When Free Speech Meets Social Media
The intersection of free speech and social media has created a firestorm of controversy in 2019. Internet platforms, like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, what some have called the modern-day version of the public square, have...
CockyGate Update: One Writer’s Adjective, Another Writer’s Short-Lived Trademark
Last spring (2018), romance writers lit up social media over a trademark for the adjective cocky. As you can expect, the descriptive word can be found in countless numbers of romance novels, whether on the page, in the title, or...
Legal Protection For Fictional Characters – What can writers protect and what can others use?
The Short Answer Copyright laws protect fictional characters provided the characters are sufficiently unique and distinctive. Legal protection for fictional characters is separate from the legal protection extended to the...
Trademarks For Book Titles – Can You Get One?
We often are told not to judge a book by its cover. But we do. And that includes the title. Both title and cover are a reader’s first impression of our story. Both set the tone, suggest the genre, create subtext, and make...
Seven Steps To Your Own Self-Publishing Imprint
What do Broad Reach Publishing and Waterhouse Press have in common? Both are self-publishing imprints owned by authors Hugh Howey and Meredith Wild respectively. While these authors could have used their names as publishers of...