The Traklight Blog

Starting a business is a complicated process, and with any difficult and time-consuming effort, it is inevitable that a mistake or oversight can happen despite the best intentions. The long hours can leave you frazzled, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to attend to every detail that you'd like.

Companies get big by protecting their intellectual property (among other things), but what happens when they become huge? It can be hard to manage a massive international concern as it is, and trying to fend off a multitude of instances of infringement while handling all of the other daily corporate concerns can be like trying to play whack-a-mole while juggling. It's important to protect your brand and send a message to other scofflaws, but can it prove to be a case of exerting more resources than you're losing when weighing the cost of continued legal action?

It's not hyperbole to say that the future of commerce and industry depends heavily on creativity. New products, methods and techniques allow businesses to adapt to a world that is ever changing, and the creative arts are what sustain and define us as a culture. We need creativity more than ever to face new challenges; at the same time that the safeguards for creative work are under greater strain to try and adapt to past changes in order to provide the necessary protections that make the act of creation a worthwhile enterprise for those with the requisite ambition.

There is a fine line as it relates to passion and nostalgia when it comes to properties owned by big corporations. Fan efforts to pay tribute and keep alive the things they love are fine, and probably even appreciated by those companies, until there is the loss of potential revenue involved. While big brands vary on how aggressive they are in pursuing legal action against what might be well-meaning enthusiasts, they tend to be very litigious when it comes to concerted efforts at what they see as exploitation of their intellectual property.

There is much made over automated programs that look to protect copyright online. They can be overly aggressive in what they consider to be infringement, and often lack the understanding and nuance of human arbiters when it comes to determinations between actual infringement and fair use and determining the original creators of work. This lack of actual cognition and comprehension can lead to cases of unfounded takedown requests or permitted infringement that escapes the notice of the programs designed to prevent that very problem.

The internet has changed so much about how we live so quickly, and now the organizations and bodies that govern our lives are scrambling to reckon with and control those changes. Privacy and ownership rights have faced perhaps some of the biggest challenges in an era where both so much content and personal information is spread widely and quickly. And the policies that governments put in place to try and combat those issues could change how millions experience the internet.

The strength of our existing intellectual property system is the ability of any creator to protect their work through filings with the government. Not every artist or inventor has the resources of a large corporation to protect their work, so the accessibility and affordability of protection helps to level the playing field and allows independent creators to profit from their work without having to expend limited resources. But some proposed changes to the U.S. Copyright Office might make things more challenging for creators, and freelance photographers in particular.

The business of freelance work can be fraught with complications not otherwise experienced with employees, especially when intellectual property is involved. Contracts have to be specific about ownership of the work created once it is transferred from the creator to the contracting party. And use beyond what was originally agreed can complicate matters, as a recent long-running class-action lawsuit proved.

Television can be fertile ground for copyright lawsuits, given the amount of creative work that goes into producing a single episode of original programming, to say nothing of the hundreds of scripted programs that now exist across the largest number of channels and streaming platforms that have ever existed in the history of the medium. But not all lawsuits are the same, and not every case is an example of an entertainment company taking advantage of a creator (though those undoubtedly exist in substantial numbers.)

So many people have unique creative ideas, but a lot of those ideas never come to fruition. Part of that is due to the fleeting nature of inspiration, and people simply throwing out ideas without any serious thought to trying to make more of them. But a number of people are held up from capitalizing on their ideas because they don't know how to and don't understand what rights they may or may not hold to any idea or work. Too many people fail to bring these terrific ideas to fruition, and those who do are often at a loss as to how to combat having their work misappropriated by others. Understanding the basics of intellectual property protection is the foundation for artists and creators to receive the credit and compensation they are owed.

Young artists are always looking for opportunities, and are often willing to make sacrifices and compromises in their search for a break. And for many, a lack of expertise can lead to mistakes that deprive them of a full share of any profits derived from their work. While some businesses are dealing in good faith with artists, there are others that are seemingly willing to take advantage of young, inexperienced creators without the power to demand a better, more equitable deal.

Our internet culture hurtles ever forward, bringing our global conversations forward while simultaneously leaving more of us beyond a certain age behind. I'm talking, of course, about memes. Internet memes have become the common language that we never knew we needed, and perhaps didn't want. Nevertheless, it is upon us, and people from around the world have singular images to serve as touchstones in communicating with others on the other side of the globe, relaying an idea through a single image that has a collectively understood context.

For music listeners, Spotify has become almost ubiquitous. The service offers users access to a vast catalog of songs on demand and at their fingertips. And fans of music and podcasts are overwhelmingly taking advantage of the easy-to-use service — a recent story puts their subscriber base at 7o million users. But if the streaming era of media has taught us anything, it is that digital rights can prove problematic in the relationship between artist and platform, and music has proven no exception.

By any measure, streaming accounts for a large part of how people listen to music now; in a world that is increasingly cloud-based, it only makes sense that our music should move on from the realm of the tangible as well. Digital music has faced a bumpy road to get where it is today, from the earliest days of Napster, but it has largely reached a place of relative peace between artist, publisher, and service, if not quite happiness between the three. But a recent case against Spotify illustrates the cracks that still exist in the current system and the ongoing struggle to ensure fair compensation to those making the music we stream.  

In her latest Forbes article, Mary speaks with Ray Young of RightsIn. RightsIn is a startup seeking to help artists monetize their creations by providing an avenue for licensing their films and music through an online marketplace. Ray talks about how the RightsIn marketplace offers creators more control of the licensing and monetization of their work, the process of how the product was developed, and his experience with IP in the entertainment industry.

In looking at cases involving intellectual property rights, it's important to consider the wider implications that can cascade from one court decision. A precedent set in one patent or trademark case can have a ripple effect that shapes an entire industry. And if a matter rises to the Supreme Court, the decision handed down therein can provide a definitive stamp on a previous decision that fundamentally changes the course of the U.S. economy in some slight degree.

In this time-shifted age of television viewing, spoilers have become the bugaboo of many people's entertainment existence. It wasn't that long ago that missing an episode of television meant that it was simply gone, with no chance for you to catch up. VCRs changed the way people could watch their favorite programs, and in the age of DVRs and streaming and on-demand, there's no reason you can't watch episodes of your favorite shows anytime and anywhere and hop on social media to discuss what happened. But these online forums for TV fans can also be a minefield of spoilers for fans not caught up or, event more perilously, for episodes yet to be released.

When it comes to piracy and copyright violation, one would reasonably assume that the entirety of culpability lies with the offender. After all, there isn't much in the way of excuse for doing something that most know to be wrong in misappropriating copyrighted material (and ignorance is a poor defense.) You might see characters on television or in the movies forced to hack computer systems and steal sensitive information under duress, but likely no one is at your house making you torrent "Vice Principals." However, a recent court ruling could bring cable providers into the mix in cases of customers' copyright infringement.

When we purchase something, we assume that the item becomes ours, to do with it as we so choose. That is the understanding and agreement that exists between buyer and seller in most transactions that take place. If you go to your local department store and buy a toaster and decide to run over it with your car in the driveway, that's your prerogative; the store certainly doesn't care, as they've achieved their goal of moving merchandise and collecting your money. But the digital age has ushered in a new type of product that now comes with rights and safeguards that go beyond the point of sale.  

The internet can seem at times a terrible, negative place, but it can also be a tremendous resource for collaboration and sharing. People the world over are willing to take the time and effort to create fantastic works of art, photography and video, and many are willing to share them with everyone with no desire for compensation. Others ask simply that users attribute the material they use and follow a licensing agreement. While that may not seem a particularly onerous requirement for the free use of others' works, many companies and individuals still manage to get themselves in trouble by not reading those agreements.