Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Illinois

I want to use a pseudonym to copyright my visual art. I also have started a company, it currently has no earning. How should I copyright visual art in my pseudo name with or without my new Company name for the following two reasons:

1) If I plan to close my company in a future date, what can I do now so that I can avoid buying back or paying taxes on capital gain on my own copyrights? (As the company currently has no income, I am not paid for the work as such)

2) To protect copyright in case of divorce (my husband has 1% of my company)


Asked on 3/14/11, 2:45 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Register the copyright in your name as sole author. Sign a license agreement with your company for use of the copyrighted material royalty free, the license being at will and freely revocable upon 30 day notice without any payment and without any reason required and containing a proper acknowledgment that you are the sole author and that the work is not a "work for hire" (use that precise phrase, as the term is the critical ) and corporate waiver and assignment to you of any copyright and expressly stating consideration for the assignment. Have your husband sign a waiver of any authorship or interest in the visual art and acknowledgment that you are sole author. Not as simple as you might think, is it? So, probably most importantly, get a good Illinois copyright lawyer to do all this so it is done right and get one with some knowledge of Illinois family law so you also meet Illinois requirements as respects marital property. You are quite likely to screw this up if you do it yourself and it will cost very little and save you lots of angst later to hire a professional. Think about it. If you knew how to do this you would not be here on lawguru asking what to do and how to do it. You can reach me at 618-462-3450 should you want to discuss this in more detail privately.

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Answered on 3/14/11, 6:42 pm


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