Protecting Your Art Business Legally

Artists are often exploited. Whether it's outright theft and copyright infringement or the more insidious theft by underpaying or refusing to fully compensate artists for their work, there are many legal dangers faced by artists in particular. If you are an artist or a creative, here is what you need, in terms of legal expertise, and a few things to watch out for in order to make sure that you aren't robbed by your own clients.

Legal Expertise

Before you go hiring Las Vegas criminal defense attorneys or any kind of attorney in your area, make sure that they have expertise in the area you need them to have experience in. Just as some artists work with acrylics and others use collage, so too do lawyers have specialties and areas of expertise. Defending an artist's rights and property is its own kind of art form, and the rules may be different depending on what kind of art you practice.

Copyright

The biggest issue for many artists is copyright infringement. This is particularly serious in the digital age, where someone can do a reverse image search or simply copy and paste art out of your digital portfolio and into their online store. Knowing how to defend your intellectual property and understanding what constitutes fair use is a basic survival skill for an artist in this day and age. It may also vary somewhat from country to country, which makes questions of copyright infringement even more complex. What constitutes fair use in the US is different from what constitutes fair use in the UK, and works of art that are well out of copyright in the UK may still be protected for years to come in the US.

Contracts

Copyright issues aren't the only legal concerns that artists face. Odds are that as an artist sometime you will have to sign or even draw up a contract with a client or an agency. It's a good idea to have a lawyer look over any contract before you sign it, and that goes double if there are concerns about what rights you are signing away or how the revenue will be divided between yourself and your agency.

Management

Many artists across many different kinds of media choose to sign on with an agency that will represent their work to potential buyers or publishers. This can be a real boon; good management can free an artist to focus on their work. On the other hand, bad management can lead to conflict, loss of money or lack of payment. It's a good idea to know what you're getting into before you sign with an agency and it's definitely a good idea to know how to get out, in case the relationship sours for any reason.

Payment

All of this is to make sure that artists get paid what they deserve for the work they have done. There's this notion in the world that somehow if you love what you do, you don't need to earn money doing it, which is patently ridiculous. Despite the stereotype, it's all but impossible to make art if you are starving. Artists deserve to be paid, and they shouldn't be afraid to defend their legal rights in court if that is what is called for.

These are just a few of the legal dangers that artists should be wary of. Because so many artists are passionate about their work and would make art whether people were paying them or not, many people think it's no big deal to steal from artists, either actively or passively. Whether you're a freelance artist who owns and operates their own small business or you are represented by an agency or other organization, it's a good idea to have a plan to protect yourself and your art legally. Find yourself a lawyer if you can and educate yourself about the legal systems that are in place to protect artists and other creatives.