Alright, well, welcome to day one VIP. Guys, this is awesome. So here's the deal. You guys
get something very different. In VIP, I answer questions and I don't bill you. That's phenomenal.
My clients would love that, but they don't get that. You guys get it. That's awesome.
So the beauty of VIP is that I'm going to give you a lot of the inside scoop on how
things are working, some of the trends, answer some of your questions for real implementation
within businesses. We've got people from 100x here, people from 10x here, people from the
business world here. We've got teachers here. We've got entrepreneurs here. We've got a
big, a big mixture. And there's some others that are going to be coming as well. So one
of the things that I tell people is when you ask your questions, okay, this is really
important. And no matter what form you're in, I want you to think about doing this going
forward because if you took the challenge and you did VIP, you're really serious about
your business. And so I want to make sure I give you a lot of real, like real life practical
skills for real implementation, like how to actually do things in the real world. Okay.
So here's number one, any of these challenges that you join in, any of these group forums
that you go into, any of the conferences that you go to, any place that you talk about what
you do, you are to talk about what you do at a top level, top level. I'm going to explain
what a top level means. Okay. I'm going to walk you through a top level discussion. The
reason why is because there are certain laws that specifically say that if you disclose
your inventions, you cannot obtain legal rights to them. All right. And that's specific
to the patent world. In the patent world, the way it works is if I offer whatever I
have for sale to another party, or there's a publication or a third party uses it for
its intended purpose, you'll learn about this later in the month or later in the week. If
you do any of those things, your invention is not only considered disclosed to the public,
meaning that you can't obtain rights in foreign countries, but in the United States, there's
this one year door that opens and you need to file something within that year, or your
inventions considered donated to the public. We're going to talk about that in more detail
during the week. But for this reason, and also for the reason that there are people
unfortunately that will steal your idea. Okay. I kid you not. I was at a conference with
a very well known individual who wanted to share with the people in his network, which
were 1000s of individuals wanted to share this, this, this concept for this, this name
for this new thing he was going to do. And someone in that room, purchase the domain
name for it immediately. I mean, what possesses a person for the very person Ray is, is Richard
in VIP. I'm gonna look up right now, because I didn't think so before, but I'll check.
Yeah, check and see, because he's knocking on the door. So, um, so if the case is that
you want to talk about your inventions, want to talk about your name, want to talk about
your business plan, I'm going to show you how to do it in a way that is not going to
make it so that somebody can steal it. All right. I'm also going to walk you through
the right sequence of doing things like a trademark search, a domain name search, because
there are there are certain tools that you're not aware of that exist on the back end on
the internet that are harvesting data. Okay, you said he is. All right. All right. He's
in here. Cool. Richard's here. Awesome. Okay. So when you look at, as an example, if you
go to Namecheap, Namecheap is a place that you purchase domain names. Okay? If you do
a search on Namecheap's site, Namecheap and a number of other engines for searching have
a back end software system that looks to see if there's an interest in a name. Now that
they have determined that there's an interest in the name, guess what happens? Price goes
up, up, up. So you search for a name. Michelle goes in and says, man, I got this awesome
name. I just went through the Protect Your Idea Challenge. I want that. I'm going to
go. I'm going to go buy that thing. So she goes and she does a search. And then she says,
all right, cool. It's available. All right, great. I'll go buy it.
by tomorrow. She goes back tomorrow. It went from $8.95 to $495. And she's like, but why?
Like what happened? You showed that there was interest. So there's a sequence to use.
Matter of fact, I think I'll go into it now because I know a lot of you are businessmen
and businesswomen here and you're doing things actively now. So I'm not going to hold back.
I'm going to just give you things. If you are in fact trying to figure out a domain
name to use and a name to use, there's a sequence to do it. Okay. There's an effective sequence
that you can use. And if you do something a little different, you can get into trouble.
All right. This is the sequence. Number one, if I've got a name for a company or a product
or a service, I go to the US PTO website and I do a search for that name. That's the
first thing I do. I don't search the domain name first. Why would I say that? You're going
to learn more about this in two days when we go into like trademarks and a lot of detail.
But the first part is that if I search, like I said, if I search on the domain name for
the domain name and then I leave, when I come back, the cost might be higher. But number
two, if I purchase a domain name and that domain name is owned, like the name is owned
as a trademark, then the owner of the trademark can stop me from using the domain name and
command me to surrender it under what's called the domain name policy. They can file a dispute
against me. That's the problem. That's the problem. And so what you want to do first is you want
to go into the United States Patent Trademark Office, do a search, which I'm going to show
you guys because you are on VIP. So not tomorrow, but the day after I'm going to walk you doing
a live trademark search, all the parts of it. We're going to ask questions. You're going
to ask me to try different things. I'm going to do whatever you want live. Okay. I'm going
to show you all the aspects of doing a live trademark search for free. There's something
you can do on your own. Now, the thing about trademark search on the United States Patent
Trademark Office is they're only like 60, 70% effective, but I'll walk you through that
too. But here's the thing that you do. You do the search on the United States Patent
Trademark Office first. Now you see that the name, like Garen looks and he says, oh man,
that name, that name, FET, Fortress, that is available. I want to use it. I searched
on the USPTO website. It's available. Awesome. Now you can go to GoDaddy or go to like Namecheap
or go to wherever else you're going to go to do your search. And when you see it's available,
you can buy it. Now that you've bought it, you go back and you file the trademark application.
Why? Here's the reason why. If you file the trademark application first, and you don't
file for the domain name first, there are people that are watching the United States
Patent Trademark Office site, waiting for new registrations, new filings to happen.
When they see a new filing happen, they buy the domain name like that. Then you get an
email and the email says, hey, guess what, Anita? There's a trade that I actually own
the domain name and you might want it. I'll sell it to you for $2,500. And you go, yesterday
it was available. Like what the heck? How did it all of a sudden go from $8.95 to $2,500?
Because you filed the trademark application before you filed, you actually procured rights
to the domain name. And the reason why you don't file for the domain name first and actually
obtain it before you do the trademark search is because you may actually be buying a domain
name where that name is owned by another person as a trademark, which means you just wasted
your money. So what you do is, number one, you search for the trademark at the United
States Patent Trademark Office, which I'm going to show you how to do. You do that,
you see it's clear. Awesome. You immediately, you do not, do not pass go and collect $200
like that's an old reference. But what you're going to do is you are going to now go search
domain name. You're going to go awesome. You're going to see it is available. Great. Now to see
it is available, you're going to go back. All right, Ray, you just asked me, I don't understand
your question, right? Day swaps. I was a little confused on content topics on why we're doing
one and not the other. Why am I talking about trademarks? Yeah. Because people.
Yeah, they DM me personally.
I got this, I got this, yeah.
So what you do is you actually buy the trademark,
then you get the domain name,
then you go back after you search the trademark.
So you search the trademark, you see it's clear,
then you buy the domain name,
then you go back and you buy the trademark
because nobody can hurt you now.
It's done, 100% done.
You don't have to worry about anything.
I wanted to throw that in now
because I know a number of you have pinged me by email
saying that you're trying to figure out
the name of your company now,
you're searching for your name and your company now,
you wanna buy the trademark now.
And so I wanna make sure you know that now.
I'm not gonna wait until day three
to give you that information
because I wanna make sure that you guys are okay.
So that's the first part.
So now let's dig into some copyright stuff here.
One of the things that I talked about
in the copyright notice was that it should list
the copyright symbol, the circle C
or the word copyright, then the year, then who owns it.
What some of you might be asking is,
well, how do I know who owns it?
Like, do I want this in my name
or do I want it in the name of a company?
That's an important question for you to ask.
And it really is related to a bigger question,
which is all the IP rights that you're gonna be obtaining,
trademarks, patents, copyrights.
The big question is,
who do you wanna list as the owner of all these rights?
Do you wanna have your name on it
or do you want your company's name to be on it?
That's an important question to figure out, okay?
And this actually becomes important
for artificial intelligence as well,
which I'm gonna talk to you about in a few minutes, okay?
But the first part is, if you own the assets yourself,
let's say it's in your name,
the beauty of it is you can license it
to a corporation and make royalties on it.
You can license it to another person
and make royalties on it.
You can have the company that you license the rights to
pay you for it, even your own company, okay?
So, and the other, the problem with it though,
there are two major problems.
Number one is, if the intellectual property is in your name,
you tend to become the target.
What I mean by that is,
if you create something and you own the copyright
or you own the trademark or you own the patent
and it's in your name only,
if there's a lawsuit associated with that asset,
they're gonna list you personally.
So Mary Lou, no, I'm not gonna use anybody's name here.
Nobody here is getting sued.
So, the individual themselves will be listed
as a party of the lawsuit,
as opposed to if you list ABC corporation,
then if it's listed as an example, an LLC,
that owns the asset, there's two perks.
Number one, it's now a write-off as a business expense.
So if ABC company, let's say Addison creates ABC company
and ABC company files 10 copyright applications
and it costs $650.
That's a write-off, that's a business expense.
It's an immediate write-off.
But if he does it in his own name and it's not an entity,
he can't write it off as a business expense
because he's not a business, he's a person.
You see the difference?
Since he has an entity,
he can write it off as a business expense.
And then if there's a lawsuit associated with that asset,
like let's say as an example, you're using a mid-journey.
Use mid-journey and you create some kind of image.
When the image is created, you actually put that image
as the cover of your book, right?
And you start selling your book.
Then somebody realizes, oh my gosh, like that image there,
that's my image.
You got it from mid-journey.
It's slightly modified, but it's my image.
And they go after me for copyright infringement.
Since the book, since the image,
the copyright for the book and the image
is in the name of ABC company,
the lawsuit should be against ABC company, not me directly.
Now, just so you understand, as a litigator,
I would be filing the lawsuit against the entity
and the head of the company as well.
But if you've got a good lawyer,
the lawyer should be able to remove you personally
from the lawsuit immediately since you have an LLC
that holds all of the IP.
Like that should happen.
Your lawyer should be able to get you out of the lawsuit.
They should be able to file a motion to dismiss immediately
and get you out.
So then all that's left is ABC corporation in the lawsuit,
not you directly.
That is really important, guys.
It's really important because then the only thing
that gets exposed are the assets of the company,
not your assets.
And we wanna make sure that you protect your assets.
It's really important.
Protect that.
Okay, very important.
Assets.
Yes, exactly.
All right.
So for the copyright notice, make up your mind.
Do you want to be the owner of the IP
or do you want a company to own it?
That's a really important thing to figure out.
Okay.
And this is especially important if you are using
something like artificial intelligence through,
I'm gonna give you one example in copyright specifically.
There was Christina Casanova filed a,
she filed a copyright application for her book,
Zarya of the Dawn, right?
It's a comic book.
She filed an application for it.
She created the images for the book out of Mid-Journey,
right?
She used Mid-Journey to create all the images.
She put them in the comic book.
The text she wrote herself in the comic book.
She filed a copyright application for the comic book,
including the images and including the text, both.
Got it?
The copyright office rejected the copyright application
for the images and allowed her to get the copyright
for the words only.
Only the words, nothing else.
Why?
Because remember what I told you earlier?
I'm a clothing designer representing my name.
Oh, that's a good question.
Yeah, I'll dig into that, Anita.
The big issue here is that the copyright office said
that anything created by artificial intelligence,
you can't own the copyright for.
So therefore, Christina Casanova lost her copyrights
for the images of the comic book,
but maintain them for the comic book themselves.
Now, some of you might be asking,
well, I don't understand, like,
and we'll talk about this more tomorrow.
How exactly did the copyright office find out?
How did they find out that she used MidJourney?
There is nothing.
There is literally nothing on the copyright application
that asks you to fill in.
Please tell me if you use artificial intelligence
for your application.
There's nothing there.
So she filed a copyright application,
but here's the problem.
She went around telling everybody
that she filed one of the first copyright applications ever
using artificial intelligence.
Well, guess what happened?
The copyright office heard about it.
And then they called, they called a meeting,
they did an investigation,
and they canceled her own copyright.
And they came out with that statement saying
they will not grant copyrights to artificial intelligence,
anything created by artificial intelligence.
The metadata associated with the image.
All right, David, where's David?
David, unmute yourself for a second.
I just want to see what your,
is that a question or a statement?
Go ahead, buddy.
No, that's more of a statement.
I do understand that, that there's data tags,
any photo, that type of stuff, even software,
even if you created something in just Word itself,
there's a metadata tag that's associated with it
that we look through on my end,
because I'm a graphic designer,
I had other things that I've done for years,
but we can find the information very, very easily.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the funny thing though,
is like in her application,
because there's a way to strip the data,
like you can actually strip all the data,
software applications where you can strip it all
and then file without any of the metadata at all,
like it's all completely gone.
Yeah, I mean, of course you can do that.
And then even if you took a picture of your own picture,
it doesn't have the metadata in it.
So I-
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I mean, there's things we used and do,
and, you know, but that's just something that's normal.
That's normal.
It's true, very true.
Yeah, so this is what's really interesting
about the thing is that the copyright office
was really adamant after this happened.
Once this happened, they came out
and they made like an actual statement
and told people, look,
we're not granting on artificial intelligence.
Now, here's the really cool thing though.
I had a meeting with a number of people in DC
and spoke to a number of people through the copyright office
and I've been doing this for a long time.
I've been dealing with artificial intelligence
for over 15 years.
Like this is not new technology.
The software is new,
but artificial intelligence is old school,
like Netflix.
has used it, banks have used it.
I mean, it's old school, it's not new.
But the main issue was, well, what now?
Like how many people here use artificial intelligence?
Just out of curiosity.
Not many, not many.
All right, so, all right.
So we've got like four people, maybe five.
Okay, maybe five.
Okay, so here's the thing.
Okay, so there's more people that I can't see hands for.
All right, so gotcha.
One question, Peter.
Hold on a second, hold on a second.
So here's the thing is that
so many people are using artificial intelligence
and writing prompts that are so long.
Like they're not three lines.
They're not even a paragraph.
They're like books.
Like some people are using chat GPT to create a prompt
to give to mid journey to provide the perfect image.
Like that's what's going on.
That's what's up right now, guys.
This is literally happening now.
People are getting really good at this.
Okay, and I applaud them for it.
I think it's awesome.
So I asked a question to somebody at the copyright office.
I said, hey, let me ask you a question.
It used to be the case that you list three lines
in your copyright app.
You list three simple things.
Like I just want this, this, and this.
And then you get an image.
But now these things are like pages long
sometimes in a prompt.
When is it gonna change?
When's it gonna change so that a prompt,
the level of detail in a prompt is so verbose.
It's so detailed that you are actually the author.
When is that gonna happen?
When are you gonna cross that line?
And they told me that they believe
we're very close to that point.
That that's going to happen very, very soon.
Okay, and I believe that is the case.
But here is hint number one for you guys that use AI.
Okay, here's hint number one.
There's a golden nugget.
I haven't told anybody this.
You guys are the first ones to learn this.
If you wanna fall into that category
where your prompt is so verbose
that you can actually be considered the creator
of the artistic work that's rendered
by Mid-Journey or another AI software platform,
do not use an AI platform to create the prompt.
You get it?
The reason why, I can see this playing out in a court.
If you're using AI to create the prompt to instruct AI,
you're defeating the whole purpose of the verbose prompt
that you created, because you didn't create it.
You just shot yourself in the foot.
So the question is, is it possible,
is it possible to get an idea of a prompt?
How can I get an idea of a prompt
and then create a prompt looking at that idea
so I'm actually the creator of the prompt,
therefore the rendered result
of my created prompt I can own?
That right there is the diamond.
That is the diamond.
If you can figure that out, you're a millionaire.
That is the most valuable diamond
that I haven't revealed to anybody yet.
I haven't done it on Instagram.
I haven't put it on TikTok.
Like some of the stuff I'm dropping on TikTok right now
is getting like over 100,000 views plus,
because people realize this is a really big deal.
But the point is I haven't figured out
how to do Instagram.
Ray, I have to figure out how to do Instagram.
I don't do Instagram well.
I just like drop stuff there
and I think it goes over people's heads.
But anyways, so here's the thing.
And then I'm gonna go to that question that was asked.
I think it was David had a point or something.
So number one, if you wanna beat the system,
you gotta create a prompt that's so verbose
that you are considered the author.
I believe the law is going to change
so that when you get to that point,
to a prompt that is so verbose,
you can be considered to be the author.
It falls into the category of created works
that the copyright office has allowed like a camera.
Like if you take a camera and you take a picture,
the results, you can own the result on the copyright law.
Well, how's that possible?
This is a machine.
This is a machine, guys.
So why is it that I'm using artificial intelligence
and I'm not allowed to own what's used,
but I can use a machine and I can own what's used?
It's because the copyright office came out and said,
camera.
Those are okay, because you're picking, you're looking at the subject matter, you're selecting the subject matter, you're selecting the lighting, the timing, you know, the right angle, the elevation, like you're doing all this work. So what's created by the machine is the result of your work.
My argument, and I believe it's going to happen this year, is that the Copyright Office should acknowledge that verbose, a verbose prompt gets to the point of being equivalent
to using your own camera.
I believe we're going to get to that point this year. And I believe you're going to see some copyrights being granted for things coming out of Mid-Journey, coming out of
other like ChatGPT and others, if it plays out the right way. But the key is, do not do the shortcut that people are doing now, which is using ChatGPT to create the prompt to instruct Mid-Journey.
You can't do that, because then you're using AI to instruct AI. You have to be the one who's instructing the AI. If you're the one instructing the AI, I believe that bypasses
the system and may result in you obtaining legal rights to what you create using artificial intelligence. That's a diamond, guys. If you do that right, I think you can do really well. David, I think you had an elaboration or a point, brother.
Was it David? Maybe it was somebody else.
Yeah, I think this is just, I guess, my belief on the whole thing. But the problem, I guess, splitting hairs is with what you're describing is
litigation is probably going to be really expensive. So you need to make a lot of money real quick with it, because you're going to have to pay to enforce, quote, unquote, your rights to that AI prompt. You know what I'm saying? So it's a new
session, a new area that everything's kind of gray on. I'm just old school, so I'll kind of, if I'm a believer, if I want to work in a certain area or produce something,
I would just go get trained myself. I'm graphically trained from school, you know, been trained in it for years. And literally create the work itself and do the old school work where you're actually filing
your patents and your trademarks easily. It's not even a fight.
That's the way around it.
You know,
but not everybody's got a creative mind like you.
Well,
although there is a new program, there's a program called Firefly. I don't know if people know about this. There's Adobe Firefly. Adobe Firefly uses open source images and uses licensed material only. So if you use Adobe Firefly, you're not going to get sued for the render results.
Because you automatically have a license to the content that's being utilized. So the key is, guys, read the terms and conditions for any of these programs that you're using. I know Adobe Firefly intentionally created, came out a few months ago, because of the specific issue that I raised about eight, nine months ago, which was what we're talking about now. So let me answer some other questions, guys. I saw a few other hands that were up.
They're down now, but all right, I guess they're down. Oh, Anita, I wanted to answer your, so you had an issue with regard to clothing. Clothing is actually a design, by all means. So let me unmute you.
And so, so you've got your own like design line, your own, your own line that you created?
So I, I call it wearable art, because they are really art pieces that you put on. Yeah. And I make them original to, you know, original. They're all originals. Yeah. And I have quite a few pieces because I've been doing this. We're going into my seventh year. I've had several different stores. And this last one is my culmination store, and I've been doing this for a long time, but I've been doing this for a long time.
So I have over 3000. Oh my God. Yeah.
I want to show you, I want to show you something real fast.
It's just because I care about you.
Just thought I'd show you this.
Can you see the screen? Mm hmm.
So this is just wearable, wearable art. So there's a bunch of different people that are using wearable art.
So, like these people are using it for pens and markers and there's others. But what I would do is if you're, if the way that you're using the name is more along the lines of a description. Right. So let's say, as opposed to,
you know, hashtags and social media.
Yes. Yeah. So this is, this is the key guys. And this is a really important issue. And this is why this is really practical. This is what VIP is about. It's practical application of the stuff that we're talking about that might be.
might be considered theoretical, right?
So if in Anita's case, when she talks about the dress,
she's saying the dress literally is wearable art.
Like this is art and you're wearing it, it's wearable art.
It's not, she's not using it as a trademark, right?
A trademark is an identification of a source of goods,
which we're gonna talk about in two days, right?
If you're using the name wearable art as a trademark,
that could be a problem.
Like you can run into litigation over that.
So what you're saying is like, if I had an ad piece
and I use the word wearable art, I cannot do that.
I would not do that.
But if I was just describing,
and guys, this is when I start drinking.
I seem to drink way more in VIP
than I drink anywhere else, okay?
So this is not legal advice, okay?
So here, here's the breakdown.
I'm gonna drink a lot.
Don't worry, Peters has always water.
It is always water, right?
And people wouldn't know anyway,
because I'm so goofy,
they wouldn't know if it was vodka anyway.
So, all right, so here's what happens.
If in my description, I talk about, you know,
I say, look, Maggie, she's,
the dress she's wearing is like having wearable art.
Like it's art that she's wearing.
It's like, I'm describing it as opposed to wearable art.
Here's our new dress lines.
That's a trademark, like bam, on the front, right?
There's a huge difference between the two.
If I'm allowed to use certain terms that are descriptive,
like here's a brown door, here's a red door, okay?
Do you realize that somebody owns the name Red Door?
It's owned as a perfume.
Wasn't that Arden, Arden Cosmetics
or something like that, Red Door?
It's a perfume, right?
I know because my wife wears it.
And so, so it's my job to know these things.
But the point being that Red Door
in construction, you can't use,
but Red Door in perfume, you can use
because it's not describing,
it's not like you're spraying the scent
of a red door onto your body, right?
It's not like they took, you know, water
and let it saturate a red door and then took the,
nevermind, I'm not gonna go there.
But the whole point being,
Red Door for perfume is not descriptive, okay?
So going towards your point, Anita,
if I'm just describing goods
as this is what the goods are, you know,
then I'm fine, but,
and I'm not saying what you're doing is fine or not.
I'm just saying if I'm describing it, that's fine.
But if I'm using it to identify goods
or services, that's totally different.
We'll talk about it in a lot of detail in two days.
So, but in your case,
you have a lot of designs that are artwork.
So let's say that I created the artwork.
That's awesome.
If I create the artwork, that's awesome.
I own the original artwork and I own the dresses.
I own all that.
Now let's say instead I see this really cool painting
and I say, man, I want to make a dress out of that.
I can't do that because unless, unless,
and this is where you can actually open the door
to making a lot of money in licensing, right?
I can go to the original render of the painting,
the creator, the author, the artist, okay?
And I say, can I license the rights to your painting
to create a clothing line that uses your image?
And I'll give you a royalty of X percent per dress.
You may have just opened up an entire market, right?
I mean, that, that, that's something you can do.
Collaborating with artists to use their,
their prints and clothes.
Exactly, right.
Because that's not their real house.
Their real house is to paint and do everything.
And they have no skill in how to turn that into clothing.
That's right.
And the other thing that, and I,
I say this with the utmost respect
because I have two daughters who are artists
and their, their skill level is insane.
Like one of them can look at you
and draw you exactly the same.
I don't know how she does that.
It did not come from me.
It may have come from my mother
who was actually a designer like you, Anita.
She was a designer in New York way back in the day.
But the whole point being that
if you can create a new income stream,
this is a, this, this is a business,
basically some guidance on how to do business, guys.
If you can create a new income stream for an artist,
you're opening up something huge
because a lot of artists are starving
for a number of reasons.
Number one, yeah, look at Michelle.
She's like, hello.
Yeah, right, exactly.
So a number of artists are starving for a number of reasons.
There's a few of them.
One is.
that they've got to get acknowledged.
They have to get a following.
Once the following starts and the networks start,
then they start getting some demand for them.
Then it grows.
That takes time.
I mean, that takes time,
unless you're just blessed to hit a trend
and you just become the thing and then boom, you explode.
That's very rare, right?
Number two, artificial intelligence
is becoming difficult on a lot of artists, all right,
for a number of reasons.
But one of the main reasons is
some of the artist's work was on the internet.
It got scraped.
When it got scraped, it then became part
of what's rendered by artificial intelligence.
And so their artistic works are like everywhere,
but they're not getting paid.
That's a problem.
That's why I'm teaching all of you about copyrights,
because if you know about copyrights
and you have certain IP rights, right back at you.
So if you have certain IP rights,
then you can demand licensing,
which is what's happening now.
Those 8,000 authors we're going after,
OpenAI and Google and the others,
it's because they have legal rights on the copyright.
So in your case,
if you have certain things that you created, awesome.
You have the copyright to do whatever you want.
As a matter of fact,
you could probably license out some of it
to others to do certain things
and get a revenue stream for that too.
But if I'm in a situation
where I'm seeing certain artistic works and I say,
man, that would look really good on a t-shirt
or that look really good on a pair of pants
or torn jeans or whatever,
I've got to go back to the artist
and get the legal rights.
Okay?
Because here's the thing guys,
with copyrights,
just purchasing the painting does not give you rights
to everything that has to do with the painting.
You have the right to the copy.
The copy is yours.
You can display it in your home.
You can't photograph it.
And then make copies of it.
You can't make copies of it and sell it.
You can't do any of that.
What you have a right to is the painting that is in my,
I have an original by Lynn Lanesky right there.
It's the only one.
I have another one right there
that she never made a copy of.
That's an original oil painting right there.
So I don't even show it on a camera
because I know if people see it,
what are they going to do?
They're going to explode it,
take it to the corner shop,
turn it into a painting,
put it on their shelves,
put it on the walls.
So I've got the original original.
And so I would say awesome business.
I mean, I love the business idea.
It's phenomenal.
I bless you and hope you do incredibly well with it.
It definitely shows you're talented.
That's for sure.
Because it's not easy to do that
and actually have something seamless
so it actually makes sense.
You can't just slap an image on something.
It doesn't work that way.
It takes some gifts to do it.
So did you have a specific question
in the copyright area though?
Do I need to copyright it
or is it because I've already,
it's visible in my shop?
Is that the same as copywriting?
Because again, I have thousands of-
Yeah, great question.
All right.
So here's the thing.
I have certain legal rights to the things that are...
No, is it?
Yeah, it's not legal advice.
Okay, I'll drink it.
All right.
I have certain legal rights.
Whether I file or not,
I have certain legal rights.
If I want to enforce my legal rights,
I've got to have a federal registration.
That's what I have to file, okay?
So this is what I do.
If I have multiple of certain things,
I don't want to file a thousand things.
Now you can file things that are called compilations,
which I'll talk about tomorrow
or the copyright office actually has a way
to file multiple things as one filing.
They have capabilities.
If the artist is the same,
if the author is the same,
you can file things together.
But if there's certain designs,
and I guarantee you that there are,
being that you're gifted in this area,
there's certain designs that are very, very popular.
Like these are the 10 that everybody wants.
Like these are my high sellers.
For my high sellers, I would file.
And I would make it clear,
like if I'm selling my apparel on any kind of site,
I'd put the copyright notice on it.
I'd even mention the federal registration
to scare the daylights out of people
who might potentially copy.
I had a woman who was sent over to me
from a gentleman who is, gosh,
he runs a multi,
probably makes about 60 million a year running challenges.
And he has a really powerful network.
He had this woman who was in there.
She needed an extra income stream for the family.
So what she did was she took her poems,
a really short.
poems. She put them on a really cool frame with like a little artistic background and
she sold them right online. I believe it was Amazon, Amazon or eBay, one or two. I don't
know. Is it Amazon or eBay? Whichever one it was, right? And so she was doing great.
Like she was making another like five, $6,000 a month, which the family needed, right? Which
is great. Lo and behold, all of a sudden I get a ping from the owner, from like the big
guy and from her who was in his network. And apparently some company in the Philippines
took her exact design, created it and sold it for $3 less than her. And they took her
entire market share, like not entire, 70% of her market was gone. Gone. All right. And
this is a woman, it's like she needed the money. This wasn't like just, oh, I'm trying
to be rich. Like she needed the money. Okay. Which kind of pissed me off personally. So
I took it personal, which I tend to do. So then I, I was like, all right, this is what
we're going to do. We're going to file a federal registration for your copyright. And then
we're going to notify. I think it was, I think it was Amazon. I'm not sure. Whichever one
it was, I sent the notice to them, filed a complaint with the federal registration. Boom.
Immediately it was pulled. Immediately. She tried to get it pulled before, but since she
didn't have a federal registration, they wouldn't pull it. All they did was they notified the
other party that she believes she has certain legal rights. The Philippine company just
said, or Filipino company just said, we don't care. They didn't stop selling. But when she
got the federal registration gone, the whole market share has come back to her. That's
the power of a $65 registration. Amazing. So in your case, tomorrow, we're going to
talk about things like compilations and whether or not you can file multiple at the same time.
And so we'll kind of walk through it and see if you qualify. If you do, then what I
would do is I would, I would file a bunch together, but then the 10 that are most important,
I would file them individually. I wouldn't play games because look for 650 bucks of filing
online yourself, you can get federal registrations. And, and it's not like, it's not like you
have a large filing where it's one of a large filing. It's an individual filing with its
own legal rights. It will, it scares people away. I mean, at the end of the day, you're
not going to be able to scare everybody, but if you can scare most of the fish away, it's
worth it, or at least most of the fishermen away, then you can fish all you like.
It's clothing designers is that it's a Chinese, I think they're based in China where they
were in China. Then they moved to another place out of China, Shane S H E I N. So there
are clothing designers suing them because they will copy their works. Oh yeah. It's
very common, Anita. It's very, very common. I mean, this is not, this is not new. I mean,
I used to represent, you know, life is good is life is good. The company. So it's this
t-shirt company, right? My old law firm used to represent them like the entire company
and like they follow tons of trademarks, like lots of trademarks. Okay. But you know, a
single t-shirt design worth tons of money, tons, and everybody copies it. Does everybody
copies it? And so you just, you gotta be careful. I would say on the copyright side, if you,
you have clothing, just make sure that whoever owns the original copyright, you're getting
the right from them. Don't, and don't let it be like, Oh yeah, it's okay. Go ahead and
use it. I have no problem with it. No, get it in writing, get it in writing. I such and
such hereby agree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like get in legal writing, talk
to an attorney, get it done. Right. And then just use that same thing for each party. You're
just changing parties. Just have a lawyer look at it real quick to see if it still applies.
Rosie.
Hi there.
How are you?
I'm good. Sorry. My wifi is really bad over here. So I just wanted to ask you about five
years ago, I had co-written a project with a friend of mine and she left the project
the, and we had it under an LLC. There was four of us that co-created this project two
out of four left to continue the LLC. And then we closed the LLC about a year and a
half ago. So the product, the script still exists. I just don't know who owns the script
at this point. Since it was caught, the copyright was supposed to be in the LLC. And it took
two years to get the LLC to acquire it, which is why they had left. And and so when the
LLC acquired.
it. It was supposed to be under the whole purpose of forming the
LLC was so that we owned it together. But that didn't happen
right away. So yeah, now that we just so we're I'm confused on
who actually owns the
it's a great question. Yeah, story. Just everybody. So you
guys can see I've run out of water at this point. When I have
no water left. That's when I stopped. I just think I'm just
kidding. So. So I can't tell you what to do in your specific
situation. But what I'll do is I'll talk about legal rights
associated with entities and scenarios so that you can figure
out what to do in your situation. But I'll kind of talk
about this at a general level. So intellectual property is
what's called an intangible asset. Right? It's an intangible
asset. It's something that you own, like, like, if I have a
company, and I sell my company to Addison, and with my company,
I sell the furniture, Addison now owns the furniture. The
furniture is a physical thing that he has now taken
possession of, right? That's tangible property. Well, if that
company also had patents or trademarks or copyrights, and I
sell the the assets over to Addison, then he now obtains the
intellectual property rights to that as well, which is an
intangible asset, right? So the question becomes, if I have an
entity and certain legal rights are owned by that entity, let's
just assume that scenario, say ABC Corporation owns five
patents and 100 copyrights. And I sell that to another company.
If in that agreement, it says that it's selling all
intellectual property as well, then those those rights go with
it. Okay, it's an actual asset that transfers. Now, if I've
got four people in the board of the corporation, right, and the
the corporation itself owns the assets, I don't care if two
people leave, three people leave, or four people leave the
corporation owns the assets, period. So if the corporation
sells the assets to another corporation, the assets go with
the corporation. I mean, it's just so if I've got an LLC,
like, I'm not going to talk about different entity
formations. But let's say I have an LLC. And in the LLC, it owns
100 copyrights and five patents. And I sell it again to Addison,
he now owns 100 copyrights, five patents, even though he hasn't,
even though he hasn't filed with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office yet an assignment of all right title and
interest to his new entity, he owns it because I have a written
agreement assigning all intellectual property to Addison.
So it's just a legal right that's being transferred over.
It's an intangible item that's owned by the company, where it
gets way, way, way more difficult is when it's an
individual. Let's say instead, there are four people within the
company. The four people come together, and the four people
create something that is copyrightable. All right. And
now, some other entity comes in, and wants to buy that asset who
owns the copyright to the original asset, it comes down to
who the author was, like, who's the original author, if if Tony,
myself, Garen, and Heather had a company, and Heather was the
artist who created all the artistic works. But there's four
of us in the company, Heather owns all right title and
interest to the artistic works. I don't care how brilliant
Addison, Tony and myself are at running a company. Heather owns
100% interest, because she's the artist until Heather decides to
assign the rights over to the company. Heather owns
everything. This, this is how an individual can hold a
corporation prisoner. This is how you can have the board of a
corporation where an individual, instead of assigning our right
title or interest over to a company decides to keep it in
their name, and says, I will continue to make a royalty off
of my IP, but I will license it to the company. And then when
another entity comes over and wants to buy the company, they
want the IP like they want the copyrights and the patents too.
And this and Garen's holding out Garen's like, I don't like them.
I don't like those guys. Nope. And isn't that happening? Don't
like them. And we're like, but Garen, it's $100 million. Garen,
come on, like $100 million. Can we
this happened and Garen's like, ain't happening,
it's not happening.
And you know what?
We can't do anything about it
cause Garen owns all the IP.
This is why if you own a company,
you gotta make sure,
if you want the assets to be owned by the company,
you have to make sure our right title of interest
is assigned to the company,
but equally important,
equally important guys,
please don't forget this.
Who is running the company?
Who's on the board of the company?
Who controls the assets of the company?
Whoever that person is,
you better figure that out
cause you can actually own a company
or create a company
and then have a board that actually
has all the rights to control the assets of the company.
So Julie,
Julie's brilliant.
Julie comes up with an idea for a company.
Company grows and grows and grows.
It's now like 50 million,
a hundred million a year, right?
And so the company is doing really well
and Julie's like, I need a board.
I can't run all this stuff myself.
She's a board of five individuals that are running it.
But in the terms and conditions
or in the actual,
the corporate formation docs,
it says that the right to the intellectual property,
to license, to sell, whatever,
falls under the board,
the boards,
the board of directors rights, right?
Then without Julie's authority,
the board of directors can sell all the IP.
This is so important, guys.
This makes or breaks companies.
This makes millionaires.
Any entrepreneur who's worth their weight
will tell you,
any entrepreneur that's worth their weight
will actually tell you that
they maintain ownership.
They make sure
that either they hold the rights themselves
or the entity can't make a move
without their authorization.
They do that.
Why?
Because a lot of them are trying to sell the company
in three to five years to make their 50, 80 million
and then go build another company.
That's what a lot of them are doing,
but they can't do that if they don't own any of the assets.
If they don't own any of the assets,
then somebody else can sell the entity
and they make nothing.
That's why smart business owners maintain legal rights
in one way or another.
Rosie, does that help you out?
I can't tell you exactly what to do in your scenario,
but just remember it is an intangible asset.
It can't be sold.
Whoever is the original owner,
if it wasn't assigned to the company,
that original owner still has the legal rights.
If the company goes bankrupt and no longer exists,
it is an asset that transfers
with like in a bankruptcy proceeding,
it would transfer like anything else that would have a value
and it would transfer over to another entity.
All those things happen
just like any other asset of a company.
Yeah, that answered my question.
It seemed a little complicated
when we were dismantling it
and she was no longer part of the company.
As she and I wrote it together,
and I think there was a little confusion in that.
Because she and I started the company
and then we just kind of snowballed from there
and not following through with what we wanted,
what we had agreed on from the beginning
and saving the paperwork for later was a big mistake.
Yeah, I mean, your scenario and things like that
are really perfect for the audit.
I mean, just so you know,
keeping in the back of your mind,
because during the audit itself,
we actually do legal analysis, break it down,
give full right,
so people understand every single aspect
of what they can and can't do.
And so it's actually a perfect example
of where not it would be perfect.
But we can ping separately on that.
But just be careful, just be really careful.
Because I had a scenario
where we had three individuals came together,
two gentlemen, one woman.
They all were friends from like college,
really smart people, knew each other well,
all decided to start a company together.
And one of them was the brains.
The gentleman was like, he was the electrical engineer,
really smart, came up with all the technology
and everything for the software
and all the functionality for the software.
And I said on day one, I remember it like it was yesterday,
day one, they're sitting down in my Boston office.
She's there, he's there, he's there.
I say, guys, you just formed a corporation.
That's awesome.
Who's gonna own the IP?
Oh, he's gonna maintain ownership.
I said, all right, so do I represent the corporation
or do I represent the individuals?
Like, cause I can't represent an individual
against another individual.
That would be a conflict of interest.
Oh, who do you want me to represent?
They're like, oh, you always run the company.
I said, okay, so today, today you have already paid me.
I now represent the company, correct?
They're like, yes.
I said, what you're doing is stupid.
I literally told them, I said, I represent the company.
What you're doing is stupid.
And they started laughing.
They're like, no, no, it's okay.
It's okay.
Like we've known each other since college.
I said, I don't care if you guys were Siamese twins.
Like, I don't care what you guys are.
It's a bad idea.
You need to figure out who owns the IP now.
And you need to make sure the company owns that IP.
So if it's an individual, license it to the company.
Whatever it is, you got to make sure
you cannot keep all right title interests in his name.
Can't do that.
They're like, no, no, we really appreciate this.
We know you've been doing this a long time.
Greatly appreciate your guidance, but we're fine.
About maybe one or two other times
I told them the same thing.
Six years down the road, ring, ring, hello?
Yeah, such and such.
He decided to leave the company.
We just want to see what kind of rights we have.
None.
That none.
You have zero legal rights.
And they said, no, that's not possible.
Like he built the company, you know, with us
and we know he owns the IP, but like, what can we do?
Nothing.
Like literally they had no legal rights to anything.
And matter of fact, if they had continued using
any of the rights, he could sue them.
That's how bad it was.
So it's always a good idea to make sure you figure out
the assets, who owns it.
And if you really want to make sure you maintain ownership,
if you form a corporation, just be careful
that if you have a board of directors,
the board of directors can't preempt your rights
to what happens to your own assets.
Cause you can literally, I have a friend of mine
three months ago was fired from her own corporation
by the board of directors.
She created the corporation worth millions and millions
and millions of dollars.
She got fired from her own corporation, called me crying.
And I'm thinking who could actually do that?
Like who would even think of that?
Fired from her own corporation.
Gone.
Had to fight for a severance package.
It's not happening to any of you guys.
You guys are in my network.
This ain't happening.
We don't put up with that kind of garbage, right?
Mark, I'll take it.
Jobs.
What was that?
He was fired.
They did that with Steve Jobs.
He was fired and then brought back.
Yup. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting in that
you have a vision for your company
and I hope this for everybody.
Everybody grows and things get bigger and bigger
and things come to fruition.
I hope that happens for all of you.
But you have to remember that your vision
is not necessarily the vision of everybody
who comes on board.
You need to make sure that you create things
like what exactly is your mission?
Make sure the people you hire are on board with your mission
and make sure that you maintain control of your own assets.
Because if you don't,
you'll literally be handing your assets
over to somebody else, which would be horrible.
I've seen it happen a lot, guys.
This is not rare.
It happens a lot.
So you guys know about it,
so you don't have to worry about it.
Mark.
Peter. You are up, my friend.
Okay.
Yeah. Here's the thing.
So I have a couple of different books
and stories in mind.
And I have characters.
The characters have names.
I have, I'm not an artist,
but I've got concepts of what I want them to look like.
And obviously when I get the artists
and I'll have them give me all of the rights.
So I own the rights to the art.
I'm guessing for one would be a storybook.
So I guess a copyright for the verbiage and the art also.
And then I'm also looking down the line.
I see one as an animated series.
So I guess-
Just to make sure we're clear, Mark.
So what's happening is I am hiring a third party
to create the images.
Is that right?
All right.
Am I giving them the original draft of the images
or are they creating them from scratch?
No, no, no, no.
I have the concept in my head.
I will give them the description of what I want.
This is what I'm looking for.
This is what I'm envisioning for these characters,
you know, with what they're wearing
and so on and so forth.
Whether they're Caucasian or Asian, so on and so forth.
And then they'll create that for me.
One thing for me to keep in mind as I'm doing this
is that copyright is for,
Copyright only pertains to something that's fixed.
It can't be in my mind.
No, but it would be copyrighted after I get the image
from the artist.
And then I, if I'm understanding, then I copyright,
then I get that copyrighted.
I mean, it's not copyrighted in my head,
but once the artist gives me the rendering.
I'm just, I'm trying to give you some,
something on the inside that's possible here is that
if I can, I don't know that you have this ability or not.
All right, but if I can draft something
and give it to somebody else and have them modify it,
then what they're creating is a derivative
versus an original work.
I technically own the original then,
plus all the derivatives versus going to somebody else
and saying, hey, this is my thought on this thing,
create it, in which case they own the copyright,
the original copyright.
And I got to get them to assign
a right title and interest over to me.
And then all the derivatives,
I have to get them to assign a right title
and interest to the derivatives to me as well.
It's a way around the system.
So I don't know if you have that ability or not,
but if I had that ability,
I would draft an original draft
and have somebody work off of that,
in which case I own the original and the derivatives
and anything that they create,
I make sure they assign a right title
and interest over to me, but there's no loophole.
It's a way around the system.
So anyways, just a golden nugget
if you're able to do that.
And I need to trademark the names of the characters.
Characters themselves.
Yeah, so, oh, you were there last week, right?
Yes, I was.
Oh, so wasn't that awesome?
Yes, it was.
So this is the story of Shazam and all.
Yeah, so yeah, before we close,
I'll let everybody else know this,
but I want to answer Mark's question first.
So yes, absolutely.
The name of the characters
would be something that I want to protect.
Now, ironically, names of characters I can protect,
but names of individuals,
like if I wanted to own Peter Nieves,
I don't think I'm famous enough to actually own my own name.
Grant Cardone can own his own name.
Pedro Adele can own his own name.
Like Tony Robbins can own his own name.
I don't think Peter Nieves can own his own name yet, right?
So not that I'm trying to do it either.
But the point being that for animated characters,
if they're going to be used
as a source of goods or services,
then yeah, then that would be something
that I would go after for ownership.
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
Okay, here's the thing too, I understand.
Well, this is my understanding, I could be wrong.
So, okay, the way I'm envisioning it, it goes far.
And let's say if I sold rights to a movie studio,
then they could do with those.
If I give them the rights,
then they can do whatever they want with the characters
once they own the rights, is that right?
It depends upon, so if this theoretical entity
theoretically wants to sell rights
theoretically to a movie industry,
then they should make sure that the legal rights
that they provided are restricted to certain things,
not rights to everything,
but only to specific things that I want them to do.
Oh, I see, okay.
Yeah, so what do I mean by this?
So some of you are probably thinking like,
what in the world is he talking about?
All right, we're going to be talking about licensing
probably on day four,
but there's a little bit of licensing copyright,
there's a little licensing in trademarks,
a little licensing in patents.
I would never give somebody a blanket license, never.
I would never guys, like guys and gals, I wouldn't.
Why wouldn't I do that?
Because if I gave somebody a blanket license to something,
that means that they can do anything with it.
They can make copies with it, they can display it,
they can do audio work with it,
they can do anything with it.
What I would do is I would find out
what exactly do they want to do with it,
and then I would restrict the license
to specifically what I want them to be able to do.
The reason why is because other people
may see what they're doing,
and then want to be able to do something similar.
So I can license to other people.
So I'm giving non-exclusive license to Garen,
and Heather, and Tony, and Tammy,
and Julie, and David, and Deborah, and Pabla,
and then Pete comes along and I was like,
yeah, I'm giving him a non-exclusive license too.
Now I've got multiple streams of revenue.
Well, if I went to Tammy and I was like,
Tammy, I like you so much,
I'm going to give you a flat out exclusive license.
Tammy's like, that's awesome, Peter,
I love you too, awesome, great.
Then Garen comes along and I was like,
oh, Garen, I can't actually license it to you,
I gave Tammy all the rights.
See what I mean?
So now I limited my stream of income.
That's why non-exclusive licenses are.
awesome so um it's running late guys it's like almost 9 40 so i'm gonna close with this one
story and tomorrow you know vip we have four more days together so we can do more there guys
yeah we will dig more into licenses um absolutely because they're very powerful and a great stream
of income for you guys so number one i'm gonna give you i'm gonna request something for you
from you and then number two i'm gonna tell you a story which is i think pretty cool
right before you go to bed that's kind of funny all right so the first thing i'm going to request
for you is if you think vip is helpful please go into facebook group and tell people because
the other people do not have this experience that you have right now where you're getting your
answers you know questions answered and you're interacting and you're digging deeper and you're
growing greater knowledge they don't have this experience uh and so i like them to be able to
experience this and it is recorded so if they join tomorrow they'll be able to obtain it as well
so please go live in the facebook group and tell them you know what you think about it or like just
go in there and write it out like i was in vip i learned this it was good for this reason or whatever
it is just let them know because if i tell people it just seems like i'm trying to sell a product
guys i could sit in the back room and just make 600 bucks an hour easily i don't need to do this
right i'm doing this because it's it's very it's very nurturing for me i really enjoy this and i
actually like to see people grow so number two the story all right so here this is a true story
guys i'm not making this up there's a true story all right um does everybody know who action comics
is okay action comics came out with superman superman number one right the original superman
they came out with superman number one action comics comes out with superman another comic book
company called faucet which i think is a kind of weird name faucet like when you think they're like
doing sinks i don't know anyways they're a comic book company comes along and they see superman and
they go man that is awesome so um we're going to create a comic book character that's going to be
just like superman right and they create this comic book character the comic book character's
name is captain marvel captain marvel yeah that should blow some of your minds right now like
holy captain marvel what that doesn't make any sense check this out faucet carrot faucet comics
comes up with captain marvel um shows captain marvel lifting up a car in one of his episodes
that's that's the trademark that's like the signature thing that superman did and is that
in action comics lifted up a car so same thing like they're doing the same thing right so
faucet gets sued for copyright infringement for copying the comic books of superman right
so now what happens thank you david so this is what happens faucet stops producing captain marvel
okay action comics gets bought out by marvel faucet gets bought by dc comics okay dc comics
now owns the name captain marvel they own that name but faucet is not using it because they got
sued right for the character they could have kept using the name they just didn't use it because
the character got shut down by action comics which is now marvel sometime goes on action comics
which is now marvel comics realizes that dc comics is not using the name captain marvel so
action comics which is now marvel comics says hold it they're not using it why don't we file
a federal trademark application for captain marvel they do they get it now marvel comics owns the
name captain marvel dc comics has a character that looks exactly like superman with similar
powers except doesn't have the beams coming out of its eyes the power that superman has
but a lot of the other similar powers wants to use the name captain marvel but they can't
even though they owned it at one point because they stopped using the name and now marvel comics
owns it so dc comics decides to come out and and use the character anyway but use a different name
that name is shazam that's where shazam
came from. Shazam was supposed to be Captain Marvel. But DC
Comics didn't continue using the name that was used by Fawcett
Comics, which resulted in them losing Captain Marvel. So now
you've got Captain Marvel was actually owned by Marvel Comics.
So now the movie that you saw showing Captain Marvel, that
name originally was owned by DC Comics, but they blew it.
That's how trademarks are literally all the way around
you guys. This is why Shazam has some of the powers are different
from Superman. Originally, they were closer because of copyright
law. And this is why the name, the name Captain Marvel is
actually owned by Action Comics, not DC Comics, even though DC
Comics owned it in the beginning. They lost the rights
because they didn't use it. You're going to learn more about
this stuff and how to implement this within your business. So
you become highly successful. I promise I won't make it
confusing for you. I just wanted to share that story with you
because all of you know, Captain Marvel, all of you know, Superman
and all of you know, Shazam. And now you know the true story
behind the names. So with that, bless you guys have an
incredible evening. Was this helpful? Does help you guys
today? Was today good? Yeah, awesome. Okay. Awesome. So
please go into the Facebook group. Like I said, go live.
Oh, it's my pleasure, Rosie. Let them know what you think about
VIP so that they can share this experience so we can help them
as well. And I hope you guys have an awesome evening. I'm
going to leave you with Larissa. I don't know if you have
anything to do, but I'm going to jump off. So if anybody has any
questions, just let us know and we'll see you tomorrow. Seven
o'clock. Thank you, Peter.