching methods, the on screen written visuals really helped to make sure I was writing down the most important information for my notes. This is the first Creative live class I've taken and it definitely makes me confident in wanting to take more. Love the fast pace learning and how much she packed into the 2 hours. Would definitely recommend!

Student Work

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