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Transcripts
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Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of On Your Terms and this series of Sam's
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Sidebar, where we tackle your essential questions about starting and growing a legally
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protected online business in ten minutes or less.
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this week you'll get a legal tip all about whether or not you're allowed to use that fun
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little C with the circle around it, otherwise known as the copyright symbol, or the
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copyright emoji if you have an iPhone.
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this week's question was submitted by listener Henry.
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Henry asked the very good question, Do you have to have something registered with the U.S
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. Copyright Office to use that delightful copyright symbol?
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first of all, Henry, I love that you called it delightful.
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So, here's the deal, no.
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No, you don't have to have something registered to use that copyright symbol.
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Does that qualify me for shortest lawyer answer to a question ever?
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I feel like I should kind of get an award for that one.
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can use the copyright symbol with or without having registered your content that you're
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putting it on.
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If you haven't registered your content with the United States Copyright Office, you can
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still use the copyright symbol.
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If you do go ahead and register your content with the U.S.
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Copyright Office, you use the same symbol.
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There's no new symbol available to you.
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a big but here, a huge but, just slapping the copyright symbol on your content, or your
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documents, your freebies, your videos is not the same as actually registering your
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content. It's not equivalent.
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So, it's not like if I register or don't register, I get the same level of protection.
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No, no. Henry's good question was about whether or not he could use that delightful
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copyright symbol, the C with the circle around it.
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But it's not about whether or not it's equal.
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here's the deal, you get additional protection from registering your content, your course
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materials, your videos, your PDFs, your audio lessons, podcast episodes, blog post than
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if you just put the copyright symbol on your stuff without registering.
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So, you definitely get additional legal protection from registering.
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I go into this in way more detail in Episode 44 of the podcast, so you can head back and
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check that one out.
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I've got one more big but if you're willing to hear me out.
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It's also not practical.
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Like, I'm a businesswoman at the end of the day, I say this all the time.
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And there's like lawyer Sam and normal Sam.
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And normal Sam is around, like, way more often than lawyer Sam, thank goodness.
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But it's also not practical to register every single piece of content that you create in
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your business.
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Could you imagine, I would have to have a full time, full staff to register every single
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piece of content that I put out there.
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I'm a content machine.
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what do we do then in those cases?
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If I can't register every piece of content and I know that registering gives me
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additional protection, but it's also not practical, what do I do?
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you do is use what I call my copyright formula.
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So, that's where you use the C with the circle around it, the symbol, because now you know
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that you can use that even if you haven't registered, followed by the year of
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publication. So, that's the year that you first created this thing.
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what lawyers will call you fixed it in a tangible medium of expression.
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So, in other words, you kind of created this thing.
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It's not just living in your brain.
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Now, it's living on a piece of paper, in a Google Doc, on your website, whatever, on
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Instagram.
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you have a business, put your business's name.
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So, again, you would use my copyright formula to put on the bottom of any documents.
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You should put this on the bottom of everything, whether you register or not.
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But if you haven't registered stuff, you still want to use this copyright formula on the
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bottom of documents and videos and all that kind of stuff.
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C with a circle, year of publication, your name/business name.
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if I created a freebie today, I would put C with the circle around it 2022 Sam Vander
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Wielen LLC, because that's the name of my company and that's the name of the company that
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owns the content.
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Because, remember, if we have an LLC, we want to put ourselves under that LLC's
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protection. So, the content that we've created now is under the business's name, and
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that's smart for you, so you want to have that.
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And I would put that on the bottom of every single page of every single thing that I
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create.
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claiming ownership to it.
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You're declaring a date stamp, so that four years from now, they can't say that they
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wrote it first.
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are so many things that you can and can't do with all the different intellectual property
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symbols, like the registered trademark symbol, the TM, the SM, the copyright symbol, and
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that's why I actually did an entire podcast episode for you all about what the
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intellectual property symbols are, what they mean, when you can use them, and when you
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can't, and how they actually work to protect you.
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So, that's Episode 44 of my podcast, On Your Terms.
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Make sure you go back and you listen to that one if you haven't yet.
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also why I teach about, not only the symbols, but how to actually protect your
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intellectual property inside of my signature program, the Ultimate Bundle.
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I teach all of my members how to legally protect their content, how to use other people's
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content safely, and when it's the right time to register your trademarks and your
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copyrights. So, protecting your online business is so much more than just copyright and
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trademarks. I want you to download your free, legally legit checklist where I teach you
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about registering your business, going over business insurance, scope of practice, and
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how to get paid.
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you so much for joining me for Sam's Sidebar.
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You can find the links to everything I talked about in today's mini episode down below.
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Check out the show notes for those related blog posts, resources, and my full episodes of
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On Your Terms.
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As always, if you want me to answer your question on a future episode of Sam's Sidebar,
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just make sure you submit it using the link below.
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I've got everything linked down below for you.
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With that, I can't wait to chat with you next week.
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so much for listening to the On Your Terms Podcast.
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Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to
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podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more
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at samvanderwielen.com/podcast.
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can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop,
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Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business, at samvanderwielen.com.
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And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram, @samvanderwielen, and send
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me a DM to say
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hi.
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remember that although I am a attorney, I am not your attorney and I am not offering you
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legal advice in today's episode.
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This episode and all of my episodes are informational and educational only.
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It is not a substitute for seeking out your own advice from your own lawyer.
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And please keep in mind that I can't offer you legal advice.
