By Alina Lee and David Bennett<\/p>\n
Alina Lee is the founding partner of the law firm Your Ad Attorney, Inc. Her firm helps busy agencies and brands proactively protect their marketing campaigns, intellectual property, and business revenue through practical legal advice. She also serves as outside general counsel to many of their clients. Alina is a well-regarded national speaker on the topics of marketing law, dark patterns, and data-privacy law issues. She is also a faculty member with legal education companies Lawline and NBI. Visit YourAdAttorney.com to learn more.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 Can you explain the different types of intellectual property (trademarks, copyright, etc.) that a brand or marketing person should be familiar with?<\/strong><\/p>\n Marketing professionals should be familiar with copyrights, publicity rights, and trademarks, because all of these elements are commonplace in marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n Copyrights <\/strong><\/p>\n Copyrights are legal protections that give creators special rights over their original works. These works can be things like books, music, movies, art, graphics, fonts, photographs, articles, or software. Copyrights allow creators to decide who can make copies of, distribute, display, or perform their works. Copyrights help creators protect their work, encourage people to be creative, and help them control how their work is used. The most important lesson for brands and marketing teams is \u201cdon\u2019t use another\u2019s creative works without permission from the owner.\u201d Also, if you have independent contractors helping on the creative side of a marketing campaign, make sure that you have a contract with each of those contractors that clearly states that you either own the work they create for you or have sufficient license rights to use their work as intended. For example, usually, copywriters and graphic designers are fine with granting ownership of their work to brands or agencies, while photographers, videographers, font foundries, and musicians tend to prefer licensing their work for specific purposes.<\/p>\n Creators can register their copyrighted works with the US Copyright Office. Registration provides many benefits, such as providing creators with the ability to sue for copyright infringement. To learn more about copyrights, I recommend going to Copyright.gov, which has many free resources about copyrights and how to register your copyright.<\/p>\n Publicity Rights<\/strong><\/p>\n Publicity rights are the legal rights of a natural human to control the use of their identity and prevent others from using their identity for commercial purposes without their permission. Protected aspects of someone\u2019s identity include their name (including nicknames or stage names), likeness (how they look), voice, and sometimes signature. Violating celebrities\u2019 and other well-known people\u2019s publicity rights is a high risk, since they (and their business partners and sponsors) can usually afford to bring lawsuits. Therefore, it\u2019s a bad idea to use someone\u2019s picture or name in a marketing campaign without their written permission, usually in the form of a signed publicity release or other licensing agreement.<\/p>\n