An unexpected overwhelm of work has me writing this at 10pm.

So I figured that while we are on the topic of the “who, what, and why” of copyrights, I am re-publishing (cheat #1) an intellectual property ownership cheat sheet (cheat #2) for those of you who are newer to my work, or who just appreciate a good cheat sheet!

Yes, I’m going to the mat.

Making understandable the distinction between products and intellectual property is the hill I will die on.

Products and IP are not the same thing. IP does not equal passive income. You can have IP without products. You can use IP without owning it.

A formal but tremendously illustrative definition:

Thinking about turning your expertise into a licensing program, but concerned that it isn’t a fit for your highly customized, non-recurring professional services? If so, you are correct. The type of licensing program I’ve been writing and speaking about isn’t the right fit for your business.

If I recall correctly, I had not yet summarized one of my podcast episodes in this newsletter. But I recently got a crash course in a (rapidly growing) corner of intellectual property law that was previously a complete and utter mystery to me: Web 3.0.

It appears that the 12th time is the charm. 😅

In case you haven’t heard, Eli Manning has a new title: Team Owner. It took this announcement to finally get me thinking about the parallels between these athletes and our expertise-based businesses.

When you spend every day immersed in a topic, it is easy to assume that key concepts are widely understood. In the course of proselytizing about the importance of turning your expertise into intellectual property, I have come to realize that what constitutes intellectual property, also known as IP, is still a bit of a headscratcher for many people.

I hesitated to even write about website terms and conditions. I promise that all TBIP content is a no legalese zone. Also, I’ve considered them minor issues to the expertise-based business. I am pretty militant about saying that I don’t have an “online business” (I’ll unpack that in another post.)

Finally, we wrap up our first accidental series (surely, there will be more) on restrictive covenants.

As a quick reminder, a restrictive covenant is a condition that restricts, limits, prohibits, or prevents the actions of someone named in an enforceable agreement.

Previously, we covered:

Non-Disclosure which prohibits you from (i) disclosing your client's confidential information to third parties, or (ii) using your client's confidential information for any purpose other than providing services to the client. Find the discussion here.

Non-Compete which prohibits you from providing services (i) to competitors of your client, or (ii) that compete with your client. Find the discussion here.

I did not start July with the plan to make it Restrictive Covenants Month! But here we are.

A restrictive covenant is a condition that restricts, limits, prohibits, or prevents the actions of someone named in an enforceable agreement.

When talking about our expertise-based businesses, the restrictive covenants we worry about are (cue spooky font):