The Traklight Blog

For those who follow the news, the rise in dissent and argument in public discourse is inexorably linked to the growing split between two bodies, once united in a common goal but now more divided than they've ever been. Heated rhetoric flies back and forth between the two parties and their designated representatives, with lines drawn in the sand and allegiances publicly declared. Neutral onlookers and the nation as a whole are left to wonder if there is any way to save the union and the higher ideals it is meant to represent.

In what can be a cutthroat competitive landscape, small margins can have a big impact. It's small differences that can help to set one company ahead of another in the marketplace, and every business is striving to establish its own competitive edge. While most play within the rules (or at least keep their malfeasance from public view), we occasionally see the legal battling that happens when one business believes itself to be wronged by a competitor whom they accuse of stealing their work or ideas or knowledge to get ahead.

The advance of technology brings new problems that we are forced to grapple with. We're confronted with problems that we're ill-equipped to handle, because our society is forever trying to catch up to the last issue that upended some part of how we live or work or entertain ourselves.

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.

Trying to be "cool" is ultimately a futile effort, because that effort in and of itself seemingly makes one "uncool". Doubly so for brands that are trying to chase trends rather than set them. In an attempt to sound like billion-dollar corporations are in fact run by chill 22-year-olds who "get it", you can end up coming across like a satirical meme. Nevertheless, companies try to chase the youth market by sounding like parents trying desperately to stay relevant by using the latest slang that has filtered through to them, perhaps because they haven't bothered to actually talk to any of the young people they're trying to sell to.

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?

The Vegas Golden Knights were the darlings of the National Hockey League (NHL) last season, getting all the way to the conference finals round of the playoffs in their first year of existence. The feel-good story of a brand new organization with a team of cast-off players getting almost within reach of the championship reads like something out of a movie, and generated breathless stories and burgeoning fans around the country. But the story nearly hit a bump when the team's trademark filings ran up against opposition from another organization with a claim to the name.

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.

For companies considered to be on the leading edge of innovation, intellectual property (IP) and trade secrets can be the separation between themselves and the rest of the industry. Obviously IP is incredibly important to every company, but for those that have cultivated a certain aura of innovative mystique, that privileged information serves as the curtain that hides the fact that the great and powerful wizard is pulling levers as any entrepreneur would.

Beyond just individual genius, innovation and advancement requires the ability to build upon existing technologies to improve them. It can at times be a fine distinction when thinking about respecting patents, but it is not incompatible to believe that both patents and the freedom of innovation should have equal footing in the intellectual property space.

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.

Patents are an important part of any company's portfolio, but for startups, there can be hesitance to take the necessary steps to obtain a patent for their creation. From cost concerns to the length of the process to the seeming urgency of other requirements, startup founders can cite any number of reasons to put off getting patents. But having patents provides real value to any venture at its earliest stages and beyond.

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.

We devote a lot of writing in this space to the issues and concerns of small businesses and startups, but there is an entire subset of professionals that are part of the business ecosystem that is often forgotten, and that is the independent artists and creators that can produce the work that are often needed to fill in the gaps for growing companies.

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.)

We may look at the romance novels we see at supermarkets or airport shops as something of a joke, with overwrought titles and lascivious covers. But romance novels are a big business; according to the Romance Writers of America website, romance novels account for over $1 billion in sales and make up 34% of the fiction market. For successful authors, there's a good living to be made in writing romance fiction, or, in the case of one writer, potential money to be made in aggressively pursuing trademark lawsuits.

You can read part one here.

Technology has given us more access to available information and an incredible ability to disseminate our own messages. The internet allows us to see stories and pictures and videos from all over the world from the comfort of our devices, and the phone in our pocket can capture our experiences with high quality pictures and videos. And while the ability to find and share content on a global level is definitely a net positive, it can present its own challenges for creators and entrepreneurs.