Copyright for Creatives: A Practical Guide to Copyright Law for Creative People Who Make Stuff

You make stuff. You write, draw, paint, blog, and dance; you make music, film videos, sculpt, sew, and upload multimedia content to social media. You're a creative person who does creative things.

This book is an accessible, informal, even chatty explanation of copyright law designed specifically for creative people who make things: crafters, writers, multimedia content creators, musicians—all sorts of creative people. It tells you how to protect what you've created, and how to avoid even accidentally running afoul of copyright law or media platforms’ terms of service. This book values all creative work equally, from writing and photography and music to fashion design, jewelry-making, architecture, drawing, and social media content. Its tone is friendly and conversational, and its focus is—as much as possible in a book about law—a practical and applicable real-world look at how copyright law impacts creative people, written with them in mind. It provides the sort of generalized understanding of copyright principles and law that can be quickly applied by creative individuals to ensure that not only is their work protected, but that they don’t violate other peoples’ intellectual property rights.

In addition to providing an overview of the law and legal principles relevant to copyright, Copyright for Creatives looks at more than 40 specific creative activities and discusses the specific, unique copyright issues involved with each. It addresses questions about what you can do to protect your work, what to do when you discover that your work has been borrowed by someone else; and why imitation is not really the sincerest form of flattery.

In this Second Edition, the author has added: A new chapter on Artificial Intelligence and its impact on intellectual property A detailed walk-through of how to register your copyright An expanded Appendix that introduces trademarks and patents Thoughts on how to navigate cultural appropriation but still be inspired New illustrations, examples, and case updates