In some ways, law school is like learning to be Vulcan–you have to learn to think logically and keep your emotions out of it. It isn’t that we lawyers don’t feel (boy howdy, no!), but we have learned to be ledby logic rather than our emotions, at least when it comes to our cases. We learned to think rather than react. That difference can be rather crucial in legal matters.
My studies in Buddhism have helped me with this. I have learned to sit with thoughts and feelings, to observe them without judgement, and to make better choices from that. It takes a hell of a lot more to make me lose my temper than it used to. I still feel, and profoundly, but I can identify that as “feeling” and not let it interfere with my rational processing.
Creative clients are especially emotional sometimes. I think it is part of what makes you all artists–you make your livings by expressing emotions in some manner. For some of you, this can manifest as reacting before thinking. While that may be great for making your art, it can be very bad when faced with a legal issue.
Let’s take an infringement, for example. If you find your work being used without your permission, you’re going to be angry and hurt and you’re going to want to yell at someone, but that would be a poor choice. You could accidentally limit your recovery (or at least make it damn hard to negotiate a good settlement). You may throw a client under the bus because it accidentally shared your work (maybe if you knew that you’d forgive the client’s idiocy to keep that client). You might say something that isn’t true–my favorite is “The penalty for infringement is $150,000 per infringement!” (sigh…if only!). You may also be mistaken and the user does have a license you forgot about or it’s a legitimate fair use. If you go off half-cocked, you’re not going to catch any of that and, well, that would be bad.
So, when you find an infringement, here is what I think you should do:
- Immediately preserve evidence of the infringement (make screenshots, for example). Find every use you can and capture every URL, buy products that bear your work, take photos of your work being used, etc.
- Look up the company/person who controls the infringement, likethe website (try a Whois search, perhaps), or the manufacturer of the product. Save that info.
- After that, sit on your hands (i.e., do nothing) and breathe.
Do not call or email the infringer/bad actor. Do not call or email the entity you think may have “shared” your work. In fact, don’t even call or email yourattorney (yet). Nothing is going to get fixed immediately and no more harm is going to happen (in most cases)–you have time. You have three years to bring a suit for infringement in the US, so doing nothing for a couple of days after finding the infringement isn’t going to hurt your case. If your work isn’t registered and it is more than 3 months since you first published it, registering it now isn’t going to change anything for the better, even. So just sit and breathe.
After you have calmed down, maybe days later if you are really upset, look at the evidence you gathered. Search for any license you may have granted that might cover the use. Find your registration materials (assuming the work is registered). Basically, get everything together to make your case file. Then re-evaluate your case and set your goals to make you whole. Then you can plan on how to achieve thosegoals. And then you can begin to act.
This is true for many matters–that is, nothing bad is going to happen if you don’t act right that very second but you can do harm by reacting without thinking. Instead, record the evidence; sit on your hands and breathe; think/re-evaluate; set goals; act.
Now, “act” may very well be “call/email my attorney” but, by taking the time to let the emotions cool off, you haven’t hurt your case and you have thought about what really matters to you in it. The slap-in-the-face you felt will have calmed so that you can think more rationally about what you want. And you have all the materials together to help your attorney evaluate your case.
You don’t have to become Vulcan-like, but if yousave most ofyour emotions for your art, you’ll likely get better results in both your art and the law.