Aleece McKnight is the attorney you find when you know it’s time to legally protect your business, secure your brand, and protect your creative assets.

Impassioned by the desire to ensure the legal protection of creatives and entrepreneurs, Aleece launched the virtual Law Office of Aleece McKnight where she employs her subject matter expertise in helping individuals leverage legal protections so they can start and scale their businesses. With years of experience in trademark law, copyrights, and entertainment law, Aleece partners with entrepreneurs and creatives to secure every creative asset they own from the very beginning.

In this episode, Aleece and I discuss the difference between common-law copyright ownership and registered copyright ownership, the major drawback of not having registered copyright ownership, the current rates for a copyright registration application, the recent change in the application process that can potentially save you thousands of dollars, how you can avoid accidentally infringing on someone else’s copyright, the myth that Fair Use will protect you from being sued for copyright infringement, why giving credit to another creative when using their work is not enough to legally protect you from copyright infringement violation claims, why it’s critical to read the licenses on stock photo websites before using one of their images, what you should do if you’re going to be writing about other people or including them in your story, why you can’t trademark a single book title but you can trademark a book series, the importance of establishing who has author ownership over a collaborative project, and more.