Welcome to the Girl Gang Craft podcast, where we dive in deep to all things business, wellness, creativity and activism for artists and entrepreneurs. We talk with impactful, female driven companies and founders for an inside look at the entrepreneurial experience, where you'll come away with tangible steps to elevate your business. Are you ready? I'm your host, Phoebe Sherman, founder of Girl Gang Craft, artist and designer, and marketing obsessed. We're here to learn together how to expand our revenue, implement new organizational techniques, and cultivate about business practices as we work towards creating a life doing what we love. Let's get started.

Phoebe
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Oh, hello.Hello, Phoebe here, your host for the Girl Gang Craft podcast. We are talking to the Legal Paige today, and this is exciting because I've been following her for a while and she reached out to me. So we love that. We love that so much. Let's see before we dive in to our episode with Paige. Make sure you shop our gift guide, Girlgangcraft.com/giftguide. Our last event of the year is our Malden event, and that is at the Malden Community Senior Center December 14th. So we are wrapping up the year. Come see us in person.

And what else? I hope you're taking a break this season and that is my biggest advice for you. I take about a three week break and I take a break on social media. I tend to be like, okay, I'm going to take a week off and then I end up taking like two weeks off of socials and three weeks off from work. And some of that is like writing. I pull out my puzzles, I got my little box ice maybe. So some things we'll see. I would like to learn how to knit a hat. I can do the like knitting of straight things, but I would like to take it up a notch so I might need a hat. We'll see. And then I just sort of like, think and absorb. I think it's I'm laughing because that's how I handle everything. But it is the most important thing you can do to rest, to do your hobbies that don't have to do with your business to write, quote unquote to like, absorb. So ideas can come to you. Our business needs a lot of work, and maybe next year I'll like reflect a little bit about that. But there were definitely like mistakes were made. Systems need to be revamped. There is some stuff that we can learn from. There's some stuff that was beyond our control, like our double booking, etc. who knows, who knows what next year will bring us in terms of everything, but I'm going to chill and then take on everything so that that is my plan. What is yours? I do hope you can rest and chill in our world and maybe in years. There's not a lot going on quarter one anyways after the holidays. So it's important. It's so important to take rest when I like works in the schedule. I'm not saying take rest now and wait out the holiday season. That's not the smartest unless you really, really need it, right? Like this is our busy season. This is where I am. There's money to be made. There's events to be done. But like build in your break to a time that makes sense in your business. I normally do a winter break and then I do a summer break. Also, what do I have to say about that? And this episode is about legal things. It's about being legit. And so this is something to think about as we move into the new year. How can you solidify your legal rights and your legal protections, etc., etc. as we carry on our business, what else? I'm tired. I feel like every email I write you all is like, I'm tired. Are you tired? That could be. That could be every email I send you. So I'm really looking forward to feeling renewed and feeling energized about work, life, etc. I think that's it for now. But again, I'm gonna take a three week break. This is the last podcast of the season. We'll start up sometime in January. And yeah, there's some stuff coming along down the pipeline with classes and courses and as helping you, I really want to make sure that you have the tools you need to succeed, or probably do a deep dive into all the tools that we use here at craft. And I'll just say this. We're going to like focus on brand partnerships moving into quarter one, quarter two to help you start to do brand partnerships or level up the brand partnerships that you already have. We think that's important. We want to work with corporations and get paid from corporations. It can be bigger chunks of money than we're making from selling individual things at craft fairs or online, and we want to find brands that are obviously aligned with us. But it's a good way to make money and to round out your income. My brand partnerships this year almost not quite paid for my team builds and that's great. That's important. So yeah, we'll talk about all of that later. So that's just what's coming along down the pipeline. I hope you take care of yourself and let's hop into the episode. Paige is the founder of The Legal Paige, a virtual legal educational platform working with small businesses. She has a certified Juris Doctor and holds a double B.A. in economics and political Science. After working as a federal law clerk, Paige traded in the traditional law life for a virtual one and opened the doors to Legal Paige. In 2018, she helped her clients and online community run legal and protected businesses through her contract shop, podcast, YouTube channel and blog. Her mission is to create an online space where the law isn't so scary and entrepreneurs can get legally legit in no time. Lawless I Paige is a Montana mom who loves hiking, lake time, and a good game of Catan. I didn't read that before. I love guitar, we didn't talk about that. I love holiday, Catan, big board game people over here. Anyways. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Make sure you're following us at grog and craft me personally at Phoebe Shaman and subscribe to our newsletter for artist opportunities. I love you all. Take care over the holidays, let's get into the episode.

Oh hello hello creatives. Welcome back to the Girl Gang Craft podcast. Today we have Paige with us. Welcome and why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for work?
Paige Yeah. So my name is Paige Griffith. I am the owner and lead attorney behind the Legal Paige. We are a legal education platform for small business owners, and we also sell contract templates on our shop. So I like to think of it as like a one stop shop to becoming a business owner and going to our website and just getting everything figured out that you could need and all of your questions answered, legally speaking. So you're stopping the whole going down rabbit holes online, and then going to various blogs and going to various sites. And do I click on this sponsored thing? And are they actually going to solve this problem for me? So we have blogs, we have podcasts, we have YouTubes, we have free resources that really just get business owners all of the information that they need in an easy, digestible manner. And then when they're ready to kind of do one on one client work or bring on additional workers to their business, maybe you need a virtual assistant or an independent contractor. Maybe you're hiring someone to help you at a craft fair, that kind of thing. You would probably need a contract template for that. And so you kind of build upon your legal toolkit is what I like to call it. As your business grows and expands and changes from you, getting it going from the ground up. So that's a little bit about The Legal Paige. My background is actually in photography. When I was in law school, I decided why not? I needed a break from reading and writing the law all day long, and instead I decided to flex that creative side of my brain. So I totally relate to all of your listeners in terms of we really like to do things creatively. That's a passion of ours, and we want to kind of turn that into a side hustle or full blown business. When I was in law school, I decided to start a photography business and just flex that creative side of my brain. But then it turned into, oh my goodness, I really, really like running a business, and I really like being an entrepreneur. Fell in love with entrepreneurship. And then I realized during that period of time, I kind of grew my photography business just beyond portraits and family sessions, started shooting weddings, got into the wedding an event world, started going to conferences to learn a little bit more and educate myself. I was a self-taught photographer and at that time is when I specifically realized that, oh my gosh, there's a lot of people that are running businesses that don't know anything about doing it legally, and they don't know what they don't know, and they don't ask questions. And that's just like, let's shove it under the rug for another day.
I'm not totally sure. So I'm not going to deal with it right now. And they kind of wait until the client issues occur or something bad happens. I like to call them if or sticky situations. So I learned a lot going to those conferences and events and just being in the wedding and event industry. And after law school, I continued with my photography business. I worked for a federal judge and I had a clerkship. And then I decided, okay, do I want to go to the traditional law firm route, that academic track that I couldn't get off of? Or it was this beautiful thing in front of me that I loved being a photographer and running that business. I was kind of doing two jobs at the same time, but I loved entrepreneurship, so that's when I decided I was going to build The Legal Paige. This was in 2018, and I decided to give it a go and skip traditional law firm legal route. I thought I was going to be a trial lawyer my entire life, and I married my two passions of legal and entrepreneurship into one, and that's my background on where The Legal Paige got started. I live in Montana as well with my family. I have two young kids and my husband and we are both from Montana, so we love it here. Our families are here. That should be the roundup of who I am.

Phoebe
Amazing. Thank you for sharing. Would you say that you mostly help entrepreneurs as well?
Paige
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Anyone that is just trying to create something from nothing and make a little money off of it? You've started a business and by default you are a sole proprietorship. And then as things continue you down the path of your business journey, like you may want to become a more legitimate business. And that's really who we are always speaking to.
Phoebe
And what kind of entrepreneurs do you generally work with?
Paige Creative business owners. Anyone in the service space industry is kind of our main bread and butter of who we serve, because they have client contracts that would make sense, but we also serve all kinds of business owners like yourself. So any crafters we serve fitness and nutrition professionals, online coaches, last brick and mortar businesses because they're more just they need employment law stuff. And there's a lot of like not just signing client contracts. So people who are servicing or going to events and doing something and there's a contract involved in that, or they're working online and they have team members and various things going on and marketing your business online.

Phoebe
My dad's a lawyer, okay. So doing things legally has been a part of my personal journey this whole time. My whole life we really instilled in me, we want to have our contracts. We want to cross our t's, dot our eyes, make sure we're safe, make sure our relationships are safe, our products, our business, etc.. Anyways, legality is something that I am familiar with, but it still feels really scary and I know a lot of folks listening are like wait, I need a lawyer for something? What are some of the first steps to legitimate ties your business? That's a hard one, and I would love to discuss. Started the sole proprietorship LLC route and how you know when to become an LLC.

Paige
Okay, this is a really good question because it really is. You don't know what you don't know and you don't really know what steps to take. I'm glad you brought up the fact that you have a background and being around a family who has been in the legal world, and I did not. My parents are postal worker and a middle school secretary. I had none of that until I went to law school. I truly feel like a lot of us are in that boat where we're eager, we're business owners, we're entrepreneurs like we're hustlers. And you kind of heard about LLC is you kind of heard about contracts. You've kind of heard about trademarking and copyrighting, like, what are you supposed to do? And what's the most important? And you can reach out to someone and be like, what are the right steps? What do the necessary steps that I need to take right now, and what can wait for a few years from now? What I always tell people when they're getting started is to take it one step at a time. You don't have to do everything at once, and I have a very different approach to becoming a limited liability company. There's a lot of lawyers and CPAs out there that say you need to do it, and you need to do it right away. I am of the opinion that a lot of us don't have a lot of liabilities and risks when we're first starting our business, and your risks are just isn't super high. And at that point, you're okay to be a sole proprietorship. I truly believe in that. A limited liability company is really important from the get go. If you do have kind of a higher risk type of clientele, or you're doing a higher risk activity, such as a good example of this is adventure photography or adventure elopement photography. And I know that's not necessarily people listening in, but I think it's a really good example for people to be like, oh yeah, I'm taking clients on a cliff. That makes sense that I should do all of these steps before other business owners. But a lot of crafters, for example, there's not a ton of risk and liability in you doing. You probably have the most risk and liability of actually create it and getting things to the event. That's okay to assume that risk yourself. Take it one step at a time. You don't have to become a limited liability company right away, but usually that is the first step in everything is thinking about. Okay, I started a side hustle by default in my state, I am a sole proprietorship and you guys, that just means you're an arm, an extension of yourself as a person. Everything flows through tax wise. Through a sole proprietorship. You probably have an employer identification number through the IRS. That's like the only thing you have. Maybe you don't even have that, which is okay, you're still a sole proprietorship. You're not registered through your state. And you've just came up with a cool business name and put up an Instagram account. Maybe you bought a domain and put up a website, or maybe you're just, this is my business name and I'm going to show up at a crosshair if that is who you are, it's okay. Your sole proprietorship and you will just file your taxes through your Social Security number. That's not an extension of who you are. And it's just okay, there's a little bit of extra income that I've gotten from this business, but I'm just filing it through my personal tax return. So it's really low lift, low lift for people to get started in the United States. You can just basically start a business today if you want to. Then I always say as you start doing more, making more money, everyone always ask me for a bright line rule. I like to think of it as, okay, we're making thousands of dollars every month beyond kind of just the hundreds of dollars every month of side hustle money. That's where it just makes sense at that point, to start separating all of your personal assets from your business assets, because your risk and liability meter's going up every single time you're making more money and doing more things in your business and being at more events or servicing more clients. If someone like that is listening and again, it's thousands of dollars. Like when you start getting into those numbers, that's where I would make the switch. And sometimes it's around one year in business, you give it a go for the first year and then maybe you're even starting in the spring and summer and nearing the end of the year and you're like, okay, what do I need to do for the following year to legitimize myself a bit more, look a little more professional? And that's just registering your business as a limited liability company in your state. It's simple online registration process, and they really just kind of handhold you through it step by step. And you can do it yourself. Please know that I always want to tell people it is definitely something you can do yourself. You don't need to like, hire out somebody and pay a bunch of money for someone to file your limited liability company registration online. I will make sure that your listeners have a link to our guides. So we have guides per state where we've gone on and gone through the process and screenshotted things for you and handhold you through like, this is what this box is going to mean, and this is what this is going to mean. So you can still do it yourself. That means you're going to get all of the notifications through your state, and it won't be left in some third parties hands that you don't know, and they're going to charge you next to your for. Yeah, an LLC does have some more up front costs in terms of you have to file an annual fee through your state, and you have to file a registration fee at the beginning. But a lot of times it's totally worth it, because I like to think of it as the best insurance you can get for your business because you're separating those personal assets. So all of your personal bank accounts, any of your savings cars, houses, anything that you've worked really hard for, you're separating that from your business bubble. And an LLC when you create it is a bubble around your business, meaning you have limited liability for negligent actions that occur within your business. So all of those are all situations that you are hoping don't happen. There's any damages or liability there. It would just fall within that bubble of the LLC. So just the LLC bank accounts, the LLC savings accounts, your LLC insurance policy, your LLC contracts, that's all that's going to be within that bubble. And so your personal assets are protected over here. That's why people love becoming a limited liability company. Less. It's pretty inexpensive to do in your state, pretty easy to do in your state. And you get that liability protection as a business owner. And then you're going to be registered in your state as well.

Phoebe
So I would like to dig into that a little bit more. I am not an LLC. I'm still a sole proprietor. Okay. And one of the things that my understanding about, well, first of all, I was based in California. California fee is $800 a year.

Paige
California, New York are the most expensive places to file an LLC. Yes.

Phoebe
My understanding was and still is. Maybe we can change my mind about it a little bit is that if I didn't have a lot of assets and I have insurance to protect me and other realms, there's not much they can take from me. No there's not. Yeah, I don't I don't know what are some of those exceptions I guess.

Paige
Yeah. I mean I would assume you're an exception here. There's tons of business exceptions out there. If you are a sole proprietorship, you hit the nail on the head here, which is number one job for you for liability reasons is to get business insurance. If you are a sole proprietor in that respect, maybe you're in California, maybe you're in New York. It's really expensive to file. You're trying to find an alternative way to kind of legitimize your business and protect your business and protect your personal assets as well. Actually, contracts are number one. They're always your first line of defense. And then insurance is your second line of defense. And then even as a sole proprietorship, you can keep a business bank account with that sole proprietorship. So all of your checking income and expenses should still just be coming in and out of that business bank account. That still really helps separate your personal assets so you're not co-mingling things. And then the other thing that I would do there too, if you're thinking about, okay, I just want to be a sole proprietorship, is thinking about registering your business name, at least in your state, so you can register. It's called a DBA assumed name, fictitious name, trade name. It depends on the state you're in. They're all used interchangeably, but it's a way to file for that name in your state so no one else takes it. And you get that with an LLC registration. So I just want to clarify that for people. A lot of times they think they need to do both, but what people are actually doing is reserving that business name first until they decide to become an LLC. And that's pretty much it. So what you did is totally fine. Makes total sense. I think for a lot of business owners, it's truly I want it to be 1,000% separate. And when you're a sole proprietorship, there is no way around the fact that you as a person and all of your personal assets are still at risk. It's just how much liability do you really have doing what you do? And every business owner is going to answer that differently. If it's not a ton, then I think you're going to be good with all of these other layers of protection before they get to you and your personal assets and your personal bank accounts and all that stuff. Like it would need to be a massive damage situation that you get pulled into in a lawsuit, which you guys is far and few between. And I get that. But I always want to tell people it's not an impossibility. This is not 100% impossible. That's something like that couldn't happen. For example, I live in Montana. It's $70 to file for your articles of incorporation, and then it's like $2,030 every single year. That's way less than insurance. Business insurance that makes more sense for a lot of business owners and states along those lines where you could get a lower insurance policy, but you've already got this LLC bubble around you. So then your layers of protection or your contracts, your insurance, and then your LLC bubble, does that help a little bit?

Phoebe
That's great. And then you have jumped into my next question also about protecting your name. We have the fictitious name statement, which is the name that I'm familiar with in California. And then we can talk about trademarks, I guess I want to before we talk about trademarks too. What about those people who are doing online businesses? Do you have to register in multiple states? What does that sort of look like?

Paige
That's a great question. You want to register in the state that you are domiciled in, which means where you are based at and where you live. So for you, you're still in California? I'm in Massachusetts now. Okay. This is a great example. Say you were in California, registered in California, you moved to Massachusetts. Now a lot of your business is happening in Massachusetts. This is a really good example for people to know where you might have to be registered in two different places. If you don't transfer or completely dissolve your registration in California. And you were saying, this makes total sense on why you are a sole proprietorship as well. I will just tell people that are a little bit more nomadic digital online lifestyle. I always tell those business owners stay a sole proprietorship. For all intents and purposes, it's going to be much easier. But people who are more based in one location, you would file your LLC there and then it's all about what's called a nexus in legal speak, meaning how many transactions, how many work events are you participating in in these other locations where touching moments are happening there? It's all a money thing. It's all a tax thing. To be really, really honest with you. State governments want to know how much business you're doing there. And if a majority of your business is happening there, or at least it's like more of a 5050 situation, then you will have your LLC registered in your home state and you will file what's called a foreign LLC registration in another state. And that just picks up that you're also operating a business there. This honestly doesn't really apply to a lot of people. They just can be an LLC in one state, do a little bit of business here and there, and if you're doing it in multiple states, then you're fine. You just need to be an LLC in one state. State tax laws may apply. So just know that with various goods that you may be selling online, digital or tangible products. And I'm sure a lot of you are aware of that. But just know the LLC might not need to be filed in all of these various states, and that's cumbersome. And nobody does that. It's truly if you're just, I would say, of Spokane, Washington and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. That's a good example here of lots of people are on the cusp, and there's business owners there that have to be registered in Idaho and Washington because they're just jumping over state lines all the time to do jobs and interact with clients in two different states. But if that's not you, you can just be registered in one state and you'll be fine.

Phoebe
So fascinating, so helpful to ask about these things. Okay, so trademarks I guess what is the protection difference between a fictitious name statement in your state and a trademark.

Paige
Yeah. So registering a fictitious name is not registering a state trademark. So I want to clarify that as well. So a fictitious name, an assumed business name or a trade name or a DBA in your state is just basically saying, I want my business to be named X, and hopefully you guys don't register anyone else that has that business name. And it just kind of alerts the state that there's already a business name, but it doesn't mean you own it and can claim a bunch of infringement things surrounding it. So you actually have to file a state trademark. But I usually don't recommend that unless you're a brick and mortar, like a beer company. And one state that has a name that they don't want any other massive brick and mortar company to come in, you would file a state trademark and a federal trademark. But for all of us who are operating businesses online, we have a website. We're selling things online. We're doing things in various states, probably clientele coming from different states. The name of the game here is federal trademarking and going through the United States Patent and Trademark Office, because then you'll get nationwide protection for that business name. I'll just give you like a tiny bit of a rundown on what that means. So lots of people do their business name, some people do their logos. If you've worked really hard on your logo and you don't want someone taking your logo, and some people do like sub brand names or taglines. So a trademark is all about brand association. You see a swish mark and you immediately think Nike. So it's an association between a name or a mark of some sort, an icon, a logo that consumers start associating the goods and services of X company with. We all know them Coca Cola, McDonald's, Adidas, just the big ones that we all know. But The Legal Paige, for example, is a good indication of our name is just a word mark and it's trademarked. So one. No one else uses my business name to potentially point people in the direction of something that would be similar, but they're using my reputation and goodwill towards the business and what we offer. That would be infringement on the trademark. And same thing if you had a logo or something of that respect. So trademark registration nationwide through the USPTO allows you to sue for automatic damages with anyone who is infringing on that mark. So there's a lot of value in it. There's a lot of value in it. The minute that you register, it continues to have intangible monetary value in your business for years and years and years that you continue to use that mark. So if you were ever to sell your business, trademarking at the very, very beginning is really important. So thinking about exit strategy is another reason people oftentimes file trademarks. Also just you don't want your business name stolen. So making sure that if you have come up with a really unique business name that doesn't usually include a surname like last name, sometimes are really difficult or like if it's a first and a middle name, unless it's crafted together in such a way. I hate to use my business name again, but that is more of a unique, catchy way of using a name where you could get federal trademark registration for it. My past photography business page, Marine Photography. That's actually very difficult to get registered because you're using someone's name that could be ten, 20, 50 other people's first and middle name kind of thing. So hopefully that helps people kind of wrap their head around why you would do trademark registration and why I always push people to federal trademark registration versus state registration.

Phoebe
Yeah. One of the initial sort of pushes in my direction to get Girl Gang Craft trademarked was because someone had gained craft as a username on TikTok and was using our photos also, but I actually just recently looked and I can't find it, so we never did anything about it. But now I could. I was pre looking at it to see if it still exist, and I actually couldn't find it. So that's interesting. I think one of the things that was the most interesting to me for the trademark process was this like idea of categorization. I think that's really interesting because someone can have the same name as you in a completely different sector, and that's fine. So that's really interesting. And then, yeah, just finding the other businesses that have similar names as you and the potential problems that that could bring about. I think that's a really interesting process.

Paige
Yeah. Okay. A couple points to that for people because I have some good stories there. For example, I knew a business owner who didn't file a trademark but had used this tagline over and over and over again, and people really started associating that verbiage with their business. They used it in all kinds of marketing collateral and things along those lines, but it was a little bit more of a generalized term. They soon realized in their business journey, like, no, people are associating this with me. You still have what's called common law rights and protections. Even if you don't have the full USPTO federal registration, it costs thousands of dollars and a lot of time to do it is expensive. There is a massive value behind it, but I understand why people don't look into trademark registration right away. It's not the forefront of their mind, but this particular person, because they did have a lot of common law rights to that trademark. Someone else went to file for it. And in the United States, it is a first to file situation where it is really important that you're at least filing your trademark, even if it's what's called them intent to use. I'm trying to dole this down if I get a little bit, because I'm using a lot of legal lingo here, it just means someone could say they intend to use that mark in the near future, in the next couple of years, so they don't have to show that they're using it right now in commerce, even to file the trademark. But their application date is really important to the USPTO. This particular person had someone do that, and they basically were trying to register a mark with this thing that this person felt like they owned, and they were able to do what's called an opposition. So even if there's other businesses, trademark registration or application goes through, there's still what's called the opposition phase. And if you're seeing that someone else is maybe trying to I call it trademark squatting or like trying to take a mark that you kind of already own. You can still oppose it, but it's kind of like trademark litigation. So it gets very, very expensive. And you're talking tens of thousands of dollars now to try to get your mark and make sure someone else doesn't own it, and then tries to sue you for infringement or tells you to take it down, versus you might as well just pay at the beginning so that you own it from the forefront. And then I just wanted to touch on the categories a little bit. So dove chocolate and Dove soap are really good example of this. We all know that those are associated with two different brands. We don't see a piece of chocolate and think, oh, this is dove, the soap company, and vice versa in the USPTO world. And my law firm files, trademarks are an intellectual property firm all the time. We do that all day, every day when people are coming to us and we're kind of doing some research and giving them a clearance letter before they decide whether or not they want to file, and we will come up with things like that, like, okay, this is a similar trademark, but there are 30 to 40 variety of goods and services. So someone could be doing like an online software program and you could be doing photography services. And those are so dissimilar of goods versus services that you may still be able to get the same business name, registered, or tagline registered. I'm sure that was enlightening to you to be like, okay, yeah, girl gain craft. Really unique, interesting business name, but there's probably a potential that someone else has something remotely similar, maybe not the exact same, but trademark registration. It's also just based on likelihood of confusion. And it's not. You have to have the exact same name as someone else. Is there something even similar that could impact consumer minds enough that it won't be associated just with one brand? So we could probably stop there? I don't need to go down a rabbit hole here of trademarking, but just good things for everyone to think about as they're coming up with unique business names, taglines, logos, etc..

Phoebe
Yeah, I mean, there are obviously other girl gangs, but the craft was a differentiating thing. And there's a girl gang in Texas, but they're like more involved. And real estate market, there's all different little interesting things that you have to like, make the case to have your name stand out. And the craft made me stand out. I don't know what the term was for. I was like a common name or something, so there was some maneuvering that had to be done sometimes.

Paige
Go ask you to file a disclaimer like you don't own the word craft, but you own girl. Gain craft all together as one name. So little nuances there to trademark law. But a lawyer will help you through that. That's really well versed in IP.

Phoebe
Very glad I hired a lawyer. I know you can do it yourself. You can file a trademark yourself, but yeah, complicated.

Paige
You definitely can. I mean, the USPTO has great resources. If you go to that.gov website and I'll just make sure that people can go poke around there and I'll link the tutorial for everyone. They have good videos and walkthroughs from their office on how to do this yourself, but I would say eight times out of ten, nine times out of ten, you're going to get what's called an office action back from an examining attorney because something you did just wasn't quite right in your application. And then you're really confused and you're going to end up hiring an attorney anyway. Some people like to wait until that point and then try to backtrack and fix their mistakes, but it's always better to like, go in with the best application possible. Knowing whether or not you paying that filing fee is going to be worth it.

Phoebe
And what is a copyright?
Paige Yeah. So a copyright registration is all about works of art or authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium. So we're talking here ideas being fixed. A photograph is a really good example of this, a copyrighted work. Usually it's a literary work, a photographic work, an artistic work where you might have an idea in your head or you're getting ideas from online, but then when you put it in a tangible form, you immediately own the copyright ownership over that. There are massive exceptions to copyright law in terms of you can't own anything. That is an idea that's basically a common usage and common understanding and information. So it has to be very, very unique. But a photograph is usually they're all so different the way you compose it, the lenses that you use, I just like using that as an example, because when you click the shutter, you're taking that idea and what your artistic style and vibe is, and then you're fixing it in a digital form on that memory card, you immediately own copyright ownership. Over to that. So copyright laws is quite interesting in terms of artists, because you automatically have a lot of copyright rights when you create something and fix it, whether that's in an application and all of your ideas and the visual art is coming to life, that is an artistic work that's copyrighted. The additional layer to that, though, is putting that through the United States Copyright Office and filing a registration there for works of art books are a really good example of this. Movies. Those are the things that we commonly know that have the C with the circle around it, with copyright registration. But now that artists are becoming there's so many more artists out there, it's easier to fix things and ideas and tangible mediums online through online software programs and platforms and things that you can do on your computer and your iPad.
Just lots of people own a lot more copyrighted works. Now, that's the difference between a copyright and a trademark. Hopefully that makes sense for people.
Phoebe What can you do if your work gets stolen by like a bigger corporation?
Paige Yeah. Can you give me an example here and then we can walk people through the scenario.
Phoebe So maybe copying like a shirt design or a claw clip design seen on she and her team or another big corporation. When you have proof of concept of the design first.
Paige Yes. Okay. One thing I tell people is copyright registration is always a really good idea. You might have like a trade dress registration as well. We didn't get into that. But that's like the Tiffany's box kind of thing is like trade dress, if that makes sense. People really associate that form with a business of goods and services. So it's a little bit different than just an actual trademark or brand name that could be in your world as well.
And people listening and trade dress registration is really important. But copyright registration, this is such a lawyer answer. Just bear with me everyone. It depends. Sometimes there's so much knowledge out there on something that is being created and you're just putting like a minor artistic style tweak on it that perhaps that couldn't actually get registered to the US Copyright Office.
But you still have some common law rights to copyright ownership there, so you're probably going to be sending some type of communication to these infringers, and you're going to start by doing it yourself. So I'll just give you the step by step process here. First and foremost, document the infringement. And people always forget this. They think that they don't need to gather evidence because it's always online.
No. They are going to take it down as fastest freaking possible for the most part. And if you don't document before you communicate with them, you've lost gathering evidence in that respect. Document everything. Snapshot, screenshot, any type of email communication or check out pages that they have things along those lines. Get all of the evidence and proof that you can so that you can show that they were doing X without your permission and infringing on something that you created.
Then the next step is informally notifying the infringer yourself. You don't have to get a lawyer right away, and I don't recommend it because when you hire a lawyer, they're going to try to settle the dispute first to begin with, anyway, they're going to be sending what's called a cease and desist letter, which a lot of us are very aware of.
And I just say try to resolve the dispute yourself. Oftentimes, if you're just worried about someone, like selling something similar online, if you are emailing them with kindness, usually don't lead with massive legal information in this email. It's an informal email. It's reaching out directly to them, being clear, being friendly, but being very forthright with the infringement. Use that type of word.
I know that everyone emotionally gets really, really concerned that someone else is doing this and they're ill will. There's malicious intent there sometimes, I promise you, they just don't even know that that's illegal. You know, it's illegal, but sometimes they don't. And we need to lead with that understanding in this type of informal notification to the infringer. Because if they don't realize that they're using a protected design illegally, I promise you they'll probably remove it when notified.
Just try to lead with that assumption and try to take emotions out of it. I was actually just talking with someone, and this is a really good tip for people that don't know how to create this email. Use ChatGPT to create this email for you. Use AI resources. Generative AI platforms can help you. You can input things like hey, this person infringed on my design.
This was my design. Here's the evidence that I'll be attaching in this email. Make sure that the tone is clear but friendly. I want to make sure that I'm explaining the design is mine and request that they stop using it, and you guys will be amazed at the output of the email so that you can kind of use that template email to adequately notify infringers that they're doing something against the law and against a copyright ownership that you believe you have.
Next step is sending a cease and desist letter. So that's definitely getting a lawyer on board. It's kind of I like to say coming in with the big kahuna is if they're ghosting you, if they're not taking things down, if there are damages and you're seeing a lot of people are going over there and buying things from there, of course, it's probably less expensive.
That's kind of the world we're getting into where you have a really awesome product or artistic craft that you've created, and now someone else is kind of doing that design and so speak and trying to do it for us. Lots of people will probably buy it there. And that's where your damages come into play. And you can actually prove some damages there.
And that's what a lawyer wants to see when they're taking on a case like that is they have to be able to prove damages. So you have to show that you're not just, like emotionally connected to this and really upset that this is occurring. A C and D needs to have some weightiness behind it. But the lawyer letterhead, the lawyer email, getting an actual IP lawyer on board to protect your assets is always a good idea.
In that respect, when a lot of damages are at play, the last thing I will say is a DMCA takedown for like online infringement situations. You can always file those through Etsy and various e-commerce platforms in that respect that are stealing designs. You can always submit those. Sometimes they don't go through. Sometimes the platforms side with other people, but it's always a good step and right step in your direction.
So there's just a few things before you ever get to a lawsuit. We're always trying to avoid a massive lawsuit and bleeding money and paying hourly fees to attorneys. I mean, that's what we're here for. That's what our profession does. But we always want people to try to be as proactive on their own as they can to save money.
Phoebe That's super helpful. Okay. I think that's it for today. I think we have a lot of information. Is that on? Yeah. Where can we find you if we need help? Yeah.
Paige So, everyone, thanks for just listening. And I know that was probably a lot of information. I always tell people when you're listening to legal talks, take what you need and leave the rest. You don't need everything I just talked about, but whatever was really hitting hard with you. Take that to heart and maybe lean into that over the next 3 to 6 months to, I like to call it, become a little bit more legally legit as a business owner.
It's a journey. It's not a destination. You're going to constantly add things to become a better chief legal officer, to become more legally legit. It's not going to happen all at once. Corporations aren't even 100% legally legit. That's why they have entire legal departments. So you're always just trying to be a better, more protected legal business owner. And if you're in anything that resonated with you today, whether that's sole proprietor, the LLC, or we're talking about trademarks or we're talking about copyrights or working in other states, and maybe taxes and sales tax was like looking at you.
You can always get more information from us @thelegalpaige. So it's not legal. It's a play on my name and you can do it at thelegalpaige.com. The Legal Paige on Instagram. We give really good bite sized legal tips and then I will make sure that is linked for you. But we have a whole free resources page. And that might be a really good place for some people to start. We have a ten step guide to becoming legally legit and protected. As a newer business owner. We have a trademarking guide if you were interested in that as well. I'll make sure that you guys get access to all those free resources on our website too.

Phoebe
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much Paige.

Paige
Yeah, thanks for having me and thanks everyone. I'm really excited for your business journey.

OUTRO
Thank you so much for listening to the Girl Gang Craft podcast. Head to GirlGangCraft.com/podcast for Shownotes and more. See you next time.