Sharing and Protecting Your Creative IP

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As a creative professional, your ability to manage, track, protect, and safeguard infringement of your intellectual property (IP) is essential to your success.

The legal landscape for creative businesses has never been more complex or uncertain. As a result, it is more important than ever to have a solid foundation to share AND protect your intellectual property. 

Whether you're a producer, production company, Hollywood executive, or creative entrepreneur, this info is essential reading. Creative Idea flow is a critical metric to your success, and to accelerate it, you need the confidence to share your original ideas.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual Property (IP) is the legal protection of intellectual creations, such as ideas, inventions, and artistic works. Examples of intellectual property rights include copyrights from Hollywood movie studios over their films and trademarks that protect the brand names of companies like Nike and Apple. 

These protections offered by IP law make it possible for creators to remain in control of their work and create a tangible monopoly that helps them benefit financially from it. Without intellectual property laws, innovators could not protect their ideas or inventions from being used by others. It is for this reason that intellectual property rights are regarded as fundamental assets for creators — safeguarding their creative content from the world at large.

Types of IP

IP is an invaluable asset. Some examples include:

  • Ideas
  • Artwork
  • Designs
  • Names
  • Inventions
  • Scripts
  • Outlines
  • Logos
  • Software
  • Music
  • Symbols
  • Literature


There are four generally accepted categories of Intellectual Property:

Patents - A patent grants the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a period of time.

Copyrights - Copyrights protect original works such as literature, music, and art. They give the creator of a work exclusive rights to it.

Trademarks - A trademark is a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others.

Trade Secret - Trade secrets are confidential information that gives a business an advantage over its competitors. This could include customer lists, formulas, or even processes.

The Consequences of Not Protecting Your IP

Protecting intellectual property is more critical now than ever. Ideas are a valuable currency, just like any other form of tangible value, and the theft of IP has always been a significant issue in entertainment and beyond. Without proper protection, individual creators and creative businesses risk seeing their original ideas quickly pass into common use without due credit or compensation. 

This not only creates an unfair playing field and encourages content piracy, but it also removes vital economic incentives that lead to the creation of significant and influential pieces of work. With each unprotected idea, society stands to lose out on the creative and innovative potential those ideas could have had if they had been adequately protected. Protecting intellectual property is a must to ensure fair treatment for IP holders and keep innovation incentivized.

How to Protect IP Legally

Ideas are the foundation of success in creative careers, so finding the right legal means to protect them is vital. Thankfully, there are several laws on the books that can help with this.


A qualified lawyer can advise on which legal procedures are necessary for any situation involving intellectual property rights and how best to protect them. With vigilance and relevant legal support, intellectual property can be secured from theft or misuse. Combining IP education and consulting IP law professionals will increase your knowledge base and set you up for success.

Sharing Your Ideas is Scary

Why is populating ideas so scary? It is because IP, whether an idea, right, or product, is a commodity that holds great economic value. Owning IP is possessing an original idea; in theory, rivals cannot infringe on those rights.

However, that, unfortunately, does not bar potential competitors or saboteurs from jeopardizing your ideas by mimicking, duplicating, or capitalizing on a breach of information. 

Despite the constant flow of NDAs, people circulating your IP without your consent or knowledge is common and can cause your livelihood to suffer. This doesn’t even include the long-term repercussions of compromised IP; besides losing out monetarily, there is the loss of sponsorships, potential credits, brand building, future partnerships, and your credibility as a Hollywood professional.

IP Protection is essential to entertainment ideas.

Peace of Mind for IP Security

Ideas become valuable when you execute them through development projects, collaborations, or deals. Creating a system to share your idea projects is vital to your success. Now is the time to stop hesitating to share and start taking the steps to protect IP. There is no reason to waste time hiding your brilliant ideas with new collaborators because you are hung up on protecting them. You should be focused on your craft and not worried about sharing ideas, but instead excited to move it forward to take it to the next level. In the digital age, there is an opportunity now to embrace safe sharing tactics to build peace of mind.

IP security is an increasingly urgent issue, especially when it comes to ensuring that confidential information stays that way. IP security systems can provide the safety measures creative businesses need by monitoring a system’s activity and protecting shared IP. Through an IP security system, businesses can collaborate in a neutral environment, knowing that their IP will not be compromised and valuable data cannot be accessed without authorization. Investing in IP security today ensures your company's data and IP remain safe for years.

IP is a Major Part of Your Identity

In a sprawling industry like entertainment and media, IP sets you apart from the masses. IP allows you to cultivate your brand, business, and career. Along with IP being your unique identifier, in this field, it is your only means of making a living. It is the basis of all original works. Any film, TV, stage production, music recording, video game, or other media form — these creations have a unique IP associated with them.

IP protection should be at the forefront of any Hollywood professional’s mind. Not taking the time to protect your creative assets threatens your livelihood. A stolen idea can cost you years of hard work, notoriety, and money. Investing in IP protection is critical for preserving your ideas but, ultimately, your future.

Circulating Your IP Moves Your Career Forward

To get anywhere in the entertainment and media industry, at some point, you will have to share your ideas. Sharing your IP is part of the creative process. Opening up the project to new people allows for growth and the potential elevation of an idea to take a different direction that you may have overlooked. Getting an idea out into the world gives exposure to developing your brand and career. Sometimes the only thing standing in your way of sharing is yourself.

Other times, it is the fear of compromising an original idea and having it copied or taken. You have poured your heart and soul into this IP, and protecting it should be the last thing on your mind. Any threat of it getting into the wrong hands is frightening. The prospect of someone snatching an idea is a genuine fear, so there needs to be foolproof mechanisms to ensure you share a project the right way.

IP Protection is Easier Than You Think

Proper IP protection offers a crucial safeguard of the original idea and avoids the potential of leaks and competition. The digital age offers a slew of new tools that can provide safety, BUT that also means many other ways for malicious individuals to access your IP. Technology can sometimes be confusing and offer a false sense of security. 

Sometimes you think you are protected, but access can quickly be gained. Compromise can happen at any time. Multiple layers of protection are required. That’s why you need to make a multi-layered plan to maintain the exclusivity of your IP. A solid IP protection plan offers a defense system to put your mind at ease.

The Future of IP in a Blockchain & Web3 World

Protection may be more accessible than ever, but as a creative professional, you must act quickly as we move into a decentralized internet landscape. Decentralization of the internet offers numerous benefits, including greater autonomy and control. With it comes a variety of challenges in terms of malicious scammers.

In recent years, Web3 advancements like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have become more prevalent. NFTs are digital assets that represent ownership in an IP asset. They provide IP owners with proof of ownership and enable them to monetize their IP. NFTs can also protect IP assets from being copied or stolen.

The rise of NFTs has made it easier to protect IP assets, granting IP owners more enforceable rights over their digital creations while allowing creators to innovate IP in new ways.

However, new IP infringement and ownership debates will continue to emerge. Despite this, the future looks brighter than ever for IP owners as we continue to decentralize the internet and give creatives control over their unique IP.
What is certain is that IP owners must take an active role in protecting their IP assets.

Share IP Safely with Symbonic

As a creative professional, it is important to understand that your intellectual property is your lifeblood, and you must realize how important it is to protect it. The digital age has made it easier to access information, so you must be vigilant in safeguarding your work, but that should not hold you back from sharing your IP. Taking the right steps to protect your IP can help ensure the success of your creative business. You can share your IP with confidence and safety with a proper plan and the right tools like Symbonic.

Additional Information and Articles

WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization

Understanding IP Matters: Crypto and NFTs – Creators’ Rights at the Crossroads

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