The last time that we were on, we were talking about fair use, right, as a really tricky
area.
Like, very, very tricky, and we kind of broke down different elements of fair use.
I want to start out now by just kind of giving an opportunity, if you guys have specific
questions, to jump into answers of those specific questions.
I have seen people posting questions.
It's typically best, if you're going to post a question, to email it to me, too, because
then it's all stored in the same location.
So let me start out by just seeing if anybody has any specific questions, and then I'll
jump in on the subject matter I was going to cover first.
So anything that you guys are running into?
Holly, do you have, yeah, go ahead.
I'm not sure if I asked this before, but I just wondered if, for copyright, if, is
it okay to talk about copyright right now?
Is it okay, what?
To talk about copyright right now?
Yeah, of course, anything.
This is a protection portal.
It's your platform.
So whatever you have a question on.
I just realized I don't have my mic.
Can you guys hear me okay?
Yeah, we can hear you great.
Okay, usually I have a different mic.
I know that for, to obtain a federal copyright registration, you have to have it in fixed
form.
So I just wondered, does a song that's not written down in music, black and white, but
is recorded on YouTube, like, does YouTube count as legitimate?
Yeah, so you submit your recordings, there are different formats that can be utilized.
Have you gone through the copyright site?
Have you tried to file it on there?
It actually tells you which formats are acceptable.
Okay.
Yeah.
So let me share my screen real fast.
If it was legitimate enough to not have it, like, a song that doesn't, because I don't
know notes.
Like, I don't know.
I have lots and tons of songs, but I don't know notes.
I don't know, like, music.
So if it's just in an audio form on YouTube.
There are.
So if you're submitting, let's go over to registration, recordation, actually, let's
do it easier way.
Do it through here.
You are going to be doing.
Is it so there are videos you said?
Songs.
But are there songs like audio recordings or are they on?
You said YouTube, right?
Well.
I don't have them like I have them on a voice recorder making dances to them.
But if but if they're not attached with a dance and they're just a song and they're
on YouTube as a record, I don't know, does it does it mean there's a difference?
Yeah, there's a difference between if you're trying to protect the lyrics versus if you're
trying to protect the audio, like because the lyrics themselves would be like a book,
a publication, things like that.
But then if you're trying to protect the audio, like the song that would be to be protected
as an audio work.
So they're kind of different.
They're not they're not exactly the same.
So it depends upon which one.
And you can actually record both.
Right.
You can record the lyrics as a as some kind of published works, depending if you're actually
publishing it, or you can actually see like here on the literary works.
You can publish there's all sorts of things you can do, like there are things like books
and but you could also use a short form, excuse me, any water.
You can use this literary work form TX.
And you can follow up for that.
But what I would do is if you are going to let me just check something here real quick
for you.
It should be a short form TX in here.
Short on literary works.
Yep, it isn't here.
Okay, good.
All right.
So when you go to file your application, you're going to see it, it'll list the format, like
the different format types for you, right, you have to get into the app.
So do you guys remember how what the USPTO website I taught you how to how to register
for the site?
You guys remember that?
So I'll show you really quick in case everybody anybody's kind of wondering right now, you
It's kind of similar for the copyright site.
So if you go to uspto.gov here, you see on the top right here, my USPTO, you click on
that, and then it says create a USPTO.gov account, okay?
So you click on that, and now you go through, like, all sorts of stuff.
It's going to ask you for a photocopy of your driver's license, your blood type, your first
child.
Like, it asks tons of questions, okay?
Now similar for the copyright office, with the copyright office, you have to actually,
when you go to do a filing, if I file on a, let's say a, let me try a performing arts.
You see here where it says music on the performing arts?
You see it on the screen?
So you would click on performing arts, that's the kind of work that you're doing, and then
you can file your application, register a work of the performing arts.
And after you click on that, it starts to ask you all sorts of questions, and you've
got to create an account.
See if you're a new user, click here to register, let me open this, make it bigger, right here,
you see here?
If you're a new user, click here to register, okay?
So you're going to click there, and then you're going to walk through, very similar to the
USPTO, entering all your information, piece by piece by piece.
So I'll just, let's see, Peter and Yemes, Unified Guide, user ID, this is user ID help.
So you can create your own and your password, I mean, so it basically walks you through
step-by-step everything that you need to create an account.
Once you create an account, then you can go to file.
Once you go to file, it's going to tell you the file type that's needed to upload.
So you have to, on your side, what you need to do is decide, do you want to, do you want
to go after just the words, or do you want to go after the video, or do you want to go
after the audio?
Those are three different things, okay?
If you want the most powerful thing, the lyrics, if you own the lyrics, then regardless
of somebody uses the lyrics in a video or a song, they infringe, right?
So the most powerful thing would be to own the lyrics.
Now, did you create like the, or are you creating like the musical background too,
or just the words?
So it's just the words, right?
No, they're just like little melodies, little meditation melodies, simple little songs.
All right.
So when you say melodies, you mean words, or do you mean music?
Yeah.
Words, words to a melody.
So what I would do is I would protect, this is not legal advice, all right?
What I would do is I would protect, in my situation, I would actually protect the words
because then if they use the words in a poem, they use them in a book, they use them in
a video, they use them in standing on a corner, you know, and kind of building an audience
and charging people to listen to it, whatever it is, that's all copyright infringement.
That's the most powerful.
Now, if you find that when you take that work, you're going to add some kind of audio
component to it, meaning some kind of musical background, make sure whatever that musical
background is, is something that is, does not belong to somebody else, right?
I've dropped before, I don't know, you guys tell me if it would be helpful for you.
If you think it would be helpful, I can drop more sources for royalty free music.
Yeah, okay.
I'll drop that more for you, okay?
So these are sites where you can get royalty free music for your video background, right?
So then like in my, there's actually one that I'm using right now that's really good.
I mean, it's actually really, really good.
It actually also has a site for grabbing intros to videos.
So you know how before like the video itself starts with all the content, there's usually
like that intro, right?
So it's like kind of.
some kind of animation or some kind of artistic thing
happens on the screen and then the video starts,
I've got a site that actually has tons of those
and you can customize them for you.
All right, so I'll drop that for you guys today also.
It's a really good resource, okay?
So you'll get your intro part
that you can add into your videos for marketing purposes
and then you can get your background music
and throw those into it.
So I'm not doing your videos for you,
but I gave you the intro and I gave you the background music.
You got to fill in the rest, okay?
So does that help Holly?
That's, so that's what you're going to do basically.
You file under a literary work, you protect that.
By doing that, you're not going to have to upload
like an MPEG or a WAV file because it's a literary work.
Okay, and that's going to be way more powerful.
So Crystal, nope, you're that way.
Crystal, there, now you moved, now you're there.
You go, go ahead.
I'm right here.
So I think part of my question is in relation
to what you just told Holly as well.
So if somebody used those words,
that's why it's more important to make sure
that those videos are copyrighted
because they use them in a poem, a book, a video,
or on the corner is what you're saying.
But that goes to the question that I actually put
into the IP as an example that there's a huge blow up
right now in the evangelical world
about pastors plagiarizing from the pulpit
of somebody else's works and books.
And somebody finally brought it to the surface this week.
They're all very frustrated with her who brought it out,
Sheila Ray Gregory, but she's like,
guys, this guy just plagiarized four different points
from four different authors in the main realm.
And I was asking what then are those authors opportunities
to bring that to the forefront?
Like, is there a claim that they make against that pastor
who plagiarized that?
Because if that sermon that he just gave
then gets replicated, then gets put on the web,
like now it's even deeper of a plagiarism piece.
So what would they do in that case?
You're so good at this, Crystal.
I mean, honestly, you're like the dream student
in law school, literally.
Like you're like, well, I could see this implemented
this way and then this happens and that happens.
And you're like, she gets it, yes.
So here's the issue is that the only one
who has the right to make copies
is a copyright owner, right?
But the only one who has the right to make derivative works
is a copyright owner also.
So all these slight modifications to the original work,
all of that stuff belongs to the copyright owner.
Not to, and this area of the pulpit
has been one of the biggest areas of copyright infringement
and nobody's really done anything about it.
They just kind of said, well, it's a pastor.
It's like, well, no,
because pastors are making tons of money off of their books,
off of their videos, off of their workshops.
So I'm not gonna name any names,
but there's multi, multi, multimillionaire pastors
out there.
Now I'm not saying they shouldn't be multimillionaires.
That's great.
If they're using the gift that they have,
look, our God is not a God of poverty, right?
So by all means, let them make all the money they want,
but they shouldn't be using your content to get there
unless they are reaching out to you first and saying,
hey, I'd like to use your content.
Can I pay you a royalty?
You know, per book or per, you know, or per whatever,
you know, per contract or whatever case it may be,
you should be getting compensated for that.
So what do they do?
If your material, let's say that you did a,
let's say you did like this weekend,
this weekend on Saturday, I'm going to be at my lake house.
I'm gonna be doing a training on healing the sick, right?
There are families coming
that are going to be participating in this.
So there's, I put it together for teenagers,
but the requirement for the teenager to attend
is for a parent to be there.
Because I don't want parents going,
what the heck is going on?
What did you do to my kid, right?
My kid's going around laying hands on people now,
like, what is that?
You know, so I said,
the only way that the teenager can show up
is if the parent's there.
So this weekend, I'm gonna be doing that.
We're going deep, like we're gonna be doing real training
and people are gonna be healing the sick there
on our patio, overlooking the lake, right?
And food's gonna be provided, not just us,
but the material I'm gonna be training on is deep.
Now.
Somebody could say, I want to take that recording
and then turn it into a sermon.
They could probably take what I'm going to teach this weekend
and turn it into like 10 sermons.
Because I'm going to be covering who we are, what Jesus did,
and the calling.
All three I'm going to be hitting.
Because you can't follow the calling
unless you understand who you are.
If you get the, oh, here's the calling, it's like, great.
So there's a calling.
Who cares?
It's like, no.
It's like, no, you have to understand who you are first.
If you understand who you are and then what he did,
then you can follow with the calling.
Otherwise, you think you're doing it, in which case
nothing is accomplished.
Anyways, I'm getting on the sidetrack here.
But the whole point being, everything I'm going to teach
could now be turned into 10 sermons.
So what do pastors do?
Pastors are looking for things every single week
to bring forward.
And they're grabbing material that belongs to other people.
And then they are speaking it.
If you speak it, that's copyright infringement.
If you have videos of the sermon,
that's copyright infringement.
If there's a transcript of the service,
that's copyright infringement.
All those things are copyright infringement.
So the question is, what do you do
if somebody is grabbing your material
and bringing it to the pulpit?
What I would suggest is you communicate directly
with the pastor yourself.
I wouldn't go out there to the public
and say such and such pastor stole my stuff.
First thing I would do is I would honor them
and I would reach out to them.
They may not know what copyright law is, period.
Most people don't.
And so now that you go and you share with them,
there should be something rectified immediately.
I mean, I've had situations where
I've been in a service at a place,
pastor says something, it's not aligned with the word of God.
I get so mad.
I'm like, that's not what the word,
don't call the Holy Spirit it.
You can't call him it.
He's a real person.
Like I take a personal offense.
Now I'm like looking up the scripture in the Bible
and I'm like, there it is.
Like he's a he, you can't call him an it.
Like I'm getting all offended.
I just missed the last 20 minutes of the service
because I was trying to prove my point.
You know what I mean?
Don't get caught in that.
Like that's copyright infringement, that's bad.
Like don't, like just be at peace.
And then I would send a communication directly
to the pastor and say, hey, look, this is my material here.
What you're doing here actually is infringing
upon my copyright.
Please remove it from your material, right?
Now you see how, so somebody wrote the word plagiarism.
Let me just mention something on plagiarism.
I would be, there's a difference between plagiarism
and copyright infringement, okay?
It's often talked about together.
They're not the same.
Plagiarism is essentially like, you know, copying a lot
of the words that are utilized.
Copyright infringement, derivative works can,
how do I explain this and not make it more confusing?
Let's put it this way.
Copyright infringement is broader than plagiarism, okay?
So plagiarism, you're looking
as every single word copied, right?
Or as the majority of every single word copied.
Copyright infringement's a little broader, okay?
So like you're looking for the essence of the copyright, right?
There's a 20-page book.
They copied five pages.
So five pages of the entire work was copied,
not all of the material.
Typically in plagiarism, you're looking to see
if everything's copied, right?
So copyright infringement is broader.
So if you're trying to get somebody in this area,
if you're trying to make a new agenda of going after pastors,
which is the lesson for today, how to sue pastors,
I'm just saying Crystal wants a new agenda for suing pastors.
So I'm going to help her out.
Oh, you don't?
Oh, okay, my fault.
So what I would say is I would go after them
for copyright infringement, not plagiarism.
Because when you mention the word plagiarism,
what people think in their mind is,
I'm not copying every word that you have.
That's what they think of immediately.
And so they think they don't infringe
because they go, well, I didn't copy
every single word in your book.
You know, I just took two pages.
That's not plagiarism.
It's like, that's copyright infringement.
So copyright infringement is broader.
So I would send a communication to them.
I would make it clear to them.
The reason why you want to communicate with them
is because you place them on notice.
If you don't place them on notice,
then you could never get damages, right?
Because if somebody is infringing,
it becomes very hard to get damages
unless the other party knows
that there's a potential of infringement.
So for that reason, you send them the letter.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, okay.
Was there a follow-up to that?
I think so, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it yet.
I guess I'm more thinking in terms of
if you produced a book to what you were doing
this coming weekend, for example, okay?
And I had a group of teenagers here in Colorado
and I wanted to use your book
as the basis of what we were going to study and teach.
What would I need to do then to be able to do that well?
You have to reach out to the author to do that.
What a lot of people do is they try to argue
that it's fair use and then they grab stuff
and say educational purposes
and they just start using the material of other people.
The way that I see fair use really playing out
is typically in like newsworthy events, right?
So something happens in Massachusetts.
I'm teaching a class today.
It's in the newspaper.
I take the picture of the newspaper, I show it to people
and it's like, hey guys, this just happened.
It's hot off the press.
I don't have the time to go to the newspaper and say,
hey, can I get permission to show blah, blah, blah.
But the other thing is I'm not making money off of it.
Once you start making money off of taking something
from someone else, you're walking down a bad path.
So if what you're doing is purely teaching purposes,
you're not making money off of it, it's like last second,
it's newsworthy, it has to be released immediately
because it's timely, those things tend to fall more
into the educational realm and fair use.
But fair use, again, it's an exception
to copyright infringement.
So you're starting out with a negative
and now you're trying to save yourself
by saying it's fair use.
So just be really careful.
Now, if you're thinking or somebody is thinking,
oh man, like I saw this presentation,
I wanna incorporate that into my materials,
you need to reach out to the other party and say,
hey, you have this here, I'd like to incorporate that
into what I'm using, right?
But here's something for you to remember.
So be careful with this,
but there's something for you to remember.
The copyright owner does not own the general concept.
They own what they wrote, they own what they spoke,
they own the picture they took,
they don't own the concept, okay?
So let's say that in my training this weekend,
I'm going through a certain sequence, right?
I'm saying, first thing I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna teach you about who you are.
Second thing I'm gonna teach you about is what Jesus did.
Third thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna teach you
about the calling.
Well, let's say you say, you know what?
This week, next weekend at church, I'm gonna do a sermon
and I'm gonna talk about who you are.
And then I'm gonna talk about what Jesus did.
Then I'm gonna talk about the calling.
I can't stop you, because that's a concept.
That's not a writing, right?
There's nothing written there.
Now, if you try to copy my materials,
that's copyright infringement
because that's an embodiment of my idea.
It's a writing, it's a video or it's an audio
or it's a transcript, like that's an embodiment.
That's a physical, tangible embodiment,
either in the physical realm or in the computer realm, okay?
You can't do that, that's copyright infringement.
But you most certainly can say,
Peter, you don't own the concept.
Like you can't say I own the concept
of these three things coming together.
And I realized that those three things together
are a powerful combination, so I'm gonna use them.
You can't stop me, all right?
So now you understand the difficulty as a coach
because coaches come out with a unique process
and they know if you do these five steps sequentially
in this order, it's extremely valuable.
But you can't protect the five steps, the order,
unless it's a patent, like it would have to be a method.
And if it's not protectable by method patent,
then you're trying to protect your embodiments of the idea.
Because an idea, the title that I have,
Protect Your Idea, is actually intentional
because it literally is impossible to protect an idea.
So what should happen as people are going
through this challenge, they should go, hold it.
You really can't protect an idea, can you?
amorphous glob, like I can't grab onto that. It's like, hold
it, this, the title of this thing in and of itself is
intriguing. Like, I need to get in there and see what these guys
are talking about. Because you really can't protect, quote
unquote, an idea, you can protect the embodiments of the
idea, not the, not the, the thought. Right? And ideas are
thoughts. So it's, it's embodying the idea that becomes
important. So in your situation, if you're a coach, and you have
this five step program, you're protecting your flow charts,
you're protecting your books, you're protecting your manuals,
you're protecting your videos, you're protecting your audio.
Right? But if somebody says, boy, those five steps are great,
I'm going to incorporate them into my practice. As long as
they're not copying your content, or your materials. If
you don't have a patent, you can't stop them. That's why it
becomes really important as a coach to realize that our value
increases if we find the best way to get what we have into
somebody else's hands. Right? What I mean by that is, I've got
the best flowchart to make you understand what I'm teaching.
Anybody who wants to use my, my system is going to want that
flowchart. I own the flowchart. Therefore, to use my system
effectively, you can't use my flowchart. So there's a higher
demand for me. Because I own the copyright for my flowchart.
You see, that's why as a coach, you have to figure out what is
the best way for me to embody my idea. And then own that. Then
other people that are trying to kind of cap capture what you do
are not going to be able to do it as fast as effectively as you
because you've mastered the embodiment of it. If I can teach
you and train you all day long, but if I don't give you
something physical to grasp onto, it can become very
difficult. Right? There's a confirmation. Wow, that was
really helpful. You know, that in and of itself, extremely
valuable guys like that. That's a golden nugget right there. You
can be the best coach in the world. But if you don't find a
way to put that thing into some kind of embodiment for somebody
to grab onto and to use it when they're not next to you. You're
basically good at speaking. Right? And you're good at
making people feel good in the moment. But you also want to
give them something. You know, that form that I gave you on
day one, that has all these different embodiments of ideas,
and you just go straight up. And oh, that's a trademark. That's
a trade secret. That's a patent. That's a copyright. Everybody
wants that form. People are literally like trying to get
that form from people that are in the challenge. And I've
forbidden it. I said, Look, if I find out that one copy, a
single copy of my form is extended to other members.
That's copyright infringement. And I'm going after those
people. Because I have to protect what I'm releasing.
Because if somebody else modifies that, like, why is that
important? You might think, well, Peter, why is that so
important? Now I'm starting to talk like Pedro. Well, Pedro,
why is this so important? So yeah, I'm like, Peter, why is
that so important? Okay, let me tell you why it's important. If
somebody puts the word sculpture under patents, you now make a
huge mistake thinking that you can protect your sculptures on
their patents, and you're looking at the statutory bars
for sculptures, and you don't think anything's protectable
right now. So you've asked the fact that they have modified
what I created, has has been detrimental to the public.
Because it's not correct. See, when we receive ideas to be good
stewards of those ideas, we have to make sure we maintain the
authenticity of those ideas. That's vital. Because if you
don't maintain the authenticity of it, people can get confused,
they can get misguided. The enemy doesn't create anything.
He's a counterfeiter. So what happens? God says lay hands on
the sick, and they'll be healed, right? So what does the enemy do?
Well, there's this energy transfer thing, and you get this
new age technology stuff, or this new age industry thing, and
like, I'm going to like move your like, there's these
different zones in your body, and I'm going to move the energy
from here into this zone, and that energy to that zone. I
don't know who's telling me to do what I'm not even talking to
Jesus or to God, I'm just gonna move things around because they
feel right. So like your heart chakra, I'm going to move to
your brain chakra to your belly chakra to this and like, you
know, today, I think you're thinking through your belly too
much. I'm going to move that up to your brain. That energy
really needs to move up there. Now I'm not doubting that energy
exists. I'm an electrical engineer. I know energy exists.
I have zero doubt that energy exists. I can feel energy when
I'm near people, because I'm a healer too. So I could put my
hand near you and
feel things. Okay. I know that. But who told you to move the
energy from that's around the heart area into the belly? And
who told you how much to move? And who told you like, the
energy that's in the head needs to go near the throat? Like who?
Who told you that? Like, like, who's guiding you? If God's not
telling you what to do, you got a big problem. And I don't want
you near me. Because you may be moving the quote unquote energy
that's supposed to help my throat into my belly. And I get
a bellyache. I don't know what the deal is. But the fact is, I
work with Jesus, I lay hands, everything is healed. All right.
And I don't even need to lay hands. That's a long answer to
that question. Let me move on. So so the whole point being just
so you understand, the whole point of this is you are
creators, right? God is the creator, you are creators, you
wonderfully and fearfully made in his image. So you are a
creator as well. Okay? No, sir, that should be no surprise to
that, that you're a creator. All right. So now you need to
protect the creation, the things that you're creating. And the
way to do that is to find the best embodiment of it that's
most effective, that's more powerful, that have the most
punch and most impact. So people will want you. That's your job.
And that embodiment is protected bull by copyright law, or patent
law, or trademark law. That's where IP comes in. Okay, that
helpful. I know that was a long explanation. I just want to make
sure that was helpful for everybody. So that's what you
should be looking for as coaches. Bonnie, what's up?
Mine's I kind of a similar area. So that's why I wanted to follow
up with that. So working with women teaching two books from
the same author. It's about in and I'm going to be I do it, you
know, over weeks, and we use the book and read the book and all
of that. It's now part of a program. And there were talking
about copywriting the program and the program will get money
in. So is what I'm doing using somebody else's book
copyrightable? Number one, is it legal even to do that if
they're getting money without talking to the author?
Alright, so let me back up first. So you're going to be
using content or let's say theoretically, someone is using
content from a book. Yes. In their presentation.
And like it's the whole eight, eight series of talks and
training.
There's a discussion that's taking place about a book.
Yes. Okay. So this is a very interesting area. Because if you
look, there's videos out there to talk about, like Microsoft
Excel, and somebody does training on how to use
Microsoft Excel, right. But they're not committing copyright
infringement, right? Because they're not like, they're not
sitting there reading the manual. They're talking about
the manual, but they're not reading the manual. The
difference between talking about the manual, and saying,
you know, page one of this manual, there really isn't that
great, it kind of talks about turning on your computer. And it
says you should find the button in the front of your computer.
But a lot of computers don't have buttons in the front
anymore, they're on the top. And so that's kind of so kind of
confusing. So that's just kind of talking about the manual,
that's fine. But if I'm like, page one, turn on computer, find
button in the front panel of computer, press the button.
That's copyright infringement. Okay, I'm reading the language
of the manual. Okay, word for word, right? Now, I've seen
people doing something that is very interesting, which is, they
have a book, and they're doing like a book study. Right? I see
this all the time. Yeah. And the book study is, today, we're
going to read chapter one, and talk about chapter one. The best
way to do like book studies is to have people read the book on
their own. Yeah, come together and talk about the book. Right?
As opposed to chapter one, once upon a time, there was a girl
named Dorothy and Dorothy, but like, that's copyright
infringement. Okay. So that's, that's where we got to be
careful. And if we're ever kind of really concerned, I mean,
I've had situations where people have just reached out to
the author and said, Hey, we're doing a book study on your book.
We'd love to have you and here's the best thing. We'd love to
have you as a guest. You know, we've got a group of 20 people.
You know, it's not a major event, but we're not charging
anything for it. We're doing a book study. We love your book.
We all bought your book.
So everybody has a copy of your book.
We'd love you to come on day three
to kind of give a little background
about why you wrote the book and what you were thinking.
And then in that communication,
you know, this is how you lead with the cherry, right?
It's like, it's like leading the meal with the dessert.
It's like, you start out by that.
Love your book.
We all bought copies.
That's what they want to hear.
We all bought copies.
Now they know that they made money off of you, right?
Yeah, okay.
Now the next thing is, okay, you all bought copies.
Now we're gonna be discussing your book.
And in discussing your book,
we'd love for you to stop by on day three
if you're available,
just kind of talk about what was your inspiration
in writing the book.
And when they say no and say, okay, well, great.
You know, just want to let you know
that we were doing this.
We just want to honor you.
We thought it was a great book.
And, you know, I would shoot them an email just saying,
hey, just confirming that, you know, we spoke,
we gave you the invitation if you wanted to stop by
on day three in our book study.
You know, thanks.
You know, we all purchased your books
and we think it's great.
We're looking forward to discussing your book going forward.
You know what I mean?
That's pretty incredibly safe.
Yeah, this program now will be,
the ladies attending it will be charged money
for the whole program.
The book studies that are going to be happening
are only part of the program.
But, and in that book study,
the idea has been to take like a sentence or a phrase.
So you're giving credit to that part of the,
that's from the book.
And then the discussion is add on information
developing that sentence.
So.
That's pretty interesting.
Yeah.
So that, with the fact that there would be money charged,
is that a problem?
I mean, the author is very well known.
So it's not like a chat with the author is gonna happen.
Yeah, right, right.
And that happens too, right?
So although you'd be surprised
just how some of these guys
would just make themselves available.
I was amazed when I,
one of my friends reached out to an author
and the author was like, I'll be there.
I was like, what?
Are you serious?
I was like, yep, they just showed up.
So it's pretty amazing.
But if what you're doing
is you're taking one line of a book,
if that's what I'm doing,
and I'm taking one line of a book,
and we're just kind of discussing what's in there
and it's a training on that.
I mean, copyright infringement comes down
to the essence of the copyright, right?
Yeah, okay.
One line of a book,
the chances of copyright infringement are pretty darn low.
Okay.
If it's one line,
I'm not saying go do it or don't do it.
I'm just saying it's pretty low
if I'm taking one line of Macbeth.
Yeah.
Right, I'm taking the book Macbeth.
We're all gonna discuss this line of Macbeth,
0.000095 chance of copyright infringement.
Yeah.
Because we're just,
we're working on that content,
but we're not like speaking it out loud
and making money based on that.
That's good.
It's pretty far detached.
You know, so that's not, again, not legal advice.
No, that's good.
I have a question about a former English teacher
for piles of years.
If that pastor had credited and told the source of that-
Doesn't matter.
He still can't,
he can't do a quote out of permission,
without permission, publicly?
People believe that,
I don't know where that came from.
People believe that,
oh, I can commit copyright infringement,
as long as I tell people it's okay.
It's like, I mean, think about this.
I break into a bank,
I steal all the money,
then I, you know, I kind of feel bad.
So I publish an article the next day and say,
I, Peter Nieves, stole the money.
I just want to make sure everybody knows
that I stole the money from Bank of America
on the corner of Main Street and State Street,
but we should be all set now
because I've admitted it,
everybody knows,
and I've given credit for the $7 million that I stole.
So we should be fine.
Interesting.
No, that giving credit does not remove infringement.
In fact, what it does is it makes you a target.
Yeah.
Well, what should they do?
Should they just say, read this book?
I recommend you read this person's book
because I got some good content out of it
and I'm gonna talk to you more.
They could do that, yeah.
I mean, so there's the legal issue
and then there's a practical issue, right?
There's like real life.
I mean, you can look at the black and white law,
the letter of the law,
and then you can also look and say,
okay, what's practical here?
Okay, so I'm gonna do a, I mean.
Look at teaching in educational institutions.
They assign books.
The students now go read the books.
And then they come in
and they talk about different chapters of the book.
And they talk about the language of the book.
Like there's no copyright infringement issue there.
Everybody has the book.
Now people are paying the university, right?
But what they're not doing is standing in the class
and just reading the book every single day.
That's, although there are some bad teachers that do that.
They don't actually teach you Jack or Jill.
They just keep reading all day, right?
That's actually copyright infringement.
So if you're ever in a class
and that's all the teacher is doing,
you can tell them, you need to cut this out.
That's copyright infringement.
I want you to do your job and teach me something instead.
Let me see if-
Thank you.
You're so welcome.
Yeah.
Let me look at,
where did Larissa go?
Did she leave?
Larissa, did you have a question?
I thought she had a question.
You got to unmute.
Yeah, I did.
It was so far back in the music realm.
It was, we'd left it.
You want to ask it or you're not?
Well, it puts a pin in this conversation.
I'm a musician and sometimes, you know,
I record stuff and the singing or whatever comes up with it.
Cause I flow and I really get something
that sticks in there.
And like, I kind of know the realm Holly's in,
but I can't speak for her.
And I hear what you say about the lyrics,
but it made me think of like the whole Danella Ice thing.
That music beat, that two seconds was worth millions.
Yeah.
So like, I don't, that makes me say like,
the music is very important that, you know,
if it's Holly or if it's-
The question is like, when I asked Holly,
I asked her, did she create the music or the words?
She said the words.
So she can't follow a copyright application for the music
if she didn't do the musical background.
Yeah, I heard her say both.
Like this is her whole creation.
Yeah.
Hold on Larissa, hold on.
Holly, are you there?
Yes.
Are you creating the musical part
and the words or just the words?
It's like, okay, sometimes it's just a melody to scripture.
So the words I didn't make up
and sometimes it's my own songs and melody together.
Okay, I'll make it very clear.
My own lyrics and my own melody,
my own original melody and my own original lyrics.
I just, I'll make it very clear.
If it's the musical part, there's a copyright for that.
If it's the lyric part, there's a copyright for that, okay?
When you say melody,
melody to me can be saying words with a certain tone,
all right?
So as opposed to like, what do you call it?
Instruments.
When you say the word melody,
cause I hear people talking in a melodious way
and they're not using any kind of instruments
in the background.
Exactly, that's what I mean.
Only vocal.
So it's all vocal with no, hold it.
Larissa, this is her point.
So let her finish, right?
So if it's a melodious way of saying something,
which is what Holly is saying
with no instruments in the background,
then what I would be doing is you can do multiple things.
You can protect the words alone
and you can protect that melodious way of doing it,
which essentially is kind of like music, right?
The tune, the tune of it.
The tune, thank you, yeah.
So you can use that for those,
for those non-musically inclined individuals like myself
who are not gifted like you and folks.
So you can protect the melodious way of doing it
as a musical work,
but then you can protect the words alone as a,
I told you earlier a few times.
Literary, yeah.
As a literary work, those would be the lyrics.
All right, so now I'm gonna drop off of Holly
and I'll go back to Larissa.
So Larissa, talk about your situation.
What's your question?
Do you have a question?
I think that that covers it.
The voice, I mean, I was a music major.
Your voice is an instrument.
Awesome, you wanna go deep into,
you wanna go deep into like the way I sound in music.
Got it.
It makes sense.
Well, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
You have a recording.
Yeah, the recording.
You're the copyright lawyer,
but like how she puts it out there,
cause like how many different ways can we sing hallelujah?
As many people as there are.
I think we've covered it though, right?
We talked about the words in a literary.
work. We've talked about it. If it's in a melodious way, then that can be filed as a musical work,
right? But what you guys need to understand is that if there's instruments involved,
that is a musical work. I don't care how you're saying it. If there's instruments,
that is a musical work, period. People have played instruments to say words,
literally. I've seen that, where they're saying words with instruments, okay? That's still a
musical work. It's not a literary work, even if you're saying words with the instruments.
Think of synthesizers. Think of other things like that. I don't want to go too deep into
that part alone, because I know there's a lot of other stuff. Let me unpin, move that.
All right. Who else had a question? Let's go to Helene.
Hi. NASA sent me images about 30 years ago that I could combine with my own photography.
At that point, I was under the impression, or they told me, but I can't find the documentation,
that this was public domain, because we paid for it with our taxes. That was the exact phrase
that I got from them. Now, when you read their site, they say they don't want their work,
their images, even though it's from NASA, or the Hubble, or the James Webb Space Telescope,
to be used in NFTs. Now, I've got all this stuff I'm ready to put out there as NFTs.
They say, we would prefer that it not be used in NFTs. I think I posted that in the group,
or maybe it was in an email for you. They said prefer, though.
Something like that. We would rather you not use these in NFTs.
They didn't say, you can't do it. They said, we prefer.
Yeah. That's why I think I copy and pasted what they said when I asked them.
This is why you guys want to email me the email.
Okay. I can do that.
Let me pull it up on the Facebook group. Hold on.
Because when you guys email it to me, it goes directly into the directory. Let me look for
your name. This is a while back. It wasn't-
That's all right. I can look up your name very easily. There we go.
I can see all the posts from you.
Uh-oh.
It's okay.
I don't see it in here. If it's in the protection portal, it's not here.
Uh, well-
But in any case, what you're saying is originally they said these are public images. Now they're
saying we prefer you don't use these images in NFTs, right? Technically, the party who actually
made... All right. This begs a important question. What if somebody granted a license to somebody,
and then they revoke it? Okay. What if somebody said, you know what?
You can use these pictures, and then you perform an action based on that permission,
but then later they revoke the permission, the agreement, right?
This is a really dangerous area of the law, all right? Because there's a defense that I would
have. If somebody did that, my defense would be, look, I performed specific actions based on your
statements, and so now you're removing that permission that you gave me, and that's resulting
in the infringement. That's basically like a bait and switch. It's like what used to be called
submarine patents. I'm going to get a patent, then I refile it, then I wait till the patent's
going to issue again, and I refile it, then I wait till the patent's going to issue again,
and I refile it. Some people might go, well, why do you do that? Because the law used to be that
a patent lasted for 17 years from issuance. They changed it to be 20 years from filing.
So what people would do is they would wait till the patent's going to issue, and they'd refile it
if a lot of people weren't doing what's in the patent yet. That was called a submarine patent
because the patent did an issue. It was ready to come up for issuance. The patent office said it's
allowed. I withdraw my allowance, and I refile it as a continuation, thereby maintaining the
original filing date, and then I look when it's going to issue again, and I see, oh, Apple is
starting to use this kind of technology. That means in a few years, they're going to get rid of
They're really gonna use it a lot.
I'm gonna refile it again, have the same filing date.
And then Apple's got like a lot of money into it.
Now I let the patent issue and now I hit them.
And the government said enough of that.
That's called submarine patents.
We're getting rid of it.
You can't do it anymore.
So they create, basically they changed the law
and they said, now you have a patent
for 17 years from issuance period.
That's it.
Okay, that's it.
So in your situation, if the government,
well, in a situation, if the government said,
there's pictures here, anybody can use them
for whatever purposes they want, right?
But then the government came out and said,
we prefer that you don't,
the word prefer is very wishy-washy, all right?
I mean, I don't really care what they prefer.
I prefer not to pay taxes, okay?
Tell the government that.
I prefer not to pay taxes.
That doesn't really do anything.
I still have to pay taxes.
So, you know, it's, the preference is different
from them coming out saying it's in violation
of our legal rights, right?
That's very, very different.
So I would be very, I would make sure you look
at the message because under copyright law,
the government owns it, period.
If the government came out and made a public statement
saying that anybody can use these, you know,
these documents or these pictures,
and you made actions based on that,
and then they withdrew that permission,
you could have a defense,
but you're still walking into copyright infringement, right?
But this sounds way more wishy-washy,
like saying we prefer.
Preference is different from you can't, right?
So I'm not saying do it or don't do it.
What I'm saying is read the fine print first
and make sure as to what they're saying.
I understand what they're saying,
that they don't want you to make NFTs out of it.
But in my experience,
when the government doesn't want you to do something,
they're very clear.
They usually come out and say, yes, this, no, that, period.
They're not like, we prefer that you don't,
that that's kind of different.
So that's a very wishy-washy answer for you, sorry, but.
Yeah, I have a different image
that I've been told is copyright infringement,
but I don't think it is.
I took a Rubik's cube and I manipulated it
so that it looks like a checkerboard pattern
on all the sides.
And I took a photograph of that.
And I wanted to put that like on a T-shirt or something,
and the company said, that's copyright infringement.
Of what?
Of the Rubik's cube.
That didn't make sense to me.
Copyright infringement of the Rubik's cube.
Cause you took a picture of a Rubik's cube.
That was manipulated into a checkerboard pattern
on all sides.
That's a creative argument.
I mean, what they're essentially saying is
by manipulating the pieces,
they created a unique pattern and that unique pattern,
when they took that unique pattern itself is protectable.
That's a hard argument.
I could see it, but that's a very hard argument to win on.
Like really, really hard argument to win on.
Who was the party that said it was infringement?
Was it the Rubik's cube company?
It was years ago.
Cause a lot of my work is old.
Was it the Rubik's cube company or somebody else?
No, no.
It was the T-shirt company
or the company I wanted to put it on something.
I can't remember what it was at the time.
The T-shirt company told you
that you couldn't take the picture
because it was copyrighted.
They wouldn't print the picture for me
because they thought it was copyright infringement.
That's baloney.
If Rubik's cube came out to you and said,
I'll tell you this just for your own knowledge
in case anybody wants to know.
If Rubik's cube came out and said,
this is copyright infringement.
Then I would argue actually no,
because it's the embodiment of the functionality
of the device itself.
So I utilize the device
in the way it's supposed to be utilized.
And that's the pattern that came out.
And I took a picture of it, you know?
So by doing that, I created a new work.
You didn't create a new work.
I created a new work.
And then I took a picture of it.
And with my picture, that is a new embodiment of it.
So therefore that is copyrightable.
The result of moving your piece
is a result of functionality.
Functionality is not protectable in the copyright law.
Boom, that's what I would do.
I can see myself in the courtroom right now.
getting all pumped up. I'm like, no, that's functional. You can't
protect functionality. Now, they would argue there was a lamp
case. I'll end on this. And then I'll go to Mary. Mary's probably
like, what does this have to do with my question? Um, so there
was a case that was on a lampshade, right? It was a lamp
stand with a shade, right? Think of like Christmas story, like
the leg. You know, I don't know if you guys know that. Yeah,
some of you do. Um, so the functionality associated with
the lamp is not protectable, but the, the, the look of it is
protectable in the copyright law.
I mean, the leg, there was that leg with a lamp. Okay, I
remember the leg with the lampshade. Now I remember that
broke. Yeah, that I remember now. Right. So that that, that
look was protectable under copyright law, but not a lamp.
Meaning the functionality is not so somebody else could make a
lamp that looks a little different and not infringe
because you don't own the concept of a leg lamp. You just
own that look. So with the Rubik's Cube, that's a that
that Rubik's Cube thing you just mentioned is like a final exam
in law school. It really is because somebody should argue on
the defense. Well, the functionality of it is what
resulted in the look, not, not the creation of it in and of
itself. And therefore, that's a defense. And the other party
will argue, yeah, but that is the look of it. The
functionality is that it turns. That was the final look. So
therefore, it should be protectable under the same case
law that talked about the leg lamp. I think that would make a
great case in the Supreme Court, because it would go up that high.
But for now, I will tell you this, your t shirt company is
full of baloney. They just didn't want to potentially pick
up any liability. Right? Yeah. All right. Let me go to Mary.
Thank you. You're so welcome.
Hello there.
Hello, Mary.
These are very quick, concise things. And I know you've
covered them before. I know you have her at least covered part
of this. So I apologize. And I compartmentalize and don't worry
about it.
So number one, like there's this thing that I'm I'm preparing to
look into trademarking this this name. Now, there are two
different spellings that I would like to do one of them. It's two
two words. So you have the first word, the second word is an
abbreviation. And then this then the second time you do it, it's
the whole like first word and then second word is the whole
word just spelled out. Are those two different trademarks?
It's a good question.
There's a thing.
Are you going to use it both different ways? Because that's
very, that's very confusing to the consumer.
I that's well, I'm going to be emailing you at some point, but
I wanted to preliminarily, at least let me put it this way.
Like if there is Microsoft Word. And then there's Microsoft
hyphen word. It's very confusing if you use it both ways. Right?
Because you want you want to make sure there's no likelihood
of confusion in a consumer's eye. So you want to be very
consistent in the use. Now, let's say that we started out by
using Microsoft Word is two different words. And then we
decided to make a branding change to use hyphen. Right?
That's different. We made a branding change and started
using a hyphen. Then what we've done is we've made a minor
change to trademark, there is a petition that you can file to
the copyright to the trademark office that says that the the
change that you've made to the trademark is not a quote unquote
material change. Okay, therefore, you'd like to modify
your trademark to have the hyphen, because it's not a
quote unquote material change. That's the language material
change. Right? So you have to figure that out. I would say a
hyphen probably is not a material change. I've seen
logos be changed just slightly. Somebody moves a line just a
little bit. And then they file this, this request to the
trademark office. And the trademark office is like, yeah,
that's not a quote unquote material change. So what you
want to do is speak to an IP attorney, and see if you're
using it one way and you're going to change it to a hyphen
or you've been using it with a hyphen, you're going to remove a
hyphen, see if they could
something with the United States Patent and Trademark Office saying I am making a modification
that is not a quote-unquote material change. Tell your lawyer say that. It's not a material change.
If your IP lawyer doesn't know what I'm talking about, don't use that IP lawyer because that's
the language. That's the magical or the important language that must be used for you to win.
If you don't use that language, you'll lose. This first question is everybody knows this one thing
as an abbreviation, but they also know that it's a full word too. I didn't know if somebody else
could come in if I just did the word one with word two being the abbreviation and somebody
came along and then they could do the whole same thing, but it's the word spelled out.
The test is likelihood of confusion. This isn't legal advice, just to be clear,
but if somebody owns Microsoft Word and somebody says I'm going to add a hyphen and they try to
file, that's going to get rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office because
it looks the same. It sounds the same. As long as the goods and services are similar,
they're sold likely in a similar manner, close price points. If the only difference
between the two is a hyphen, that's infringement all day long. Here's another question. You have
these two words. In your domain, they're smushed together. Am I covered with them smushed together
and with them separated as two words or those two different? What do you mean by am I covered?
Do I have to file a separate trademark just because one of them has word one smashed together
with the abbreviation of word two because that's the way they look on a domain, if you can visualize
what I'm saying? Then do I have to file a separate trademark for one that says the first word with
the space and the second word? Are they going to say that that's all one thing? Let's talk about
domains. Let's bring it back to domain names versus trademarks because if the domain name
is the exact same thing as a federally registered trademark, you can challenge that domain name
under ICANN. You can file a domain name dispute to stop that party from using that domain name
because it's the exact same thing as your federal registration. Now, your federal registration
doesn't have to be the smushed up version. It doesn't have to be Microsoft Word squished.
It can be Microsoft Space Word. That's fine because the words are the same. It's just a known
that your domain name, you can't put spaces in domain names. That's a known. That's not an issue
using space in your trademark. It's not an issue if that's the only difference between the
trademark and the domain name. That's not an issue. What was your second question on that?
I think that is it. I think it was that thing about the spacing, the two
things apart, and then the different spelling. One is an abbreviation of that second word.
That's a whole different world. Abbreviations are a whole different world.
Okay. I've seen situations where a domain name is purely abbreviations, but then somebody owns
a trademark. Let's say instead of Microsoft Word, they own MW. They're not going to be able to say,
well, I own Microsoft Word. These guys own MW. That's a violation of my federal rights,
and therefore, I want to file a domain name dispute under ICANN. That won't work. It won't
work because the abbreviation can mean anything. Okay. This abbreviation is super specific,
and everyone knows what it means. I'm not going to tell you that one, but let's say I have the
word building as my second word. That's not what my word is. I have B. I don't even know
the abbreviation for that, but BLD or whatever somebody would know, just as an example.
Then I also have it as building spelled out. Do I have to have two different... I have to
get the trademark for the one with the word spelled out, and then I have to get one with
the abbreviation. If it's a known... Remember for abbreviations, if we ever file trademark
applications for abbreviations, the USPTO is going to ask you, what does the abbreviation stand for?
Okay. That's what they always do. They always come back and they say, you're using
let's say NRA, what does it stand for?
National Rifle Association, right?
You have to tell them.
And so if they see somebody has a registration
for National Rifle Association,
they're gonna reject the NRA registration
because that's what it stands for.
And so abbreviations,
abbreviations are really interesting
when you file trademark applications
because the USPTO examiner
is gonna wanna know what they mean.
Use the meaning of that against you
obtaining the rights to the abbreviation.
They're pretty aggressive with that too.
And I learned something about two years ago
that I never knew.
There's a website,
I don't know if I could find it for you guys,
but there's a website that lists
all the abbreviations that exist.
Like everyone you could ever think of, right?
Now, I got a rejection from an examiner
at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
And the rejection was based on an abbreviation
that had been entered into this website.
And I said,
I said,
that website, the way it works is it uses a spider.
So it goes out to the internet
and it looks to see if they can find abbreviations
and what the abbreviations represent.
And then it grabs that data
and it populates its own database.
And that's how it creates, it's a software program.
So it looks for abbreviations
and it looks for the interpretations
and then somebody reviews it and they say,
yep, approved.
And now it's entered into the database.
So they said, well,
you can't get a federal trademark application registered
because the abbreviation that you have for your client
is the following.
And I said, yeah, it is the following,
but you guys don't understand.
The reason why it's in that database
is because the spider that's used for that website
saw my client's website,
then grabbed the content from my client's website
and added it to their database.
And they said, no, they didn't.
What they did was they created the acronym.
I said, there's like millions of acronyms on this website.
These people didn't have to create all these acronyms.
Like you can't use this website to reject my case.
And they said, yes, they could.
And then we went back and forth.
This was for a major, major, big, big client.
And my client was like, is there anything you could do?
I said, yeah, there is.
I reached out to the president of the corporation
of that company that actually created the acronym site.
And I said, can you check your database?
I said, I'm in a big legal bind here.
Can you check your database to find out the date
that you uploaded the acronym into your system?
Can you look that up, please?
And he said, yeah, it'll take a little homework,
but I could do that.
I understand what your problem is.
And he did.
And the date was like a year and a half
after my client started using the trademark.
Now I had proof.
I said, look, this is a letter from the president
of that acronym website that you're stuck on using.
And he says that on April 19th, 2017,
that acronym was uploaded.
Here is proof from the Wayback Machine,
MIT's Wayback Machine, which I've taught you all about
that shows you, and this is an argument
you may have to use when you're
with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Here's a picture of in the Wayback Machine in 2014,
my client's website with the acronym, okay?
We beat them.
The letter from the president is showing you the data entry.
So therefore we predate them.
So therefore you can't say that that acronym
is actually being, that we're copying the acronym
from these other guys.
And then we finally won the case.
But that was a big legal battle.
So all of this to tell you essentially,
whenever you try to go after acronyms,
they're gonna look for what the term actually means.
Mm-hmm, okay.
These aren't the capital letters,
like a state or something like that.
This is like an abbreviation anyone looks at
and they know exactly who you're talking about,
what you're talking about when you look at that.
Like, oh, yeah, that's what everybody knows.
Like if you use RD instead of road.
Yes, yes.
So it's an abbreviation, not an acronym.
Similar, or apartment, APT.
You know what I'm saying?
People kind of, they all know what that means.
I think in that situation, what's gonna happen
is the examiner is gonna, again,
look at what the word means.
Okay.
I think that's very likely what'll happen.
So what I would do is I would look and see,
if I were in a situation where I'm applying for.
trademark application for a client for an acronym or for things that look similar to other words.
I look for those other words and see whether or not those other words are registered. If they are,
I got a problem trying to get the acronym. Okay, okay. I will email you. I will email
you. We may have to do something much more formal, but yeah, yeah. Just a question. Well,
thank you so much. You're so welcome. Yeah, some of this stuff can get very complex. Like,
I try to teach you guys around here, but there's a way, way deeper area that I try not to expose
you guys to because then you're going to be like, what the heck is this? And so I try to keep us
somewhere around here, but that acronym area is a touchy area. Most examiners will do their job
and figure out what things mean. All right. Let me go to Jill.
Okay. My question. Okay. You know, I'm doing storybooks. They've got a manuscript with an
author and illustrations from an illustrator. And so I am working with, I'm doing my own and
I'm helping others do theirs. And I'm looking at, so I have three tiny questions. One, the license
to duplicate, I'm trying to use the language here to duplicate the book. So I have,
I pay up front for the illustrator to illustrate the book. And with that comes a license that we
can duplicate this to sell it with a step up step royalties plan. Let me back you up for a second
to make sure I'm on the same page. So yeah, I've got a company, I've got a book or I'm licensing
the book from somebody else. Is it my book? No. So you're the author. I'll make you the author.
I'm the author. April's the illustrator. And April's the illustrator. Yes. And so I, as a,
I'm helping you, the author, get your book written. Then I'm brokering the deal with
April to illustrate your book. Very cool. Okay. And so part of that is that I'm handling the
protection part of the handling, like the license and talking through with the illustrator,
the contract that includes the license, who owns the copyright,
et cetera. But a couple of things I'm running into is, I want, at this stage, I want the copyright
will remain with the, like, the copyright remains with the illustrator. We are licensing
those illustrations, correct? Well, I mean, you could do it a million different ways,
but it sounds like one of the most effective ways that I would create something. And again,
I'm not telling you how to do it yourself, but one of the ways I do it is the original artist,
April is going to go, I'm not just going to give you my artistic work. Like, she's like,
I'll give you a license. I'll give you a non-exclusive license for your book. Now I pay
her a royalty or I pay her a certain amount for that. So now that, so I have a license to use that
her illustration in my book. And I got to make sure in my license agreement, it talks about the
type of usage. I got to be very careful here because I've got to anticipate what's going to
happen in the future. Right. And this is where people make a lot of mistakes. They think of
what's in front of them. They don't think of the future. And so they think, well, I'm going to use
it in a book. Yeah. But that book may end up getting published. It may not only, I mean,
getting published, but it may end up being on a show. It may end up being, you know, where I've
got to have a picture of the book at a bookstore. That's not the book itself. That illustration now
is not just on the book. It's actually on a billboard. Right. Right. So I do have, and in
the agreements I've used so far, it's been, but does non-exclusive imply she could sell those
same illustrations to somebody else? You got it. That's what non-exclusive means. Exclusive means
only to one party. Non-exclusive means they can license it to others. Now I could get a
non-exclusive license. There are non-exclusive licenses that I can give to,
I don't want to make this too confusing for you. I would try to get an exclusive license
for a specific use. Okay. So exclusive license for the book. And because as I'm picturing it
right now, it's, we don't want April selling these same illustrations to another author.
That's right. I don't mind if she sells them and puts them on backpacks or,
right. But I don't want them on another book. So it'd be exclusive license for the book. Okay. So
then we
The both copyrights are still in the book.
When I go to do a federal registration though,
so if I'm filing on your behalf, the registration,
which is part of what I'm doing for my authors,
she is also on that federal registration
because the book has her illustrations in it.
So am I filing on both their behalves?
Who then holds the federal registration?
Yeah, it's a good question.
So if you have a situation where,
let's say I have a book
and I have certain illustrations in it,
I would get, for purposes of the illustration,
what I would want is I'd want exclusive rights.
I mean, I would want an assignment.
That's what I would want.
I'd say you hereby assign that illustration
to my book and my book only, right?
And they say, okay, fine.
I wanna be paid a premium for this.
Say, okay, that's fine.
But now you assign all right title and interest over to me.
So now-
So I did that with one of my books
cause I intended to use her illustrations for other things.
So I have all right title copyrights.
She actually sold me copyrights for five years.
So it's a term, obviously.
So I'll do something with it.
You assign it to you for five years.
That's, yeah, you can do that.
Yeah, I mean, when you file your copyright application,
I believe there's an option in there
that makes reference to any other licenses
or any other ownership to anything that's within the work.
I think there's an option for that.
I haven't actually filed one in a long time,
but what I would do is when you go through the process
of actually looking for the filing,
I think there's a spot in there that gives you the option.
And if you really wanna be sure,
just call the 800 number on the copyright office.
Okay.
I believe it gives you the option
to list any other licenses that you have on your work.
Right? Okay.
Because you're gonna have exclusive rights
to the book with the logo,
but you don't own the logo outright.
So you have to make reference to the license.
Okay.
So I would call them up and I would say,
hey, on your newer forms that you use
for protecting a book or a publication,
I've got a logo on the book.
And I want to make sure that when I file my application,
I'm acknowledging that the logo
is a license from another party.
Where's the field in the application
for me to type that in?
Like, where do I enter that?
All right.
That'll be in their electronic form somewhere.
There's like a miscellaneous item
or there's like sub licenses or whatever.
It's in there somewhere.
You got to ask them.
And they should be able to tell you where their stuff is.
Yeah.
Some of the authors and illustrate,
I mean, some of the authors books that I'm helping write
are I'm seeing we could take a lot further,
in which case then I'm looking to have a conversation
with them at the end about becoming,
coming under my publishing company.
And so then there'll be a different kind of contract.
But if it's one that I'm like,
I probably can't take this anywhere
or it's not even content that would be my brand,
then I'm just brokering the deal with the illustrator
for those interested in that part of my service
and helping them get it to print
and then maybe even to sell.
So there's, it looks like,
I knew I was going to have to come to you at some point
by hour and have you,
but I was trying to figure out exactly the right question.
So I'm-
Yeah.
No, I think the, I think one of the things
I'm probably going to offer in the future is going to be,
I think I'm going to create a higher level group.
So like, there'll be like the protection portal
where we answer all these questions,
but there's some people that are running
into legal problems.
Like they're like, okay, I need to,
I need the legal language for this.
I'm thinking of, I've been contemplating this,
creating a group where people can ask legal questions live.
Like just any legal questions they want.
That obviously is going to be a premium.
So none of this.
So this we can fill with something else.
Yeah, you're right.
Then you can fill it with something else, exactly.
But that would be a higher tier
because that would be legal advice, you know,
and I bill at 600 an hour.
So it would be something that's higher.
Okay, one more question.
So if I have,
so I have hired some people to do concept art
and all they're doing is create.
aiding the concept of the character.
If I take those and hired another illustrator,
cause I want a different style, but the same character,
that's a derivative.
Does this person have,
now what is this person's copyright versus this copyright?
Like is that-
You hire one party,
they give you some kind of illustration.
Now what's happened to that illustration?
Okay, so I hired somebody to do concept art
on a particular character.
Yep, got that.
Let's say it's mini April.
I'm liking April today.
So it's a little April character.
They've designed that, I like it.
They're not available or they do a different style of art
or they don't even do illustrations,
they just do concept art.
So I hired an illustrator over here
to take that concept and bring it to life.
So it's not their original, it's a derivative.
Is that a derivative of the concept art?
Yeah, it is.
Is that one way around them owning copyrights?
Cause now it's a higher derivative or they still have-
No, no, no, that's copyright infringement.
No, if I own this copyright,
I own this and I license them to do derivatives.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Well, if you bought the original, it's your copyright.
So I licensed them to do,
I'm essentially licensing them to do a derivative.
Yeah, when I hire somebody to actually do a derivative work,
I make sure they assign all rights, title and interest
to me to derivative work as the copyright owner, right?
That's what I do.
And so now I have this original work
and it's assigned over to me.
I go over and it's the Snoopy, right?
And I'm like, well, I want Snoopy to come
into like the modern day era.
So I want color, I want like, you know,
ears that wrap around his head instead of droop down.
Like I want a different look.
So now I give that to the graphic illustrator.
He creates that.
That's a derivative work of my original work
that I own.
So I make sure that before I signed that agreement
with them, they sign an agreement that says
I hereby assign all rights, title and interest
over to Peter Nieves or A to E challenges.
So now what happens is when they create
that derivative work, I own it.
Like it's fully owned by me.
I don't wait to do the work and then come to them
and say, hey, I need you to sign it to me.
Or I try to convince them that it's a derivative work
because most people don't know
what the heck a derivative work is.
Right.
So now I'm like, no, you're committing
copyright infringement.
And they're going, what?
I'm in like the Philippines.
Like you hired me off of Fiber to create a, you know,
a work for you.
And now you want to talk to me about US copyright law.
Good luck trying to enforce that.
So that's why you want to get all your agreements.
And that's, I think I'm going to close with this.
It's important.
You guys need to get all your agreements signed upfront.
Don't wait until you're done with your project.
That's a really bad idea.
All right.
What a lot of people do is they file their patent.
Then they go to somebody to assign
all rights and all interests to them.
Or they'll get the new work created.
Then they'll go over and say,
can you please sign this assignment?
Don't do that.
Right up front.
When you hire somebody, give them the agreement
before you pay them a penny, before you sign anything.
Here's the agreement.
It says, I hereby assign all rights and all interests
to blah, blah, blah, the copyright or derivative works
or blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.
Get a good legal document from attorney.
Get that signed first.
Then let them do the work.
Because once the work's done, you're now their prisoner.
Now they can say, no, I'm not going to sign that.
And you're like, but you have to under copyright law.
And then for you to enforce it,
you're going to pay a lawyer 600 bucks an hour.
When you could have just given them a document up front
and said, as a condition for you to get anything,
you need to sign this before we start work.
And don't think that what you can do
is not pay them until you get it.
Don't do that.
Because you'll get sued for that too.
Don't think, well, I had all the work done.
All I'm going to do is I'm just,
I'm not going to pay them until they sign the assignment.
That wasn't a condition of the original agreement.
You just added a new term.
So you can get into trouble legally for just doing that.
So don't do that.
Get it all up front, all right?
Larissa, last question, and we will close.
Crystal had a quick question,
but she had to jump on doctor's calls.
She won't be telling me that, but we're all family.
Okay, she's reviewed the Facebook terms and conditions.
She removed her videos off the platform
because she already had them there.
She doesn't think it's clear
if they could retain any rights to them if they're deleted.
So does, if you delete materials that,
like creative materials, say we did a workshop,
you know, we live streamed or whatever.
Theoretically, if we remove them from Facebook, does Facebook still, because they were there
once, retain any rights?
Yep.
Yeah, there's this thing, one of the conditions in the Facebook agreement makes reference
to if you delete and you do some other act, then they're not supposed to have rights.
I just don't trust it.
I don't trust it at all.
Honestly, do you truly believe that after they've copied all this material, now you
delete your account, you truly believe that they're going to delete all your material?
That's crazy.
I wouldn't go down that route.
I'm going to unpin you because you're doing mascara or something.
If you're posting things, one of the things I mentioned yesterday during the challenge
is you got to do a balance.
You have to figure out, is the forum in which I'm providing this service so important to
me that I'm okay with potentially losing certain rights to what I'm providing?
Let's admit it.
Facebook is a platform with millions, if not billions of people on it.
You're able to take advantage of a platform that wouldn't exist otherwise.
It may be the case that you think to yourself, well, yeah, I may run the risk that possibly
they use one of my images in something, but the advantages that I have in using this are
so high that they dwarf my concern.
That might be your situation.
For me, that's not my situation.
I'm training people on legal concepts.
If Facebook truly understood what I'm teaching, I guarantee you they'll create an online class
and they'll sell it for $595 and they'll make the money.
I don't do that for a number of reasons.
One is they may modify the content.
They may get some other quote unquote specialist who really doesn't understand the material
properly and now they start misguiding people and then people get in trouble.
I don't know if you guys have ever done this.
Have you ever gone to YouTube and just researched trademark law and t-shirts?
There are people that are telling people to take logos of other people, put them on the
t-shirts and then sell the t-shirts.
That's trademark infringement.
They're telling them to make a business out of this.
They're telling them, look, you don't even have to buy the inventory.
You can use this company here to fulfill the orders.
The orders come in here.
You just forward them there.
All you do is collect the money.
There are businesses that are being built on copyright and trademark infringement every
single day, not to mention patent infringement.
These are quote unquote lawyers telling you to do this.
Guys, it's bad.
I'm grateful that you're here because I don't want you guys getting into those kind of situations.
But separate from that, just be careful.
You're doing this the right way.
Let's keep it that way.
With that, I am going to jump off.
It is 1.47.
It was awesome seeing all you guys.
You guys are moving pretty fast.
I'm seeing you applying different things and you're asking real life scenarios, which is really good.
Like I said, I could never give you legal advice, but I'll tell you where the law is.
And then you have to make the decision or hire a lawyer to actually make a final decision in your situation.
So none of this stuff I say is legal advice.
I tried to guide you in the process.
So bless all of you.
Have an awesome week.
If you have the ability to show up tomorrow for the challenge, that'd be great.
The more alumni that are there on the day of the offer, the better.
The vibe that exists when you guys are there is just different.
You guys are just, you have so much positivity, so much life that you bring.
And you can just feel it, like you just feel it in the room.
So if you have the ability to be there, it'd be a true blessing to have you.
It's at 7.30 is when I'm going to drop the offer, p.m.
And if you're not going to be there, I appreciate your prayers.
There's a lot of really deep thinkers that are in the group that are asking about the network already.
I don't know how they found out about the network.
I didn't tell them.
But they're asking about it.
So just want to make sure that they understand all the features that are going to be provided.
So, all right, well, you guys have a great day.
Bless you.
I'll catch up with you later.
Take care.
Bye.