Creative professionals need to ensure they’ve addressed all legal requirements when starting or running their business in United Kingdom. From protecting your intellectual property to privacy compliance and licensing arrangements, our legal team can help you out. Get in touch with us today to learn more!
To set up a creative business in the UK, you will need to prepare and register a variety of legal documents. Key requirements include:
- Registering your business name with Companies House (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house).
- Obtaining Employers' Liability Insurance and business insurance (e.g. public liability, professional indemnity).
- Securing Local authority approval (if operating from a commercial premise) and a lease agreement (if renting premises).
- Having Health and safety policies and procedures in place, in compliance with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines (https://www.hse.gov.uk/).
- Complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 for privacy and data protection policies and procedures (https://ico.org.uk/).
- Consider registering a trade mark for your business name and logo with the Intellectual Property Office (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office).
It's common to run a business online or entirely from home. After all, this removes the need to manage a commercial lease, and can make your activities more efficient. However, it also means you need to consider how you can meet your employer obligations remotely, and whether your home meets the requirements under Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
If you're running your business online, you also need to closely consider your online terms and conditions, limitation of liability, any cookies you're collecting and other key data privacy matters under the Data Protection Act 2018 and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
Further, since you're likely to be storing IP online, you need to ensure you have secure and legal protection of your creative works in case they end up in the wrong hands. The Intellectual Property Office can provide guidance on protecting your IP in the UK.
Get in touch with our team to learn more about how you can protect your creative business.
In the United Kingdom, copyright protection is automatically granted to original works. Therefore, when you upload something to Instagram, that work is legally yours.
However, this also means that you grant a licence to Instagram, allowing them to use your content in certain ways.
According to Instagram's terms of use, this includes the ability to transfer your rights over your content to a third party without your permission.
If you're looking to protect your intellectual property (IP) on Instagram, it's advisable to consider registering a trade mark. This offers you additional legal protection and prevents other parties from using your creative works, as they will be exclusively yours. For more information on registering a trade mark in the UK, visit the UK Intellectual Property Office website.
