C's, TM's, and "Fair Use"

Ah back to the warm embrace of 'the law' this week. Join me as I listen to a few podcasts and give my opinions and other vague legal insight. People like reading other peoples opinions right?

It's no secret to anyone in advertising or graphic design that there are tons of legal issues you have to deal with or consider. So I'm going to take a brief moment to "drop some knowledge" as they say about these important aspects of any form of creative work:

The most common and important one relevant to anyone working in graphics is of course Fair Use.
Fair Use isn't as big of a shield as a lot of people think. For one, it only protects the following: Graded work for education (non-commercial, non-profit), parody, or commentary.

After that, there isn't a magic number where you only have to change "X%" of something for it to be considered new and original. Fair Use is sort of a last resort defense to use and something that most court officials look at with a very keen and scrutinizing eyes.

The easiest way to avoid potential infringement case thanks to "fair use" is to reach out to whoever owns the copyright to the photo, song, or whatever external media it is that you want to use for a portfolio piece or a client.

This takes a bit longer and it's an annoying hassle, but if you go out of your way to make sure your works legitimate on all forms, your clients, bank account, and court record will thank you.

Another thing to note mention is in one of Mr. Firemark's Entertainment Law Update podcasts, he makes mention at the 01:11:00 mark of a handy little Fair Use evaluation tool you can use in case you're not 100% sure on something.


Speaking of taking things off the net, the web isn't really the wild west where if you can find it, it's yours. One of the easiest things to lay claim to and 'secure' is actually URLs. Take a listen at 01:10:40 for an interesting case involving Rachael Ray, where an Indian company bought the domain name rachelray (note the lack of a second 'a').  Rachael Ray of course got a little steamed at people trying to steal away traffic and filed suit (and won).

There are laws that can protect you from "cyber squatters", but the best defense dealing with things like this is to just buy URL's that people could accidentally fat finger or misspell when trying to get to you or your clients website before someone else can.

Also on the net side of things for all you web gurus out there, you can, in fact, copyright your websites. So in addition to protecting a logo or slogan with a registered trademark, you can also obtain a copyright on your website to protect that as well. Be sure to mention this to a client the next time you meet with them to earn some brownie points if you haven't already brought this up.
 
In other more 'spicy' news the FCC's ban on a certain seven dirty words was ruled as unconstitutional as the description of what can and can't be censored is too vague. Hit the jump and go to 00:21:00 for the start of that conversation.


In short; keep it simple, keep it safe. It's better to ask for permission rather than forgiveness, yadda yadda yadda.

(also please note that I'm not a lawyer, nor do I practice law in any form.)