Protecting - and profiting from - your IP

How do you protect your creative works?
And importantly - how do you generate income streams from your intellectual property?

Creative people are rightly concerned about being ripped off, so we need to know more about how to protect our works by understanding and using intellectual property rights (IPR) such as copyright, trade marks, patents and design rights.

The really clever thing, though, is not just to use IPR to protect ourselves, but also to use it more positively, to generate income stream by actually encouraging people to use our images, designs, writing etc - in return for fees through licensing.

So how can we find out more, without reading all the text books or becoming a lawyer?
Personally, I'm a great fan of the organisation 'Own It' (www.own-it.org) who publish lots of great information about IP, contracts etc etc.
Their seminars are recorded and published as podcasts and I recommend them highly.
Seminars you can download and listen to on your iPod include subjects such as:

- How to protect your work on the Internet
- Photographing other people's property
- How not to get ripped off in design
- Putting a value on your intellectual property
- and lots more

Link to Own-It Podcasts

Let me know of any other great resources and I''ll publicise them.