Many aspects of starting a business or even thinking of starting one are confusing, fun, annoying or boring – how do you describe Copyright and Trademarks? Perplexing, very annoying, very boring? Are you aware of them at all? If you want to protect what you are offering, producing, designing or creating, then you are very likely to come across rights – the rights that you are creating in your business and the rights of others if you are using their works to help you.

And before you start the process of developing your dreams into reality, now is the time to think about those rights.

• Have you written anything? Book, instructions, guidelines, lyrics, music?

• Have you designed anything? Logos, fashion, illustrations?

• Have you made anything? Crafts, clothes, pottery, paintings?

• Are you using photographs and other images? Whose – yours or someone else’s?

• Are you writing code? Do you have plans for an app, software or other digital service?

• Are you aware of the use of music in a business?

• Are you using the Internet and Social Media? For sales, marketing, advertising, research, promotion?

• How do you protect any or all of the above?

• How do you exploit your work?

• What do you do if your work is copied in some way without your permission?

• Has anyone already approached you to sell designs, photographs or illustrations?

• Would you be confident pitching to an investor, partner, support agency knowing that your work has been protected and you have written permission from anyone else whose works you are incorporating?

• How much control of your work do you want to retain?

All these questions and doubtless many more, can be dealt with by Alan Rae, of © Here, a local copyright consultant with over 30 years experience of helping people with their rights, in a highly interactive, jargon-free workshop offered to participants of the University of Abertay’s Bell Street Ventures.