The Legal Side of Creating a Creative Business with Caroline Fox
Sure, creativity is fun...I mean that's why we do it right? But what happens when you're ready to take your creative business to the next level? Yes, I mean what happens when you need to get legal stuff done. Caroline Fox of Engaged Legal is here to talk all things legal in building a creative business!
“I went to a really interesting Policy Summit on Intellectual Property in D.C., and it was great because they had actual individuals who’s copyrights had been broadlines infringed but not completely. With technology we have stuff like YouTube and Instagram and how does that effect copyright rules. Technically every time you reproduce something, its copying, but then in a digital world where work is shared by copying, then how do you license that? It’s a conversation we haven’t caught up to, and I am not really sure when this conversation is going to happen, when there are so many other conversations in this day and age. These conversations that are really important to artists and really important to creatives are kind of getting pushed to the side.”
What do you offer as an individual , and what services for creatives are you here to help them with?
“I used to do basically whatever anyone needed, as long as it was in my business and law skillset. We have been really able to narrow my scope and stay in my own lane, and creatives know that if you stay in your own lane you get to really play in the zone of genius of yours. What I do most of, I do business formation, mostly for Virginia clients because I do have a license that limits me in certain areas. Contractor, licensing work where we are licensing a small product to a big company, negotiating contracts for small and medium sized agencies. I tend to work on people whose revenue is under 5 million a year. So believe it or not that is a medium size agency. Doing that kind of work for agencies who are working with Fortune 500 companies, who have no idea why they are getting sent a procurement contract, that has nothing to do with digital creative services and just trying to figure out how the heck to make this work because there is a lot of “fluff” in the contracts that do not even apply to creatives or anyone honestly.
Also, there is a lot of trademark and copyright work. I just had a call today with some creatives who have had their work ripped off and tried to go about things, and they were negotiating with their clients or another client that wanted to use their work and that client was kind of like “ ugh, screw it we don’t feel like it,” and they just went ahead and started using it. I am pretty passionate about helping where I can. Obviously instituting a lawsuit is a very very very expensive thing, and its not just time that goes into it, there are a lot of fees that go along with it as well. So, even if I am working pro bono, which I don’t do a lot of because we keep fees lower. It’s kind of like a mix of pro bono, we keep of fees lower, but there are still a lot of filing fees.”
There needs to be some sort of more concrete wording and legalities when it comes to trademarking and copyrighting your work as a creative. I have seen numerous imagery that is similar to each other and many people don’t have copyright on their images. At what point you should we be looking into your legal stances on what you have, and copyrighting things and trademarking and overall just being very aware.
Listen here and dive in with myself and Caroline get down to the nitty gritty!
Follow along with Caroline:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/engagedlegal/
Website: https://www.engagedlegal.com/