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How to go about copyrighting my work managing email marketing

by cafemomo
2 replies
Good morning

New writer/email marketing manager here.

I have a website and found success selling my stuff selling mostly by email.

Yesterday I visited a local business and pitched him of the idea of hiring me to set up his email list and automating the whole stuff to sell his products using persuasion principles and storytelling. (Even when I am new to both. Whatever, I feel I can do it)

He liked it.

What I offering is this: I will set up the mailing list, write the welcome message, write stories and launch sequences for his products, depending on people´s actions, and other mails related to his niche. All that during 6 months, maybe 10 mails total per month, maybe 1 product per month.

I am writing the contract (first ever), but I don´t know how to handle the copyright issue. I understand that I need to own the copyright to be able to modify myself when I need to during the 6 month period. What I wonder is, what I should put in the contract regarding the copyright AFTER the agreement ends.

Off course, I we have success during the 6 month period, I want to RENEGOCIATE a new contract. So I will need help with both options.: When the contract ends and when it is renegociated. What to do with the copyright? Should I charge him a big value after the 6 months?

Please help. I am confused.
#copyrighting #email #managing #marketing #work
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  • Profile picture of the author helisell
    Don't worry about it.

    Just get on and make it work. In this day and age you'd struggle to enforce it anyway.

    Besides, anyone smart enough to emulate what you're doing is smart enough to implement your ideas in a way that would be almost impossible to prove breach of copyright.

    Just by writing something you own the copyright to it anyway. Just include with your proposition that you are not giving your rights away.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    The term you're looking for is "licensing".

    Most of the time, work you do for a client (like an email series) become the property of the client. You don't need to own the copyright to make tweaks and changes, you just need permission, which you can write into the terms of your agreement.

    What you seem to be saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you want to be able to re-use anything you write for this client elsewhere, perhaps for a different client. Which is fine if you don't re-use that content with the client's competition.

    For example, let's say the client is a local realtor in Manhattan, Kansas. It would not be ethical to use the same content for another realtor in the same market. For that matter, I personally would not use the same content for anyone in that local market.

    Using the content for a realtor in Omaha, Denver or even Manhattan, NYC is a different matter.

    So you put language into your agreement saying that the client is licensing the right to use your content within his marketing area, while you retain all other rights to the content. When the license expires (the contract ends), you are then free to use the content as you see fit.

    On the other hand, helisell's comments hold a lot of water. Without the kind of language described above, enforcing a copyright is going to be hard to do. And even if you could, the time, effort and cost to do so probably won't be worth it.
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