Securing Your Story

Folktellers : Stories to be Shared

Protecting Your Narrative in an Open Market

Every business has Intellectual Property, and today it’s more valuable than ever. But most businesses don’t recognize it, protect it, or exploit it. It’s usually an afterthought. When an inventor develops something new, management may start thinking about patents. When a new brand is ready to launch, management may start thinking about trademarks. When an employee leaves and takes your new product to a competitor, management may think about trade secrets.

Every business needs to make Intellectual Property a top priority of business planning. Financial experts say that the Intellectual Property portfolio is typically one-third or more of the total value of a business. Intellectual property can also lead to greater profits, expanded market share, multiple streams of revenue, and better business reputation.

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Ladies,
gentlemen and everyone in between.
Welcome to the folk tellers stories.
We shared podcast this week,
we're gonna be talking about securing your story a little professional and personal advice on protecting your narrative on the open market.
So the beggars and thieves can't take your good story telling.
Uh I'm here with my compatriots,
Kurt David and I keep thinking about your opening here of ladies and gentlemen and everybody in between because now we're talking about protection.
Ok.
I'm not in touch with that and,
and cut that out.
But are you wearing any?
Ok,
this is,
we're,
we're going down the rabbit hole quick,
Steve can't even get his name out,
but uh you're here.
Who else is here?
Well,
I'm here,
Stephen Sadler,
Stephen Sadler.
I'm glad you're here.
Stephen Sadler too.
I would have missed you if you weren't here.
So,
anyway,
all right.
So,
uh uh that was like just checking it in with the laughter,
right?
So securing your story,
uh We've all published.
Uh Some of us had patented,
uh our stories,
our ideas and,
you know,
it's a,
it's a hidden world.
It's a hidden world.
I,
the quote,
I begin with is uh Pablo Picasso says a bad artists,
copy good artists steal.
I'm like,
oh,
that's not nice.
But uh uh one of our,
so I wanna want to start with a,
is a book written by um one of our friends and actually our intellectual property uh attorney's name is Bill Nier.
Bill wrote a book,
uh a really cool book uh called the Business Owner Guide to Intellectual Property.
Turning your ideas into gold.
And Bill is an IP lawyer.
Uh Bill couldn't be with us,
but he's letting us,
uh he's letting us actually steal some of his stuff.
So that's kind of cool.
Um Well,
I guess it's not stealing if he gave us the rights.
Picasso said it's ok.
All right.
So here's what,
here's what uh Mr says about intellectual property and about protecting your,
your creative ideas and stories and endeavors.
He said every business and this could be every person needs to make intellectual property a top priority in their planning.
Financial experts say that intellectual uh an intellectual property portfolio,
say that three times fast is typically one third or more of the total value of a business.
Intellectual property can also lead to greater profits,
expanded market share,
multiple streams of revenue and better business reputation.
Uh Bill was the uh lawyer for uh Kellogg's for years and years and years.
And uh they sold,
when Kellogg sold um part of their portfolio,
they sold Ernie the Elf uh from Kieler cookies and he had been uh the Chief Elf since 1968.
Uh and in 2001,
Kellogg's purchased Kieler Foods for approximately $4.5 billion.
The intellectual portfolio that Ernie and his friends in the tree represented was $1.5 billion of that value.
That is one very expensive Elf.
And one of the things that bill advises is it's 33 steps.
He says you need to research,
collect and protect and we're gonna talk a little bit about that.
So what do you,
um,
what do you guys feel like?
Uh is it a,
is it a waste of time to try to lock down your,
your ideas and your story or is it something,
you know,
in your personal experience?
Is it something that you've,
uh,
you've had good luck with no luck with or what,
what about you,
Steve?
I mean,
you've done,
you've done a lot of stuff on your,
uh your ideas and your stories.
Um,
some things you've,
you've just written,
like I can tell you as a writer,
um,
you retain,
like if,
if you write something down and you have a physical or a digital copy of it,
um,
that you can prove is written at a certain time,
it,
it's got sort of automatic copyright but you don't have all the protections versus filing it.
But Steve,
what about,
you know,
what's been your experience in this because you've done a lot with like,
like patents and devices and technology and stuff.
I think it depends on the reason why you're trying to secure the IP.
And what I mean by that is if you're,
if the reason that you're trying to secure it is because you want to sue people later on,
then that's not the right reason to secure the IP.
Securing the IP should be kind of going to what Bill wrote in his book there.
You're,
you're creating wealth,
you're creating value.
So the reason that you're patenting something or you place a copyright on something or you're protecting your brand,
it's to build the value of the entity that,
that,
that it's in and that doesn't matter whether it's a product or whether it's a song or whatever.
Um But a lot of people don't,
they don't see it like that.
It's like they,
they wanna,
you know,
kind of secure it and protect it for the purpose of either sitting on it and suing someone else later or whatever.
And,
and as an event and as in being an inventor,
that's bad energy to me,
the,
you know,
the reason that you're doing is you want to protect,
you know,
your art.
And the interesting thing is when you're dealing with patents and trademarks,
it's actually called art.
Really.
Yes.
Matter of fact,
if you're doing a search,
you're looking for what prior art,
that's the research part that Bill was talking about that the first thing is researching,
making sure that,
that idea or whatever it is,
is not already out there.
Yeah.
And that's usually why you,
you need an attorney,
like an attorney go out and they'll actually do a proper patent search or a trademark search or whatever,
find out whether someone else is using it and if they're not,
or if you're doing something that's similar,
then,
you know,
obviously they have to cite that and say,
you know,
this particular pattern here is,
you know,
similar and cited but yours is different.
And,
and that's the other thing.
Another word that comes from stories is novel.
You know,
the,
no,
the,
the novelty of,
you know,
of what a patent is it something original,
original.
Yeah.
Actually,
I think the definition is a,
a patentability requirement according to which an invention is not patentable if it was already known for before the date of filing.
So that is the key part.
You have to have that component.
It has to be,
has to be novel.
That's interesting.
Kurt,
um Kurt fell asleep.
Um Kurt,
we need to wake you up because you're like,
what,
what do I know about this?
Like he's over here taking notes.
He's like,
shit,
I didn't secure any of that.
No,
you know,
it,
it's funny because this is a great topic and,
you know,
one of the things that I've learned is that I'm still learning,
but most of us,
I think most of us will.
I think it's safe to say most people will never be filing for a patent.
Right?
I mean,
would that be a safe assumption that most people are not gonna file for a pen?
But what is important?
Right?
For certain people,
certain situations,
I think it depends like you mentioned,
Steve and it depends on what the idea is because as I tell people,
every book,
every TV show every product starts with one thing.
It's an idea,
right?
It's an idea and we all have ideas.
Some are great,
some are grand,
some are like,
what,
what was I thinking?
Right?
Something as simple as a Hula hoop,
right?
I mean,
think about that.
I mean,
somebody who came up with that idea,
um obviously has done well with it.
Um I,
I remember when I first wrote my,
my book,
my first book and talking about this,
right?
It's like this is new terrain for me.
I,
I didn't know anything about copyright or how did this work?
And one of the biggest suggestions I had is,
well,
there's a poor man version that you can do right to protect your IP.
And I said,
well,
what is that?
And Stevie alluded to it about the time stamp,
right?
They said,
well,
if you have something written,
you can mail it to yourself in a certified letter,
it'll be time stamped with that certified letter and just don't open it because from that date,
you can prove that.
Hey,
here it is.
Right.
And if it's in a court of law or whatever that is,
I can then open it or have the judge open it.
And here it is,
this is my idea,
by the way,
and here's a time stamp,
but that's a cheap version.
You have to send a lot of those to you.
What do you mean?
Well,
say you send one and someone,
you know,
it says,
hey,
this is my pattern.
As soon as you open it up,
you've opened it up,
you only got one.
Oh,
so that's even a,
a,
it's a little more expensive than the Superman version.
It's a great,
so a 10 pack of registered letters.
But no,
it's a great point because yeah,
when that does have to be open for whatever the reason and,
and like you said,
if,
if the motive for doing that is to,
um,
sue or protect or,
you know,
from,
not protect but to,
to look at,
ok,
well,
how can I sue somebody if they steal this?
You know,
to me it's a protection of an idea,
right?
It's an idea that you have that I have that whatever it is we want to protect that and,
you know,
we deal with that.
In fact,
one of the things I deal with the distributors for TV,
programming,
uh that I'm involved with is,
well,
who owns the content.
That's always one of the first questions that distributors ask in TV,
content.
Well,
who owns it?
Well,
when I can say I,
I do,
it opens up the doors a lot more versus,
well,
so,
and so does,
but I'm involved and,
and,
you know,
it just kind of complicates and muddy the water.
But then in,
how do you protect that as well?
Distributors want things that are nice and clean,
you know,
and the less people that are involved,
the better if you want to distribute your,
your movies or TV series or whatever or your book.
Yeah,
I mean,
they want clean.
Here's something you guys,
you guys are hitting on.
That's kind of kind of making me think is,
you know,
one of the other reasons you want,
you want to get legal counsel on this and why you're intellectual property,
we're talking about the idea.
And I think what happens is right out of the gate when someone has an idea,
they're like,
oh,
this would be a great movie or this would be a great,
they're immediately thinking about the asset,
right?
And actually the value is in the idea and Steve taught me this and I'll tell you a story about that when we were in Los Angeles.
So,
um the idea that you have,
if it's a good idea,
it's going to create many assets over time.
So one of the reasons to secure that IP to,
to secure that idea is you don't know what this could become like in your mind,
you're like,
like you said,
you're doing a book.
So you do a,
a book and in your mind,
you're like,
oh,
you know,
we're gonna create the book and I'll secure the book.
But the ideas in that book may turn out to be many,
many,
many other things.
So it's not just securing the book.
It's really,
it's securing the idea example,
my from glory day's concept,
it started as a book turned into a TV show.
Now we're talking about expanding it.
Not many other factors as well.
Uh But what's interesting,
what bill mentioned from his book was talking about the,
the value of that,
right?
The value of the IP being part of the whole package,
right?
I mean,
it's something I didn't think of before.
It's like,
oh yeah,
that protection is very important because that's part of the value of it,
by the way,
what you're doing at all those pieces.
Uh Joseph been calling that for a while with um Jeff Gomez trans media.
I mean,
you're,
you're telling your story in different types of media,
that's what trans media means.
So,
so that's why you have to protect all of these different things in different channels that they are actually gonna be delivered in.
Right.
Absolutely.
Because they could be a game,
they could be a book,
they could be a movie,
could be the metaphors.
Oh yeah,
yeah,
we should do a podcast on that.
Oh,
wait,
this is a really bad memory.
Our next episode.
Oh Wait,
that was episode number one.
That's number one,
number one with the bullet.
Uh So the story,
a story I was gonna tell about uh securing your IP.
So uh Steve took me out to L A and we're doing,
you know,
the whole folk tellers universe and,
and he sets up all these meetings in L A and so we're in this um rented uh L A bungalow and it was an Airbnb.
Yeah,
it was and I'm gonna do like a door song because because now,
but I was with Little Steve in a Hollywood bungalow.
Um But uh I think you're the one with the God that I don't know.
But anyway,
so someone will know the lyrics to L A woman of which I'm referring.
Thank you.
See,
Bill's nodding his head.
Thank you,
Bill.
Even though it's a token nod,
that'd be a story that you started about an hour ago.
You started a story about an hour,
an hour ago.
So here we go.
Come on.
All right.
Uh Bill,
can you patch in L A woman?
Uh On this part,
I don't have the rights.
It's protected.
We'll talk about that,
we'll talk about that,
someone secured those rights on it.
So we're in L A and,
and we're in the bungalow for our means.
It's the morning and Steve,
you know,
Mr Digital social media guy and he goes,
dude,
like we got to lock down this,
I'm not a social media guy.
Ok?
He's a,
he's a social media,
he's my social media guy.
Now.
You're,
you're more than that,
you're just my guy.
Oh,
you're just my guy.
Ok?
I don't think this is that type of offense.
Well,
he's got that half eaten banana shirt on.
Right.
That's right.
Yeah,
I got a pink shirt with John.
We did open up this session with uh ladies and gentlemen and everybody in between.
So I guess right off the bat,
but go ahead,
I'm Juan today.
So all right,
back to the story.
Back to the story.
So in this episode,
um so we're in L A where it's in the morning before our meetings and he's like,
you gotta lock all this social media down,
you gotta lock down the folk teller's name across media and he's going,
he's like this is available,
it's available on Twitter,
it's available on Instagram and I'm like,
OK,
he goes,
we could,
he goes,
you don't understand and so I'll like pass it.
Why is,
why was that a big deal?
Because all of those different social media platforms or channels for you to be able to send content out to and every single one of them has like a vanity name to it.
And if you can't lock that down right across the board,
then someone else will.
So,
you know,
and you,
and that's not even about having a trademark on that.
So say,
for example,
you have the trademark on folk tellers,
which we do,
right?
But you don't have the Instagram folk tellers and some so someone can literally start pumping stuff out to that one and you know,
yeah,
you could probably send them a cease and desist letter,
but then that becomes expensive to do that.
Sure.
So if you're smart,
you when you come up with the name and you do a patent,
you do a uh copyright or I should say a trademark or service mark search,
you should look right across the board at all of the different social channels to see whether you can lock it up.
And by the way,
for people that are into this,
this is the start of your platform,
this is creating your digital footprint and um and that's what I advise.
That's a great point because,
you know,
years ago,
we didn't have to worry about that,
right?
If we had a copyright for a book,
that was the book,
right?
But now you're saying,
and I agree that that boy,
you gotta make sure you lock down all the social media avenues,
right?
I mean,
all of them,
right?
I mean,
you want to get as many as you can because if you don't control your narrative and your story,
someone else will.
That's folk tellers has been talking about for many,
many years.
Well,
so in Bill's book,
I mean,
his whole premise is,
you know,
the,
the three steps.
It's the,
the research,
the collect and protect and um I don't think what most people realize because all this is hidden,
like no one's gonna tell you this.
I mean,
you have to,
you have to go find,
you have to talk to like,
yeah,
I mean,
we are not lawyers,
we're not providing legal counsel.
We highly recommend that you find someone who is an expert,
intellectual property and have this conversation with them when you think that you have a great idea.
Um,
it costs money,
it costs time.
But,
uh,
we've all done it and,
and,
uh,
it's,
you know,
it's well worth it.
It's well worth.
Um,
if you think you've got a good enough idea,
it's well worth putting money down because even when Steve,
like,
unfortunately,
um,
those platforms weren't locked down and they didn't cost us a ton of money.
But,
like,
yeah,
I mean,
people make a living.
You haven't got my bill yet.
Well,
we're,
well,
well,
the bigger you are,
the more of a target you are too though,
right?
If you can get it before you become a big fish and that's the thing.
And the only thing is you don't know what he,
he said it before.
You don't know what something can become.
You don't know what this idea,
uh,
in patents they call it.
Well,
everything it's called art.
Art,
right?
And you don't know where,
where that's going to be in the future.
So the idea is to make sure that you're controlling all of the different platforms and all the names and the narrative just get starts to get published out there.
And all of a sudden you've got a huge,
you know,
footprint of uh of content and that's where the value is of what you're doing,
especially when you're doing things digitally these days.
It's like people look at something digital and they go,
well,
I don't see a building or,
you know,
I don't see a car,
I don't see any physical assets.
But meanwhile,
in the electron world,
it's enormous.
I mean,
this,
you know,
how much content and how much things that you built and it's as,
and as it's as valuable as regular buildings,
if not more because some of the interesting things are,
I can go back to ideas and patterns that I had,
you know,
10,
15 years ago,
open up those files and they haven't deteriorated.
It looks exactly the same as the day that I left that file.
But if I had a building,
that building is not gonna look like that.
I got a question about that Steve because is it only valuable based on the number of impressions I would gain in that area or is it valuable before that?
I mean,
because you,
you,
you're locking this down with the idea that it is gonna become valuable.
But is the value only in impressions that,
of course,
so you can answer this multi tiered question.
So there's,
uh,
there's companies that make a living off of just buying URL S and then reselling them,
they sit,
you know,
they,
they buy hundreds of thousands of URL S and they just wait to see if those names hit or someone and then it's like anywhere between,
you know,
sell them to you for 20 bucks or 20,000,
it's like scalping concert tickets.
Yeah,
that's what it is,
is Joseph Bastian dot com right now.
I wonder that's why uh we do.
Yes,
you got that.
He got me that for Christmas to put a little digital bow on it for him.
So this,
so,
so to answer,
you know,
so there's Kurt's question and uh you know what you're touching on and you've,
you've talked about it a little bit,
I think already,
but I think it's,
it bears repeating,
talking in depth around protecting your story.
You know,
you came up with the model.
Um CF I,
so what,
what's,
what's CF I?
And how does that impact protecting your story and communicating your story?
Well,
II,
I mentioned that in the previous podcast,
so I don't want to get into the detail,
but just CF I,
but it's content,
frequency and influence,
you gotta have content,
which is your story,
you have to have frequency,
which is all those channels that we were just talking about.
Like placing content into them on a regular basis.
And a cadence where people know that the content is coming just like this podcast,
people are gonna go,
hey,
there's a podcast coming next Tuesday again.
And you're telling people that.
So then they start to expect it when you just drop off or you're,
you know,
you're not sending content,
people aren't gonna follow you.
That's,
that's how you get a following because they expect things to be sent to you.
And then the I obviously is the influence side and that's where you actually get people of influence to help you expand whatever your product is or,
or your service or um or your music or whatever you're doing.
So,
so what risk would be we be running?
So we went,
you know,
early on,
we spent the money and the time to uh uh trademark uh folk tellers and to,
you know,
create our brand and to do all the,
you know,
do all the,
the work that we needed to do.
What if we wouldn't have done that?
Where,
where would we be now?
Like if we had this podcast,
what,
where would,
where would our risks be?
Well,
someday an accountant is gonna take all of your assets and they're gonna apply value to it.
And every one of these pieces that you own has a value to it.
So people just think that,
oh,
it's just physical assets that have value it,
isn't it?
So,
this whole digital world has just as much value,
if not more than,
than what the physical world does.
And,
um,
and to not to not understand that as far as a business,
you know,
you know,
in this era would be very foolish.
But is it,
is it value kind of like a house?
I could have a value in my house,
but unless I sell it,
it doesn't matter.
But is it kind of that way as well?
What you're describing?
Yeah,
I mean,
anything is worth what someone's gonna pay,
right?
I mean,
that's,
that's what it is but there,
there's comparatives.
I mean,
when you're dealing with houses,
you're someone's gonna,
you're gonna compare it with the other houses on your street.
Well,
you're gonna compare it with other domain names that have X number of traffic or you know,
where you are on the Alexa rating or you know how many Twitter followers you have and so on and so on.
I mean,
that's,
that's,
that's,
yeah,
it's still important.
Now,
obviously,
if you're selling products,
your products and services have to be good too.
That's the,
the sea could be replaced with products as well,
not just content,
it could be products,
frequency and influence and we just came up with that today.
But uh but yeah,
I write that down but I have a question.
Uh Bill talked about the three aspects in his book,
right?
The research,
the second one.
What does that mean,
exactly for the second aspect of that.
So to collect.
I know.
Yeah.
So,
so you actually have to collect your assets and,
and,
and it's looking at what Steve said you have,
you have,
uh,
an auditor or an accountant come in and it's not just physical assets like buildings and books,
it's also,
you know,
digital and,
and it's everything and then putting a value to it.
So you gotta,
you gotta collect it and say what,
what really is the scope and reach of our intellectual property and to have someone come in,
who knows how to do that?
Because you wouldn't know like most that's the thing is all this stuff is hidden.
Like as a business owner,
you,
you would not intuitively,
you know,
any of this,
like he said,
like uh the Kieler Elf was worth $1.5 billion.
Just the elf,
just the image of,
of uh what's his name?
I'm trying to blank.
Oh,
it's,
we have to ask Bill would do you know the name of the Ke Ernie?
Ernie?
Boom.
Thank you.
That's my brother's name.
So uh yeah,
it's Ernie the Elf.
He an E as well.
Uh Some days he,
yeah,
he could be,
he could be impish like Steve Steve's impish sometimes he's,
you're Elvin,
impish,
sprightly.
All right.
All right,
I'll stop my um What was your question?
You answer the question about the collection.
So,
collecting is,
is,
is gathering all of your IP and assume,
and again,
you don't assume that,
you know what all your IP is until you actually go through the exercise with the professional.
Can I give you a story on that one?
You absolutely may give us a story.
So,
I,
you know,
I worked with the,
um,
with the Zappa State for a long time with,
ah,
Zappa Frank Zappa's son.
I mean,
he,
ahmed had to take the estate when his mother passed away and take all of the analog assets that were in their vault that they had.
And there was a lot and he had to have them all converted over to digital to make sure they preserved because a lot of them were actually,
you know,
degrading music stats and records and tapes or whatever.
And,
um,
that is,
you know,
to them,
that's the value,
that's everything that they needed to be able to,
you know,
you know,
give that to an account and say,
here,
you know,
put,
put a value to this,
let us know,
you know what this is worth and all of these,
uh,
you know,
these music estates have to do that.
Now,
even Prince had apparently had a huge library of assets and all of those would have been done would have been recorded analog originally and would all had to be converted into digital.
Um,
I hear still to this day that people,
uh,
the best medium for recording or,
you know,
keeping music and data is C DS still because they,
they don't,
they don't,
they don't degrade,
um,
anything that's tape and,
you know,
and that type of thing does degrade.
So if you're gonna back something up,
burn it onto a CD,
because a CD will be around in many,
many years and you can find a CD player still.
There'll only be two things around in 100 years.
Golf balls and C DS and cockroaches and cockroaches.
Well,
let me tell you one of my biggest mistake that I made uh from my,
my first book from glory day.
I remember the publisher came in after a certain time.
Every book has a shelf life,
right?
And the publisher came to me and said,
well,
do you want to buy your original plates?
I think they call it.
I'm not sure when printing what they call that,
but you have the original plates and there was a price tag at,
you know,
250 bucks or whatever it was.
I don't remember what the price was and I'm like,
uh,
no,
I don't need it,
you know,
and now I regret the fact that I didn't do that because I would have the in the original plates for the printing that I could take anywhere and do.
And now you have to start all over again.
So anybody out there that's looking at authoring a book,
if you get offered the opportunity to buy those original I don't know what they call them,
anybody know what they call them or whatever.
Yeah.
From the printing of the actual book I should have bought them because then I have those,
right?
Otherwise they just destroy them.
Right.
Start all over again.
Well,
you guys are touching on some interesting things because as creators,
as storytellers,
our inclination is to create,
set behind us and continue to create.
So and there's probably people listening that are like nodding their heads.
It's like,
yeah,
when was the last time you stepped back?
And you looked at the collection of all of your,
all of your work,
all of your art,
all of your inventions.
Well,
the thing is where do you,
where do you put it?
Right.
That's the next thing.
Yeah,
and,
and like format and all that kind of stuff.
I don't mean that,
I mean,
a lot of people,
they just have it in their name or they might have it in a business's name,
but the thing they don't understand,
you better have it in a trust because if it isn't locked in a trust when you leave this planet,
it will be gone,
it will be taken.
And you hear that all the time,
there's a lot of people that,
that don't have trust that,
you know,
and,
and that's an easy,
that's an easy thing to set up,
you know,
contact your lawyer and,
and say,
look,
I have to these assets and I don't want to put them into a truck but a lot of people,
and I,
and I'm not,
you know,
giving people advice,
legal advice,
but relative to our IP and what we're doing,
everything is,
is put into it.
It's almost like,
um,
putting your personal will together but around your,
your IP.
Yes.
Well,
and you used an interesting word that I picked up on.
Trust.
It all boils down to trust.
right?
Because you have to trust that your information,
your content,
your product,
whatever it is is protected because otherwise,
can you trust that that won't be,
you know,
like you brought up a great example and I didn't even think about this if and when my final breath happens,
what happens to my IP.
Unless it's in a trust,
it's wherever it ends up after that and you have family members and then they get into fun.
They like,
no,
no,
no,
it's the other way around.
It's like,
no,
it'll become popular when you take your final.
That's the way it normally works in that world unless you're of us being still alive,
I think.
And,
well,
yeah,
he's in Kalamazoo,
Steve.
Don't tell Kurt our plan,
which they take my stuff and you can have someone,
someone has to die for this podcast to take off after the,
after our,
our series is done.
Can I suggest it's Bill our producer?
No,
no.
Well,
he said he's already dead inside.
So it doesn't matter,
whatever you're a I Joseph,
you were already killed.
So no one has to,
no one has to die.
Now you're already dead.
There's the story,
we have to protect that.
The A,
what I'll write a story on A I Joseph.
No,
I'll use a I to write the story in 20 minutes.
There's a story in the story like the w but what's,
you know,
I,
I think out of this whole conversation,
what's really important is understanding that there's value and that's something that,
you know,
you mentioned Joseph that we just,
our focus is creating,
right?
We just want to create,
we just want to create,
put it behind us,
create,
put it behind us.
And,
and I think about Thomas Kincade,
most people may not know Thomas Kincade,
but he's the painter of light Thomas painter behind our couch in our house.
And I don't know if you know the back story,
Thomas Kincade.
I mean,
he,
he was really in a really bad situation growing up,
right?
Very poor.
Um Anyway,
his,
his transcending the way he overcame that was by drawing and painting.
My reason for bringing it up is that he started painting these Hollywood sets and,
and painting landscapes and somebody saw him painting one day on the street and said,
wow,
that's,
that's amazing.
I I can help sell that.
And it's when the creator met the salesman.
And so they started,
you know,
selling things and then it became the fact that he was at a wedding one time and he sat next to somebody that said,
what,
what are you doing?
He's like,
well,
I'm a painter and they're like,
well,
you know,
how are you doing?
Who was running your business?
And it's when the,
the creator who had a salesman met the businessman and tied it all together and he became the first billion dollar commercial artist as a result.
It all started with that.
But my point is this,
that,
that then it ended.
Yeah.
And unfortunately tragically,
yeah,
absolutely.
But the,
the,
the point is the point,
the point is um business,
business aspect and what happened was he got,
well,
and then he got taken to the cleaners like it was a bad deal because they were running the kin cake galleries and then he ended up having to buy,
yeah,
he had,
he had to buy it back and then,
yeah.
So,
but the point is the business side of it and the protection of that.
I mean,
he didn't.
Yeah.
And it's all he wanted to create.
That's all you wanted to do.
And it's a whole different skill set.
I'm so glad you're bringing this up because this is crucial for people listening out there that the creative people,
the storytellers um you need someone with a business mindset that understands these things because it's a whole different skill set uh to do this and,
and like you can go back in history and most inventors died poppers because they weren't,
they weren't good business people.
They were,
they were creatives and they were creating things and they were inventing things and they usually get screwed because someone with a business mindset comes in and like,
man,
I can make a ton of money on that and they,
they offer him the moon and they,
they cut him a bad deal.
And,
uh,
you know,
I mean,
you could,
you could list them like Eli Whitney Tesla on and on and on or they didn't protect their IP,
didn't we talking about today?
Talking about is a great example of someone that just wanted to give because there's two sides to the coin here.
You've got the side of securing and protecting your IP.
But there's a huge community of open source,
for example,
which is all about giving and what happens when you give other people add to that art,
right?
So say,
for example,
I write a small program and I,
I put it up on,
get up and I said,
look here,
download this and,
and,
and,
and add to it and,
and all of a sudden that becomes something even more amazing too.
So I'm not just saying secure,
everything that you do there,
there's other components to life where giving is good and giving to the community.
There are certain things that you should give because for the for the betterment of the world if you do give them and Tesla tried to do that many times and I,
we won't mention any names of who made that into a service.
But um the world would be a different place if Nikolai Tesla,
you know,
got what he wanted.
You work for Thomas Edison.
I didn't say that.
A I Joseph just said Thomas Edison,
you're already,
you're already dead.
You can say that.
That's all right.
I'm already dead.
You can,
you can't do anything to me.
So for our listeners,
protecting IP comes in all different fashions.
It comes with securing the content across the board,
social online.
But also like you just said,
though,
there is a time to give it away,
there is a time to give something away.
Yes,
definitely.
I mean,
if you think that it's bigger than you and it's bigger,
you know,
and,
and other,
and where other people can add to it,
right?
Because trying to negotiate that into contracts and it's like,
oh you created this piece and this piece,
it becomes such a headache.
It's,
it's probably just as easy to say,
I'm gonna make this open source and I,
and I want the ability to be able to use this.
I'm using technology as an example.
I wanna be able to use that technology for in my business and it becomes open source.
Wordpress is a prime example of that.
That's a word that's an open source application which many,
many developers have have worked on.
So I have a question back to one of the original questions.
Does it really matter?
I mean,
even if I go through all this of protecting,
of,
of solidifying,
you know,
making sure my domain URL all these things are are in tech.
Uh does it matter?
Why does it matter uh in the end for something like this?
It is part of the value as mentioned,
you know,
in Bill's book,
he talked about the value of that.
But how,
how do we assure that it is still protected?
So here this is my,
are you if you're asking me personally as I,
I'm only asking you professionally,
but yeah.
Ok.
If you want to answer it personally,
go ahead.
Well,
that's the same thing.
I mean,
you know what you see is what you get,
I'm sorry.
Uh I think protecting it and one of the thing,
you know,
Steve was talking about,
uh,
you know,
securing the rights and protecting you can still give people access to your protective IP and you know,
yeah,
and you want to,
but,
but you have like you,
then you have the say and the thing is people are still gonna steal like Picasso's quote,
you know,
people are still gonna steal.
And uh,
well,
we were ok,
we were talking to uh Dave cooler from,
from full house and Dave was,
we were having breakfast with him and he said,
uh he goes,
you know,
I tried to,
I,
I actually copyrighted that.
Cut it out,
you know,
his,
his signature move with the scissors and,
yeah,
they cut it out,
look up,
cut it out.
You'll know exactly what we're talking about.
But,
um,
he said so many people have used it on memes and this and that.
It's like,
you know,
it's,
it's copyrighted,
it's protected but people steal it all the time.
So then you have to make a decision is like,
you know,
is it worth chasing everyone or sending cease and desist letters?
Probably not.
But um that doesn't mean um you shouldn't protect it because it's just,
it's just a good business practice to have it protected.
So many people like all,
all the images you see online,
you know,
most of those are rights protected and people use them all the time um illegally,
like you could,
you could pursue that and most people who put pictures up online,
if you ask for permission,
they would give you permission to use it.
Yeah.
And there's non royalty aspects of images and music,
but there's also the royalty aspect of it.
I mean,
I dealt with this with,
with my book from glory days because we had the images of the four Detroit teams,
the Pistons Tigers,
red Wings and lions.
And that I gotta tell you that was a quite a experience in learning process because of the licensing with each of those jerseys,
right?
We had a picture of each jersey in the front of the cover.
And,
and to be honest,
one of the most difficult was that old English tea from the Detroit Tigers because the Detroit Tigers do not own that.
That's owned by major league baseball properties incorporated in New York City.
And we had to go about three months back and forth with legal paperwork and they literally want us to have a,
um,
$4 million liability policy on the book.
And I'm like,
what somebody gonna get a paper cut and sue major league baseball.
But literally,
so we went back and forth for a while.
And finally,
they were like,
well,
you know,
you have,
uh,
heirs and omissions to the publisher,
right on the,
yeah,
of course,
they said,
all right.
Well,
let's cut the,
the 5 $4 million liability policy,
but you still have to sign this six page licensing agreement that's very strict about what you can do and can't do with that image.
And so my point is this that they,
that,
you know,
you talk about supports.
It was one of our previous conversations,
an episode,
but sports have a huge IP that they protect and they're marketing monsters and their,
and their merchandise and you have to prove authenticity of those merchandise.
I mean,
like if something is signed like a helmet or a shirt,
you normally comes with a certificate that says this is authentic,
right?
So authenticity is a major part of securing IP and IP can be a shirt as soon as I sign or a ball and it says it's got to have the official license,
property of whatever,
you know,
the tag those tags are on there.
Well,
so Steve,
you've got a story about the uh hero's journey so that the,
the series we're working on with the uh the black musical artists and the name Hero's Journey.
Uh You got a letter,
we got a letter from uh from the Joseph Campbell.
Found.
Correct?
Yeah.
So Joseph Campbell,
for those that don't know,
is uh a mythologist who uh coined the term the hero's journey.
And he,
he kind of came up with the model for the progression of the hero's journey,
um uh probably like 50 years ago.
So now it's owned by a non-profit foundation,
but go ahead.
Yeah,
and basically said,
they said,
listen,
you can use Hero's journey.
The series as long as you're not referring to,
I think it's a 17 step process of heroes,
different,
yeah,
different,
different stages.
But that's basically what they were saying.
So,
um we wrote a letter and my attorney wrote a letter back and said,
no,
we're not referring to that at all.
We're just using the name Hero's journey because these musicians are going on a hero's journey and it's a series of,
of different artists and you know,
that type of thing.
And um immediately they sent back a letter and said,
fine,
go ahead.
Yeah.
So that's how easy it can become.
But what ha when bad things happen is when you don't do that and you don't try to,
you know,
do it the right way and you just take and that's what a lot of people do.
Like you,
you guys were talking about,
people take images and they do that and then you're gonna get yourself into trouble.
Someone's gonna come after you,
right?
So it's,
it's not about um being litigious or like,
you know,
when we began,
it's like it's not about suing people.
It's just about sound business practices.
And if you believe that your intellectual property,
that the,
your creative assets have value,
it's important that you protect them.
I think that's,
you know,
that's really the,
the simple message,
uh the simple message.
That's the story.
Yeah,
that's the story and you're sticking to it.
So Steve just ended the whole episode.
No closure needed at this point.
There you go.
So uh yeah,
but we,
but I can't leave it at that.
So yeah,
so wrap up.
So like,
you know,
from your personal experience,
you know,
protecting your story,
how important is it and why should you do it?
Um Protecting your story is the most as we,
we always say,
we don't,
you don't protect your story.
Someone else is gonna take your story for you.
It's that simple and you got all the lines today.
Well,
you've taught me well.
That's sweet.
And I love your pink shirt.
Yeah,
for me,
I think the biggest thing in the takeaway is that we have all ideas.
We all have ideas,
right?
We all have ideas that we create and,
but I think one of the biggest things is I don't know what my idea might become tomorrow and to be safe,
to protect that idea today because you don't know what's gonna come tomorrow.
I didn't know that my book was gonna turn into a TV show to turn in all these other aspects into trans media after this,
right?
Which it has and it will continue to morph into.
And so protecting that I think is really important because,
you know,
having,
having that hindsight now,
I can see it,
but at that time I did.
And so that's why it's important to say,
boy,
take the time to research,
collect and do.
What's the other thing that Bill said,
protect,
protect,
right?
So those three aspects very important and I'll just,
I'll just echo that before we,
before we wrap up,
just going through that process,
it's gonna change the way you think about the things that you're creating.
Uh to,
to me,
it really kind of codifies and solidifies a lot of creative ideas and really it forces you by going through that through that process of research,
collect and protect into,
into really looking at the broader picture and pulling that thread all the way through.
So um if any of you out there want more information,
we highly recommend.
Uh So Bill Honaker also known as the IP Guy,
you can go to IP guy dot com.
He's got some really good free content there and information about securing your story and securing your IP.
So we highly recommend that.
And uh that's a good one,
guys.
Thank you.
And this is protected.
Our,
our,
our podcast is protected.
This is under,
has a trademark on that too.
Take care everyone.