Understanding Intellectual Property

Posted by Eric Hebert on May 24, 2007 in General | Comments

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If you’re planning on selling and promoting that music you just recorded, you better put everything down and really soak up some of the concepts we are going to discuss today, for they could save you quite a bit of trouble and money down the road.

Unless of course you want someone to steal your songs, lyrics, artwork, and ideas.

I didn’t think so! So in order to protect yourself, you’ll need to understand what intellectual property is.

Intellectual Property – Everything you create, whether it be a song, lyric, drawing, concept – these are known as intellectual properties.

Wikipedia defines intellectual property as “various legal entitlements which attach to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions. The holders of these legal entitlements are generally entitled to exercise various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that this subject matter is the product of the mind or the intellect, though the term is a matter of some controversy”.

Examples of intellectual property, and the controversy associated with it:

• Spiderman is considered an intellectual property; a “superhero” is not.
• Bounty, the quicker picker-upper, is an intellectual property; paper towels are not (but could be protected by a patent, which deals with concepts related to how things are made – the opposite of intellectual property).
• Metallica is an intellectual property, as are their songs, names of songs, album artwork, etc. However, the individual words, guitar riffs, and beats in those songs aren’t necessarily protected. Only in their competed form are they considered Metallica’s property.

Again, many of these concepts vary by state jurisdiction and trial, but we pretty much get the picture.

So why is intellectual property so important?

Well, if you are an artist or musician, then your art and your music is your intellectual property. If you are a business, then your brand, logo, and sales copy represent the business’ intellectual property.

If you don’t protect this intellectual property, then others can steal it. If you don’t publish and copyright your music, or fail to trademark your brand or logo, then you might find yourself sitting in court with others while a judge decides the fate of your work.

Stay tuned as we go into each of the many ways you can protect yourself and your own intellectual property over the next few posts!