Partner Robert deBrauwere Speaks to Rock & Roll Publication About Protecting Ideas
Partner Robert deBrauwere was recently interviewed by Drew Kerr’s Rock & Roll PR for the February 16, 2010 article “Taking Care of Business in the Public Relations World – Who Owns Your Public Relations Ideas.”
Kerr notes that “safeguarding the results of your hard-earned brainstorm means enlisting the insight of your friendly and knowledgeable digital lawyer.” Kerr spoke to deBrauwere, who told him: “Ideas are not protected by copyright; however, there are practices that may be undertaken to protect ideas, as well as some legal theories by which ideas may be protected, provided the Copyright Act does not serve to preempt such protection. The most practical means to protect an idea is via contract in the form of a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement, which should be executed by the party to whom the idea will be disclosed in advance of any disclosure.”
deBrauwere also suggested that “you should always affix a copyright notice to any work of authorship. It will likely serve to dissuade people from copying and it will also serve as notice of a claim of ownership, to the extent that any copyrightable expression may be taken from such work (as opposed to mere ideas).”
Kerr asked deBrauwere about the possibility of writing a disclaimer along the lines of “This information is being provided solely for the purposes of this project proposal and may not be used for other purposes without the author's permission?” deBrauwere responded that this tactic may be “helpful because it can create a contractual obligation, either a formal contract or an implied-in-fact contract.”
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
