Editors Note: We would like to welcome Matt Lowe who has kindly written this guest post about the differences between trademark and copyright and why one is more important than the other.
Matt is an in house counsel in Colorado and is the author of the An Etsy Seller’s Guide to Copyright Protection (for sale). Matt is a Graduate of Pepperdine University School of Law and lives in Salt Lake City, UT, with his wife and 2 toddler boys (and a baby girl on the way).
As a business attorney, I’d be rich if I had a nickel for every time an Etsy Seller or Mompreneur asked me “Shouldn’t I trademark my Etsy Shop or Business Name?”
My answer is always a resounding “NO.” For an Etsy Seller or Mompreneur, it’s much more important and practical to focus on copyright protection than trademark protection.
Allow me to explain why copyright protection is more important than trademark protection:
A trademark protects a brand name (like Coca-Cola) from someone else (like Doug’s Cola) using the Coca-Cola name to create customer confusion to benefit Doug’s Cola. For example, Doug’s Cola cannot use the Coca-Cola logo on its website to trick customers into thinking they are buying Coca-Cola.
But, Etsy Shops rarely gain the national brand awareness of Coca-Cola to justify the time and money required to register a trademark.
On the other hand, an Etsy Seller should understand copyright protection because virtually every product sold on Etsy is copyrightable. A copyright protects any original, artistic, or literary work, so long as a few elements are satisfied (explained in Matt’s book).
As an Etsy Seller, a trademark only protects your one brand name, while copyright protection covers hundreds of different products in your Etsy Shop from unlawful piracy, copying, or duplication.
And if that’s not convincing enough, consider this: (i) A copyright is much cheaper than a trademark, (ii) You don’t have to register a copyright in order to actually copyright your works, and (iii) Copyright has an appealing little symbol ©, whereas the trademark symbol is blasé at best.
And that’s why I recommend that Etsy Sellers and Mompreneurs focus on Copyright Protection rather than Trademark Protection.
I just want to say, I have seen soooo many things that the sellers say you can’t use sell or something else from one of the things they have made. I have seen the same things made, just colot has changed, and they claim it as their own. Well a Log Canin quilt is a log Cabin quilt no matter who made it or what color it is. It has been around for a hundred years, so how can someone now make it and say it is theirs and copy write it?? That goes for everything else that has been around for many many years. I have beed very upset about this subject for as long as I have been going to all the craft sites. They have no right to copywrite a pattern that has been around as long as most of these patterns have. Gerry
I am sooo with you Gerry on this “subject” of copyrighting everything on earth as if someone just came up with it!! “UGH!” the majority of what is out there are things that have been tweaked in some manner for forever, and I’ve been around for 65 years – crafting for that long as well – started when I was a child and watched my mother and neighbor-ladies. So I ain’t so gung-ho on your copyright “myth” unless IT IS SOMETHING truly original and NOT RE-INCARNATED!!! Dia
Correct me if I am wrong, but this is my understanding:
While I ask on my listings that my patterns not be used to create work for sale, I am aware that I cannot enforce that under copyright protections.
I sell patterns, and when I sell one I retain the copyright to my design, so the buyer cannot make 100 copies of it and sell it in their shop. They can, however, recreate it themselves and sell it, as a pattern or as a finished product. Ethical, maybe not. Legal, yes.
When I first started on Etsy, a potter asked me to take down a listing that had a phrase on it similar to, but not exactly, the phrase she used. I had not been aware of her shop before I made the pattern. Not knowing any better, I took it down, because I was still under the impression that Etsy was a friendly community where everyone wanted everyone to succeed. Now I know better. It is a friendly community, but we’re there to do business.
EVERYTHING is a copy of something else