Hi Reader! This week, I heard from a friend who got a cease and desist letter. What did she get the letter for? Using an image on her blog that she had downloaded from a “free” stock photography site. Sites like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay are great. They provide access to free images for almost any use. But they come with one huge potential pitfall, and it’s a “scam” I’ve seen dozens of times over the years. (And I got a letter for this exact reason a few years back.) How this scam works…

Hi Reader! Today, I completed a task that I do every week: backing up all my files onto an external hard drive. (Of course, I also back up into the cloud daily.) While this might seem like overkill, it came in handy a few years back when my laptop died. If you don’t know, I live in my RV full-time. About a week later, I was near Tucson and able to get a new laptop. But, even with a speedy download, it would have taken HOURS to restore my data from the cloud. Enter my handy SSD drive, which…

Hi Reader! Before my mini-sabbatical week, a client and I were chatting about a new licensing deal she was exploring. As part of that discussion, we needed to know how to terminate another contract at the end of the existing term. (Because that licensing deal wasn’t profitable and the new company had expressed interest in taking over that product line when her old contract expired.) In many contracts, renewals happen at the end of the term in one of three ways: Automatic renewal without any…

Hi Reader! Almost exactly a year ago, I decided to take a pickleball lesson. I had played a few times for fun, and it piqued my curiosity. At the time, my only goal was to learn a little more about the game, since it’s a BIG social activity in both my summer and winter RV parks. I didn’t expect to get competitive or obsessed with the sport. Fast forward one year, and I now play almost every day. I’ve also played in multiple pickleball tournaments and won some medals. And last month, I started…

Hi Reader! 30 Rock is one of my comfort shows. I watch it when I want something playing while I’m knitting or sewing, or when I’m tired and don’t want to process anything new. This week I watched the episode called Problem Solvers. In it, Tracey mentions that at the beginning of his career, he signed a bad contract that requires him to promote “Wade Boggs Carpet World” five times every time he’s on camera. And this is exactly the kind of situation I’d tell Tracey to put in his “Sh*t I’ll…

Hi Reader! This week, I dropped the third installment of the quarterly creative business legal tasks. And I’m going to challenge you to do one of those tasks this week: deciding if you are currently in the sweet spot for trademark registration. So, how do you know you are in the sweet spot and it’s time to start the trademark registration process? The first way you know is that your name is eligible, but it’s not unique enough. And someone else might come along and use the same name. Like our…

Hi Reader! One of the tricky things about being friends with your clients is that they will sometimes just shoot you a text, rather than sending an email. This happened last week when a client got a fake-looking government notice in the mail and had a question about it. She sent me a photo of the notice and asked if it was something she needed to care about. I get it, sometimes it’s easier to send a text than an email. When I’m acting as your lawyer, our conversations are protected by…

Hi Reader! If you’ve had clients, you’ve had problem clients. But what makes someone a problem client is different for everyone. For you, problem clients might be ones that: Cannot give you everything you request in one response. Argue that they/Google/ChatGPT knows better than you. Keep asking for “one more tweak/change”. Want everything done yesterday. Send you text messages rather than emailing. You probably know about my “Sh*t I’ll Never Do Again” book. (If you don’t, you can read about…

Hi Reader! Several years ago, I had a wedding photographer book time with me. She had just gotten an email from the stepfather of a bride requesting a full refund of the amount they had paid for her services. The back story was that a couple of days before the wedding, the bride canceled the wedding because she found out that the groom was cheating on her with her best friend. And the stepfather, who was an attorney, was pissed, and trying to get as much money back as possible. Her contract…

Hi Reader! As I prep the Shield Your Studio workshops, there’s one consistent theme: Your clients/customers are hiring you because you are an expert. And if you can give them the tools and resources to be able to understand your plan, not only for getting them the outcome they want, but to handle any hiccups along the way, you are more likely to have a smooth working relationship. (Psst…If you need tools to help clients understand: how to pay on schedule, what’s needed to keep projects on…

Hi Creative, This week, I was catching up with a friend, Lisa. Like many creatives a few years ago, she thought contracts were something only “official” businesses had. When I finally convinced her to work with a lawyer to build one, she was convinced it would scare her fellow creative clients away. For a while, she dreaded sending it, waiting for someone to question her terms or decide not to move forward. But that never happened. Not once. She told me, “I’ve never had a single client refuse…

Hi Reader! One of the first projects I worked on as an (almost) lawyer was updating a contract. He was a commercial photographer doing dozens of shoots a month. Because he was working with big brands that had their own rules, each shoot had different licenses, timeframes, payments, and distribution of responsibilities. I met with the client, and he told me the story of how, for at least two months, his assistant didn’t update the social media rights section of the contract. And they only…