The Legal + Creative Blog

An Intellectual Property Law, Advertising Law, and Marketing Law Blog for Creative People

Agency-Client Relationships Agency-Freelancer Relationships Copyright Law Social Media Law Trademark Law

Five Top Legal Hot Buttons Marketing Agency Leaders Need to Know…and How to Handle Them

  Marketing agency leaders have lots of legal questions! Sometimes on the creative aspects of their work (like intellectual property and licensing issues), other times about rules and regulations they need to know (like for content marketing and social media compliance), and many times about their business relationships (clients, employees and independent contractors). Here I […]

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Agency-Client Relationships

The 5 Things Every Marketing Agency Should Look for in the Client’s Contract

Your marketing agency just got a great new piece of business. Terrific news! The creative team is full of energy and ideas, the account service folks are ready to roll, and billings will start climbing soon. After there’s a contract signed, of course. Soon enough, there’s an email with your client’s standard (and very lengthy)

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Agency-Client Relationships Agency-Freelancer Relationships Copyright Law

3 Tips for Managing Portfolio Rights in Marketing Agency Creative Work

It was the third or fourth call I received, from different Agency clients in the space of a few weeks, with questions about how to handle display rights for creative work. “Our freelance designer is displaying our Client’s work on her personal website! We didn’t give her permission to do it, and neither did our

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Ad and Marketing Regulations

Marketing in the CASL – How to Comply with Canada’s New Anti-Spam Law in Direct Marketing

Marketers and marketing agencies engaged in direct marketing have questions and worries about Canada’s new anti-spam legislation (“CASL”). CASL came into effect on July 1, 2014 for direct marketers who send commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to clients, customers, prospects, or referral sources. What’s a CEM, exactly? A CEM is a message with content that encourages

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General

Some Top Legal Issues on the Minds of Marketing Agency Leaders – An Unscientific Survey

I attended a terrific conference recently, produced jointly by Recourses and Win Without Pitching, on the topic of developing new revenue models for expert Firms. About 60 leaders of expert Firms from around the world, primarily marketing and ad firms, gathered to get insight from workshop leaders David Baker and Blair Enns about ways to

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General

Introducing Toerek Law

I usually use this “real estate” to talk about legal issues in the ad and marketing industry, but today I hope you won’t mind my using it to share some professional news about my Firm. I’m excited to announce the formation of Toerek Law, a law practice with a focus on the legal needs of

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Agency-Client Relationships Copyright Law General

A Marketing Agency Business Expert’s View on the Value of IP – Tim Williams, Ignition Consulting Group

I spend a lot of time reading, thinking and writing about how marketing agencies can capitalize on their intellectual property. I suppose it’s natural for an IP lawyer to get “preachy” about the importance of protecting intellectual capital, for clients in any industry. But I’ve always felt it was even more critical for creative businesses.

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Copyright Law General Trademark Law

The Marketing Agency Roadmap for Turning IP into Money – Converting Assets Into Revenue

This is Part 3 of a series on turning Marketing Agency IP assets into Money. In previous posts here and here, I discussed discovery of the Agency’s proprietary intellectual capital so that the Agency has a sense of its assets and how to evaluate their potential for additional Agency revenue. In Part 2 of this

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Copyright Law General Trademark Law

The Marketing Agency Roadmap for Turning IP into Money – Part 2: Cover Your Assets

In previous posts here and here, I reviewed methods for discovery and auditing your marketing agency’s intellectual property, with a view toward capitalizing on those assets to enhance the Agency’s value or create additional revenue streams. In Part 1 of this series, I also posed some questions the Agency can ask to help prioritize its

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Copyright Law General Trademark Law

The Marketing Agency Roadmap for Turning IP into Money – Part 1: Review Your Assets

In my last post, I discussed the places where ad and marketing agencies might find their intellectual capital, some of which might be converted into additional revenue streams, higher professional fees, or enhanced value to a potential purchaser of the Agency. Once the Agency has decided to evaluate its intellectual capital, it needs an easy

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