Creative professionals need to ensure they’ve addressed all legal requirements when starting or running their business in Australia. 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 Australia, you will need to prepare and register a variety of legal documents. Key requirements include:
- Registering your business name with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
- Obtaining Workers' compensation insurance and business insurance (e.g. public liability, professional indemnity).
- Securing Council approval (if operating from a commercial premise) and a lease agreement (if renting premises).
- Having Health and safety policies and procedures in place.
- Complying with privacy and data protection policies and procedures.
- Consider registering a trade mark for your business name and logo.
Running a creative business means you need to consider several legal matters. For instance, intellectual property is likely to be the heart of your business activities. As such, it's important to take measures to protect your IP. You can do this by registering a trade mark, or even having copyright disclaimers on your website or attached to your content.
However, you need to make sure you register your trade mark in the correct class or category. There are 45 trade mark classes in Australia, so it's wise to seek legal assistance to ensure you're following the correct process.
In addition, IP can involve licensing your work to other parties for a profit. These kinds of arrangements require legally binding contracts so you can limit your liability and ensure that you retain legal ownership over your creative works.
In the world of content and creative entertainment, there is also the important legal matter of privacy. Your business needs to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 or the Australian Privacy Principles, which often involves having a well-drafted Privacy Policy. Get in touch with our team to learn more about your legal needs.
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 Workplace Health and Safety laws.
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.
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.
Get in touch with our team to learn more about how you can protect your creative business.
