I’ve been sharing a lot lately about how AI has benefitted my business and other small businesses.

I’ve also been cautioning for the past year against using it for legal advice. (It is still up to 50-80% wrong for legal questions – Yikes!)

One area where people have a lot of confusion and worry is protecting their intellectual property (IP) from AI use.

Here’s why.

AI gathers and synthesizes massive amounts of information from the internet.

The problem? It scoops up content owned by YOU (and others) without permission.

Dozens of creators have taken AI to court for theft of their content. Actors and writers guilds. Journalists. And more.

In a recent bold move, one company did the exact (surprising!) opposite…

Disney offered to license their content to AI for 3 years.

Yes, Mickey Mouse. Goofy. Even Yoda. All of their animated characters.

This means that anyone (including YOU!) can now use AI to create a social media post using Disney characters without violating copyright laws. That’s a big deal.

And as it just so happens, my Social Media Strategist (also my niece!) was just at Disney World over the weekend and snapped this pic, which was NOT AI generated! ☺️

While most of us aren’t Disney with billions of dollars to make AI deals (yet 😉), there’s a very important takeaway here.

In the age of AI, IP is power.

Disney isn’t afraid of AI.

Disney’s leveraging it because they clearly own and control their intellectual property.

For the rest of us who don’t have Disney’s bargaining power, the lesson is clear and important…

👉 As a business owner with an online presence, there are 3 easy ways to protect your IP and content.

1. Trademark your brand – your program, course, or business name.

Trademarks help prevent others from using your BRAND without your permission. The first step to Trademarking is to hire a lawyer with expertise to do a thorough Trademark Search. With respect, this is not an area of law you should do on your own. It’s too easy to do it incorrectly. (I’ve done 70 successful trademark applications – and I even have a trademark lawyer to help me. That should tell you that it’s not as easy-peasy as it looks.)

Just in the past week, I’ve done 2 Trademark Searches for clients who want to protect their brand names.

Have a brand name you absolutely love too?
Get started with a Trademark Search here.

2. Copyright your original content.

Copyright protects your CONTENT – your program guides, videos, audios, and books are valuable assets. Copyright establishes official ownership and gives you legal backing if your work is copied without permission.

In January alone, I’ve filed Copyright Applications for 3 clients – to protect their book, program guide, and oracle deck, respectively.

Have content you want to copyright too?
Get started with Copyright here.

3. Protect your website content from AI scraping.

Without proper legal language in place, AI tools can scrape your site and repurpose your words as answers to someone else’s prompts – without credit, permission, or compensation. For your website, use Website Terms & Conditions that protects your website content from AI.

Need Website Terms that cover you with AI too?
Get my DIY Website Terms & Conditions template here with detailed legal language to protect your website content, text and images from AI scraping.

In general, IP protection is about establishing ownership, boundaries, and honoring your work.

AI is here to stay so we need to adjust our protections. The businesses that thrive will be the ones that:

• Use AI intentionally and ethically.
• Protect their intellectual property.
• Build on solid legal foundations.

⭐ Your ideas, voice, and body of work matter. They’re worth protecting, now more than ever.

Here’s to protecting what you create!

If you’re not sure whether your content is protected (or where the gaps might be), book a free 20-minute Legal Chat with my team here so we can help.