Tag Archives: different

Copyright v. Trademark v. Patent

“The Sleeping Virtue” by MissNickiPink

To Be in Copyright or Not To Be in Copyright. . . That is the Question.

Here in China, I’m currently teaching my darling students Business Law, which includes a healthy dose of Art and Cultural Heritage law surprisingly enough. Although, if you think about it, Businesses deal in Art and Words as much as anyone–and I’ve discovered the rules for them are often similar to those for individual artists.

But one of the most basic questions my students get stumped with is what is the different between a copyright, trademark, and patent? Many of them have created their own companies on the side and are trying to figure out how to protect their resources.

Lawyers like to throw around those words like they mean something, but it’s a big pile of nothing for anyone else. Still, many of your rights and protections are caught up in the relevant Copyright, Trademark, or Patent. So if you want to adequately protect yourself (in business or in art), you need to know what to do and what laws are on your side.

As I help my students, I thought I would share some information here as well. I’m teaching basic overview of the law, so this is all simple information 🙂 Please Note: This is not intended to be Legal Advice! Every situation is different, and if you have a situation you need to speak with your own Attorney! Continue reading →

Tags: Comparison, Copyright, different, Law, legal

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Categories Art, The Law

Lessons From Traveling: Get A Sense Of Humor

3 Apr

Whenever anyone asks me why I travel abroad, one of my answers has got to be that it makes me laugh. Laugh at myself. Laugh at the world. Traveling really is a great confidence booster because it perpetually reminds you that life is bewildering and ridiculous.

All beginning travelers try to get it all right. Things start making sense, you get through security with no hiccups and you start to tell yourself “I’ve got this. I own this traveling thing.” BOOM! You inevitablly trip on the carpet, land flat on your face, and watch as your suitcase crashes to the ground exposing socks and clothes to all and sundry. Yes, that happened to me. I landed nose to the floor smack in front of the hotel doors and had four lovely bellhops standing around in shock and awe.

It was a 5-star hotel with highly important people milling around. I just got in because the school had a group rate and wanted to impress us. Olympians, you will recognize this place because it’s where you stayed during the Beijing games. But trust me, few Olympians have accomplished the sheer magnitude of that landing. I hit with all the style that only an overweight little German dumpling can accomplish. It was glorious.

Which brings me back to my point, traveling makes me laugh. You really can’t help it, because with the world as crazy as it is, you either laugh or cry. It helps that between the adrenaline and slight hysteria that comes with all new adventures, everything becomes SO much funnier.

You just never catch a break when you adventure outside of your comfort zone. There are cultural differences, natural differences, and of course utterly random differences. I recently visited China and Korea, and if asked to compare them, one thing really comes to mind–hotel rules. You can slip into the culture really quickly, but spend hours trying to negotiate proper hotel etiquette. The worst part about traveling in Asia is the lack of good clothes washing abilities. Hotels often don’t come with washers and never have dryers so you generally find yourself sending anything that needs pressed out to dry-cleaning. The problem was that in Korea you had to bag up your clothes and carry them to the desk.So down I went with my suit pants to ask where I should leave them only to get the look. Continue reading →

Tags: abroad, China, different, Experiences, Funny, Humor, Korea, lessons, life lessons, Travel, traveling

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Categories China, Humor, Korea, Life, Travel

Leaving to Come Home

15 Jun

I’ve never been to an unfamiliar place. It’s true. In spite of all my travels and the many changes that I ran into along the way, I always feel right at home when visiting new lands. Admittedly, I’ve never been to the heart of wild Africa. Or the jungles of South America. Really, I’ve only been to pretty advanced locations. But still, when asking me about a foreign country, people always seem surprised when I say it was easy to adapt to.

They point to the difference in religion, food, and styles of clothing. And then comes the big sentence: “But the language is different!” they respond as though this summarizes everything. And to them, it does. That little change in means of speaking makes foreign countries seem like planets in a far away galaxy. Something exciting and exotic, but entirely unfamiliar. And to go there is to enter the land of OZ, where roads are made of yellow and everything is new and (shudder) different.

So I’ve taken to explaining it like this:

They use silverware for their food.
They have a special love for fluffy pillows.
They heat their houses in the winter, and use fans/air conditioning in the summer.
They drink milk to please their mothers. Continue reading →