| Friend,
There's a helluva lot of confusion out there about copyright, copyright laws, fair use, and whether or not school owners can use someone else's intellectual property in the course of marketing their dojos.
I know this because I have school owners asking me questions about this topic regularly. Usually it's because they've stepped on someone's toes (legally speaking) and received a nasty-gram from some law firm telling them to cease and desist.
So, I'm going to spend the next few daily emails going over copyright and copyright laws, what constitutes fair use, and what you can do if someone violates your copyright.
First off, copyright and copywriting... two entirely different things. I am a copywriter, and I own the copyright to the copy I write, unless I have sold those rights, and I have the right to hire an attorney to protect my copyright for the copy I have written.
Hope that clears up any confusion over the two terms. :)
Okay, enough with the lulz - let's get on to the serious stuff. First off, what is copyright?
Black's Law Dictionary states the legal definition as the following:
"A right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby he is invested, for a limited period, with the sole and exclusive privilege of multiplying copies of the same and publishing and selling them."
In layman's terms, "copyright" is a right given by some government to protect an artist's intellectual property and creations from intellectual theft.
"Intellectual property" is the actual creation that is protected by copyright law, be it a novel, poem, article, logo, sketch, song, etc.
Here in the United States, our founders thought the protection of intellectual property was so important that they wrote it into the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states Congress has the enumerated power...
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
So why did they think it was so damned important?
Simple economics. While we may all like to think that people will create new and wonderful things because they want to better humanity, spread peace and love, and make the world a safe place for unicorns and puppy dogs...
...the fact is, artists, inventors, and scientists have to pay their bills too. So, if they don't OWN the stuff they create, they have no INCENTIVE to CREATE more cool stuff.
Moreover, if they cannot enjoy the financial rewards of their intellectual property rights, then they have no INCENTIVE to SHARE their cool ideas, art, and inventions with the world at large, either.
If say, an inventor didn't own the copyright (actually, patent - but I'm going to get into the difference in later emails) to their wondrous inventions, what motivation would they have to invent new stuff?
Sure, you'd like to think they'd do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the love of invention and discovery. Because that's what you'd do, of course.
Riiiiiggghhht. And that's why you go to work every day to that soul-sucking job you're hanging onto until you can go full-time in the dojo, eh?
Yes, maybe when your dojo is a full-time gig and you're doing what you love for a living you'll be going to work each day for the sheer joy of it...
...but surely you're not going teach martial arts for free and just give it away to all and sundry - just because you want to share it with the world?
Quick aside: I know some smart ass out there is going to email me and say that's what their master did, blah, blah, blah.
Let me save you the pixels and tell you ahead of time that that's why your master died destitute and embittered - because they shared their art freely with other people, who then stole their ideas and pawned them off as their own, without giving credit to the person who created that expression of the art in the first place.
But sadly, here's the kicker - YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT AN IDEA. Nope. You can only copyright the original EXPRESSION of that idea.
So, I can't copyright an idea for say, a book about a virus that turns liberals into brainless, cannibalistic automatons (art imitating life, or vice-versa?) - but I do own the copyright to any original written work based on my idea.
Of course, this begs the question... what do I have to do to declare that copyright?
The answer is nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Zero. I own the copyright from the moment I create that original work.
So now you're asking the next obvious question - what does this have to do with your dojo and the price of rice in China?
Simple - it means you can't just copy and paste someone's original content (read: "sales copy" and "sales letter") from another school's website or printed marketing pieces, and legally use it in its original and unaltered form to market your school.
Same goes for images and artwork - someone owns the copyright, and unless you purchase the rights to use their original works, you can't just download it from a Google image search and use it in your logos or on your website.
Now, tomorrow I'm going to give you some real world examples of what can happen when you accidentally-on-purpose violate someone else's copyright... and it ain't pretty.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
P.S. - There are instances when you can use someone else's original artistic works without purchasing the rights... and I'm going to tell you what those instances are later in the week.
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