Craft Focus - April/May 2021 (Issue 84)

92 Myth busting Dids MacDonald, CEO of Anti-Coping In Design (ACID), discusses some of the misunderstandings about intellectual property Like many membership organisations, ACID used lockdown to focus on useful webinars to share IP tips and advice which will help business recovery as we hopefully emerge from this pandemic. With increased IP know how, we call it being ‘IP savvy!’ the aim is to make businesses within this sector, whether macro and micro, leaner, fitter and better equipped in this ever-competitive creative world. Increasingly, in the Q & A sessions there were a lot of misunderstandings, or myths, about IP. So, we thought that we would use a couple of editorial opportunities to share these with you! During our webinar on giftware or greetings cards, we were helped with expert specialist advice to debunk some of the myths and misunderstandings by Niall Head-Rapson, one of our ACID legal affiliates, a director of commercial law firm McDaniels Law. Q. How do I register my copyright? This is one of the regular questions we get asked and, quite simply, you don’t register copyright. It arises automatically, but what you do need to do is ensure that you have the right tools in place to capture that IP to know that you own it and that you can prove how it was created. Q. If I do not include the ©2021 (name) notice on my work I will not benefit from copyright protection Copyright exists automatically, so not using a copyright notice does not mean that copyright does not exist and can’t be protected. It’s good to put the copyright notice on your work because it tells the world that you own it, and you consider it to be yours, but

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