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Looking Through the Lens of IP

Lesson 2 from: Copyright, Trademark, and Intellectual Property for Filmmakers

Rachel Rodgers

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Lesson Info

2. Looking Through the Lens of IP

Lesson Info

Looking Through the Lens of IP

First thing we're going to talk about is how intellectual property is everything, it's, everything in your business, it's what you create its, you know, the value in your business, it's all coming from your intellectual property in the form of your films and there's other pieces to like your processes, how you go about creating films, your specific sort of I you know, the sets that you can come up with the different, you know, knowledge base that you bring to your films and to the work that you create, all of that is part of your intellectual property in your business. So I want you to start looking at your business through the lens of intellectual property and be making decisions in your business based on understanding that the real value is in the intellectual property, so that will help you make all the decisions that you're going to make in your business, and we'll talk. We'll talk about that what that looks like so let's talk about what intellectual property actually is. This is s...

ort of the legal definition, it's what the world intellectual property organization puts out so intellectual property is creations of the mind, inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names and designs used in commerce. Okay, so if you have a creative work and you're using an in commerce that's intellectual property according to the world intellectual property organization now here's my definition which hopefully makes it a little bit easier to absorb and understand all it is is your original creative works that you use in business okay, so you make something and then you connected somehow to selling something and voila, you've got idea. Okay, so that's what it is I'll give you a few examples of this you understand it's not just the films in your business, it could also be you know, if you write blawg posts and have a block on your website and you use your block to sort of promote your business, the articles that you write on your block and even any videos or any photos that you include on your block that you created that's your intellectual property, right? Because even though you're not selling that content, you're giving it away for free you're using it in commerce, right? It's connected in some way to the services that you're selling or the I p, the videos or any kind of other content that you're actually selling so that's what makes it intellectual property so you just take anything that's sort of an original creation and you add it to the stream of commerce in one way or another and its I p ok, so now you get exactly what intellectual property is a lot of entrepreneurs sort of they have an idea of what it is they've heard of it before but they don't really have a good grasp of what intellectual property is now you understand what it isthe ok? One thing that I really want you to know is that intellectual property law was created to protect entrepreneurs and creatives just like yourself you know you are an artist, you create things and the law is there to protect your ability to continue to do that right? So if you couldn't make any money from the films that you make or you know your ability tio create amazing videos if you couldn't make any money from that and people could just use your videos in any way they want without your permission then you wouldn't have much of an incentive to create a business doing this right? You wouldn't have much incentive to do this type of creation on dh certainly even if you did, you wouldn't have an incentive to share it with the world right now you'd want to keep it to yourself so I p law was actually created to promote innovation to promote creativity okay, so just think of it as your buddy it's your friend it's there for you to protect you and to protect your business on dh teo for protect your creative endeavors ok, so that's what intellectual property law is that's why it was created to crew to protect entrepreneurs and artists and creative like yourself so think of it as a good friend of yours this is just a reminder to look at everything in your business through the lens ok, so if you're deciding whether to take on a particular project you might be thinking about it from the perspective of ok do I get to maintain the rights to the films that I'm creating in this project or am I giving it away and am I giving it away for enough value and I'm making enough money from it that it's worth it to give my creative rights away to this bill so that's how you want to think about that sort of type of business decision also whether you post your videos online or not how much of them you post whether or not you register the copyright how you set up your client you know work and the process that you take your clients through and you know how much you charge your clients all of that will be decided by thinking about your intellectual property and so that's what I mean when I say that I want you to look at everything in your business through the lens of intellectual property so let's talk a little bit about the value of intellectual property I pee in the u s is worth five trillion dollars that's a whole hell of a lot of money, isn't it? More than I can even imagine. It's, a large portion of the entire u s is gdp intellectual property is responsible for employing eighteen million people in the u s okay, so it's huge huge industry creative. The creative industry is massive and that's where most people are making their money nowadays. So whether you are a really small business and you're just like a solo preneurs one man, show one woman show or if you're a huge business like a fortune five hundred company, no matter what the vast majority of the value of your business is in intellectual property is the intangible assets that sit in your business. Ok that's where the values coming from some a couple other stats I p is responsible for thirty nine percent of the european union's gdp okay huge portion of the revenue that's coming from the european union on dh in australia the top one hundred companies, two hundred fifty billion of the assets of those top one hundred companies is all coming from intellectual property. So that's how people are making money nowadays that's, how you make money, it's, how I make money, it's how all of us are making money these days so it's important to understand intellectual property and the rights that come with it likewise, when you have something that's, an intangible asset right easily transferred around, then you also have a situation where there's a lot of stealing there's a lot of theft two hundred to two hundred fifty billion dollars in I path with stolen in the u s annually that's in the u s alone on that number is probably grown since that that stat has been founded ah counterfeit copyright and trademark works they were a six hundred billion dollars industry so stealing people's I p is an industry in and of itself that represents five to seven percent of global trade that happens around the world. Okay, so people create whole businesses and whole industries out of stealing intellectual property. So these are just some examples to show you how valuable intellectual property is and why you need to really pay attention to it in your business you understand this is where the revenue is coming from. This is where the value is in your business. So you want to be very stingy about giving away your rights to your creative works, right? And we're going to talk about in what ways you should do that what that should look like. So now you understand three important things about intellectual property in your film making business one your business is made up of intellectual property I would venture to say that ninety five percent if not a full one hundred percent of the value of your business is all intellectual property that I p is highly valuable it's worth a lot of money it's how you generate cash right? You can sell it you khun license it the nature of being an intangible asset means that you consult the same thing over and over and over again unlike let's say something like a television, right? You sell it once it's a physical product you sell it once and that's the only time you sell it maybe there's a secondary use television market but you can only sell it once is the creator whereas with intellectual property photos, films, scripts, any kind of creative content like that you can sell it over and over and over again. You can sell the film, tio you know the people who you created for and then you could license the footage to a stock photo company and then you might use it in a you know, marketing riel I mean, you can take a piece of I p and generate calf from it over and over and over again. That's why it's so incredibly valuable? So the last thing is that you understand now that your I p and your business requires protection because that's how you generate revenues so all you're doing here is protecting your revenue stream and how you make money so I'm going to talk about the first way for you to do that and it's really easy, it's. Not that hard.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Rachel Rodgers - Copyright Cheat Sheet.pdf
Rachel Rodgers - CreativeLive Handout.pdf
Rachel Rodgers - Filmmaker Clauses.docx

Ratings and Reviews

Robert W. Daniel
 

This is HOT! This is a must see course for anyone who is producing or filming an independent film.

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