Archive for the ‘Freelancing’ Category

Contracts

Being a freelancer sounds like an easy and desirable job. Freelancers are not bound to any offices and can choose where they want to work. Freelancers are also free to choose their own schedules and are not confined to the 9-5 hours that most office jobs require. Although freelancing has its advantages, most people who become independent contractors have a few pitfalls to avoid.

Independent contractors, or freelancers, are hired under a contract. This contract is very important as it outlines all the terms agreed between the freelancer and the hiring officer. Independent business owners, agencies and major companies hire freelancers to work for a certain amount of time under contract. This helps increase production for any business whether its writing, graphic design, innovative projects and so on. Below are a few points that all freelancers must pay attention to before accepting a contract.

Payment for Services

One section of the contract outlines the terms for payment for the services performed. This includes a clear amount of compensation for the service. If the freelancer is writing articles, the contract must include how much the freelancer is getting paid per article or per word. The payment section must also include the payment schedule and both parties must agree to all terms of payment.

Services

Every independent contractor must look at the services and deliverables outlined in the contract before agreeing to them. As a freelancer, it is important to know what services you are going to complete and make sure you do not agree to work that you do not want to do. You can also refer back to the contract if the work you are asked to do does not match what is included in the contract.

Rights of Intellectual Property

Every contract must include the terms for the rights to the work produced. Intellectual property is an important issue for both parties to be aware of. Everyone must know who owns rights to the work produced in order to avoid any lawsuits. If you do not want to company to have any rights to original work, you must know where the company stands for this issue.

Agreements

Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA)

A non-disclosure agreement is almost always included in the contract for hiring a freelancer. A freelancer must know when he or she is allowed to disclose information about a company project or the launching of a business. This information is also important for freelancers wh

o want to include a project in their portfolios. Some companies do not allow and disclosure of information about projects and freelancers must know this in order to avoid getting in trouble. It is important to know this information so that the project is aligned with your freelancing goals.

Expenses Paid

Some freelancers are asked to do additional tasks for their projects including driving to a certain place, using certain software or equipment and so on. Freelancers must know whether these expenses are paid for before accepting a job in order to not fall into any financial strain.

intellectual property copyright

Are you a creative freelancer who values the work that you produce for other companies? As a freelance writer, designer or artist, it is important to get a glimpse into the world of intellectual property (IP) due to the many copyright claims going around. Protecting original work is an important part of being a freelancer.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) is a term referring to a number of distinct types of legal monopolies over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions. (Wikipedia)

Intellectual property includes various types of creations such as music, literary work and artistic work.   It also includes inventions, phrases, symbols and designs. In other words, when you hear about copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and so on, you are dealing with intellectual property. Artistic intellectual property is protected by copyrights. Industrial intellectual property is protected by patents and trademarks.

There are intellectual property laws that protect rights to original material. Under intellectual property law, anyone who creates creative material of the mind that is artistic or commercial is granted exclusive rights.

Intellectual property law changes over time and it is important for freelance designers, writers and other artists to know the current laws in their area.  The primary purpose of having such laws is to grant exclusive rights to owners in order for them to obtain monopoly profits. It is a way of maintaining financial growth.

Businesses will hire independent contractors, or freelancers, to produce creative work such as articles, graphics, scripts, and other types of material. Many people believe that the company hiring the freelancer automatically owns rights to this material because they commission and pay for the project.

In reality, those who hire independent contractors do not necessarily own the final product. In fact, as an independent contractor, you have the right to retain ownership rights to the work you produce. It is important to have written agreements on the work you create to ensure that you own the rights to it.

There are different types of Intellectual property protection depending on things that we want to protect.  Each country has each own laws and fees that must be paid for patent/trademark registration. Trademarks and patents registrations are usually active for a period of ten to twenty years (depending the country local laws: i.e. Trademarks are valid for 10 years both in EU and USA).  After this initial period each country has renewal procedures, on which owners can request a renewal for their trademark or patent. In most cases copyrights are valid for the life of the author plus 50 -70 years after that (but in some countries periodic renewal is required)

More information regarding the valid period of a copyrighted material in US can be found here: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

Copyright

Copyright protects “original works of authorship” including but not limited to books, articles, scripts, software, recorded speech, databases, paintings, photographs and music.  The copyright laws worldwide usually cover both published and unpublished work.  These laws provide authors with the exclusive rights to display, rent, published, sell and redistributed copies of their work.

Patent

Patents

Patents are used by inventors’ to protect their novelty inventions.  Usually a patent is registered to protect inventions like new machines, new process and processes, hardware systems, manufacturing procedures, or composition of matter, and any other additional new and useful improvement.  Patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor to implement, apply, use, sell and/or rent his ideas and systems.

In USA patents that have been posted before November 16, 1989 last for 20 years while patents which have been submitted after November 16, 1989 last for 10years.

Trademark and Servicemark

A trademark or service mark is a symbol, graphic or word/name /expression/slogan/title that is used while trading, in order to distinguish a specific product/service or a company from others.  Examples of trademarks and servicemarks are business names like Yahoo and Google and product names like iphone and logos like the one used from Apple.  The owner of the trademark (after following the official registration process)  has the exclusive rights to use it (i.e. on web sites, on products and advertisements). Trademarks usually have a small symbol to denote their state:

• ™ (Denotes an Unregistered trade mark)
• ℠ (Denotes an unregistered service mark)
• ® (Denote a registered trademark)

Protecting Intellectual Property

In order to protect your intellectual property, it is important to first define the type of property you own. You must either obtain copyright or a patent for your work. Always have in mind that an idea cannot be patented. In order for a patent to be established the inventor must provide proofs that the idea can be implemented and it works. The patent office will require analytical documentation regarding the proposed patent. So it is highly advisable for any freelancer to keep and Investor’s notebook that will use to record the process of designing and implementing his ideas.

But before a patent or copyright can be established how can one protect his ideas?

A written agreement or contract is very important for any freelancer who wants to own rights to his or her work. On the other hand, a contract can be signed so that the hiring company obtains rights to the material. Many such agreements are signed before even a project is started. These, are usually called Non-disclosure Agreements (NDA) and among other things have specific sections regarding intellectual property, and ownership of the final products to be produced. Freelancers must always be really carefully when signing such agreements. They must always ensure that such agreements will not revoke their official ownership of the patents produced, otherwise (it is agreed so) they should take that into consideration while estimating their budgeting offer for the project.

Examples of NDA agreements are:

• http://www.iphoneappquotes.com/PDF/iphone-app-development-non-disclosure-agreement-nda.pdf
• http://www.how-to.com/Operations/NDAform.html
• http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19790553/Sample-NDA-Agreement

Once you retain the Intellectual property of your work, you must determine how this work will be used and distributed. Companies that do not sign an agreement to use your work will have major problems using or distributing it.

The next step to protecting intellectual property involves coming to an agreement between the employer and the freelancer. The contract must guarantee that all the material created for the company remains in the company and is not distributed outside of the company. Without a written agreement, the independent contractor owns copyright to any of the original work despite the fact that it was paid for. You can always register intellectual property with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to be protected under the law.

Intellectual Property Scams

Individuals need to be really carefully before exchanging information and money regarding their patents.  Until now there were quite a few cases with intellectual property scams on which adversaries were pretending to be government organizations in order to collect fees from patents.  The links below provide access to information regarding Intellectual property scams:

• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) :http://www.aipla.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Organization&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=9989
• European Community Trademarks –  Warning : http://oami.europa.eu/EN/office/adhoc/warning2.htm
• Australian Patent Office: http://www.aipla.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Organization&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=9989

With the current foreign market, it is important that all parties understand and agree with property rights. Due to outsourcing, many freelancers pass intellectual property rights to the hiring business. Intellectual property law has become far more blurry and complicated today than it used to be. As a result, it is important for freelancers and businesses to be aware of their rights and seek resources for information.

Additional Links

• USA Trademarks Search DB: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4004:9cj8ii.1.1
• Google Patents Search Engine : http://www.google.com/patents
• USA Patent and Trademark Office : http://www.uspto.gov/
• EU Trademarks and Designs Office : http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/index.en.do
• EU Trademark Application Form : http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/QPLUS/forms/electronic/fileApplicationCTM.en.do
• USA Trademark Application Form : http://www.uspto.gov/teas/e-TEAS/index.html
• Free Patents Online : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
• European Patent Office : http://www.epo.org/patents.html
• World Intellectual Property Organization : http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en

The job of a free agent is always challenging as well as exciting. For people that prefer to have challenges and excitement in their professional career, freelancing is just best for them. Most of the time a freelancer’s life is full of rewards. This way of working allows you to select your own hours to accomplish your assignments and projects.

There are quite a lot of people that want to follow the freelancing way while working for a traditional job. They are usually fed up with the 9 to 5 schedule, the reports, the office bureaucracy, and the office politics which lets put it simple in many ways they don’t allow you to complete the work. So the problem with many professionals today is that although they are overwhelmed with the advantages of being a freelancer they are also confused with the ways to start.

Working from home, can help you earn plenty of money. Freelancing gives you the ability to participate in many individual projects whenever this is required. By getting involved into many freelance projects you will dramatically increase your revenue but of course your work-hours will also increase. And this is what the freelancing career is all about in reality, flexibility and autonomy. So if you need more money you work more hours, if not you can end up working a couple of hours and still earn enough money to have a decent living. So in reality freelancing gives you the flexibility of being able to work only the hours you want, at least I don’t know any other job that allows you to get up 11:00 in the morning make your coffee and sit on the computer wearing your athletics , or even have a couple of hours break to socialize with friends. Added to this is that freelancers are usually getting paid more than employees, for the same type of jobs.

Freelancers have chosen a conscious lifestyle and that is the most exciting part for any freelancing job. More often they want to create a perfect balance between their social life and professional career in order to grab the right control. Well, for a freelancer the money earnings are always an equation on which the time he spends for assignments is a critical factor.

But unfortunately freelancing does not come only with advantages. Freelancers cannot enjoy the job security employees have (although with the today’s recession you can never be secure). As a freelancer no one will pay for your training, certification or relocation, and these are usually required by most employers require. Last but not least consider some of the thinks that employees take them for granted while freelancers need to pay for them, like insurance, corporate computer cell phone and sometimes corporate car, and of course pay for your vacations or give you a bonus even if no project exist.

On the other hand creating freelance projects and hiring freelance workers is of great benefit for the employers also. In reality in most cases sitting 8 hours a day in small cubicles and getting paid a fixed salary is simple unproductive. Most employees are able to work only with 20%-40% efficiency in a corporate environment. This efficiency level is enough to show that most corporate workers in reality spend only 2 – 4 hours of work daily. Employers now are asked to pay for electricity, office rent, furniture, sometimes employee’s lunches, pay for training and many other daily operational expenses. Employers benefit much more by hiring freelancers and building virtual teams. Using freelancers will dramatically reduce their operational expenses and increase productivity.

A report from Freelance Switch provides great statistics that were produced from a survey included 3700 freelancers (http://freelanceswitch.com/general/3700-freelancers-surveyed-the-results-are-here/)