As those of you who know me well, or have caught my article or presentations on it, I’m evangelical about writing and revising contracts in understandable, conversational English.

As I’ve emphasized in other writings, the single most important asset of any business is its intellectual property (“IP”). Sure, good management is very important, but executives and other managers can (and do) come and go. A start-up’s IP, like a diamond, should be forever (or at least until it’s sold or transferred). Among other benefits, securing ownership of all your start-up’s IP enhances its value and can block out competitors.

As anyone who shops or interacts online knows, many product and service providers offer messaging options that allow visitors to ask questions and interact with the site. Often, the “person” they’re communicating with isn’t real, although it often seems human – “Hi! I’m Tina! Can I help you?”

Podcasts were growing in popularity before the pandemic, with some of the more popular ones, like “Smartless”, “The Joe Rogan Experience”, and Logan Paul’s “Implausive” having millions of listeners, and being accessible on a variety of platforms.

How insane is this? Influencers and other celebrities keep getting sued for copyright infringement for posting pictures and videos of themselves on their social. (Dua Lipa is the latest victim).

Music is an often indispensable component of creating compelling online content. It can set the tone or mood, drive the narrative, or emphasize a point. This is true not only for influencers posting to their own socials, but to companies seeking to create content to market and promote their goods and services.

We don’t refer to makeup artists as “artists” for nothing. They truly are artists, whose palettes are the almost unlimited types of makeup products, whose canvases are faces, and whose designs as a whole are usually original to them. (I know this because I have several beauty influencers as clients).

Cannabis and its related industries continue their explosive growth in the U.S. More states are legalizing cannabis or have pending legislation to do so; some for both medical and recreational purposes, others just for recreational. Cannabis, and CBD-derivatives use in a multitude of products, are becoming increasingly mainstream.

There’s a theory to which my sweetheart subscribes: “Ask forgiveness, not permission”. While I generally agree, it doesn’t apply to influencers and other celebrities posting photos of themselves that someone else takes.

My oldest and closest friend used to say: “Our time on Earth is the vacation, so we better enjoy all of it. When we die, we go back to work”.

So, a guy walks into a bar and compliments the owner on the music coming out of the bar’s sound system. The bar owner thanks him and asks him what he’s having. He replies, “I’ll have you stop playing that music and pay us damages for copyright infringement, or we’ll sue you for playing it without a proper license”.

I’ve always recommended that my talent clients, be they influencers, actors, or musicians, register their professional names for trademark as soon as possible. All of them have followed this advice, or are in the process of letting me do so.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article for Entrepreneur magazine about the now-infamous Fyre Festival. Among other topics, the article dealt with how not only influencers, but recently brands, agencies, and others involved with influencers, were being scrutinized by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) for failures to properly disclose endorsements.

You work hard to frequently create original, authentic, and compelling content for your channel, blog or other social. You want your content being reposted and linked, but what about when it’s changed in ways you don’t want, used in ads or otherwise without your permission (or payment to you)?

According to several recent articles and advisories I’ve read quoting infectious disease specialists, including from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”), many Gen Y and Gen Z-ers (I’ll now refer to them in this article the “Gens”) have been ignoring “Stay at Home” orders, social distancing, and other advice of medical experts on steps to take to avoid getting and spreading the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Virtual influencers (“VI”), those creations of CGI and artificial intelligence (“AI”), were the rage and “next big thing” in influencers when the first one, Miquela Sousa, a/k/a Lil Miquela, stormed the Internet in 2016.