Being a freelancer sounds like an easy and desirable job. Freelancers are not bound to any offices and can choose where they want to work. Freelancers are also free to choose their own schedules and are not confined to the 9-5 hours that most office jobs require. Although freelancing has its advantages, most people who become independent contractors have a few pitfalls to avoid.

Independent contractors, or freelancers, are hired under a contract. This contract is very important as it outlines all the terms agreed between the freelancer and the hiring officer. Independent business owners, agencies and major companies hire freelancers to work for a certain amount of time under contract. This helps increase production for any business whether its writing, graphic design, innovative projects and so on. Below are a few points that all freelancers must pay attention to before accepting a contract.

Payment for Services

One section of the contract outlines the terms for payment for the services performed. This includes a clear amount of compensation for the service. If the freelancer is writing articles, the contract must include how much the freelancer is getting paid per article or per word. The payment section must also include the payment schedule and both parties must agree to all terms of payment.

Services

Every independent contractor must look at the services and deliverables outlined in the contract before agreeing to them. As a freelancer, it is important to know what services you are going to complete and make sure you do not agree to work that you do not want to do. You can also refer back to the contract if the work you are asked to do does not match what is included in the contract.

Rights of Intellectual Property

Every contract must include the terms for the rights to the work produced. Intellectual property is an important issue for both parties to be aware of. Everyone must know who owns rights to the work produced in order to avoid any lawsuits. If you do not want to company to have any rights to original work, you must know where the company stands for this issue.

Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA)

A non-disclosure agreement is almost always included in the contract for hiring a freelancer. A freelancer must know when he or she is allowed to disclose information about a company project or the launching of a business. This information is also important for freelancers wh

o want to include a project in their portfolios. Some companies do not allow and disclosure of information about projects and freelancers must know this in order to avoid getting in trouble. It is important to know this information so that the project is aligned with your freelancing goals.

Expenses Paid

Some freelancers are asked to do additional tasks for their projects including driving to a certain place, using certain software or equipment and so on. Freelancers must know whether these expenses are paid for before accepting a job in order to not fall into any financial strain.

Are you a creative freelancer who values the work that you produce for other companies? As a freelance writer, designer or artist, it is important to get a glimpse into the world of intellectual property (IP) due to the many copyright claims going around. Protecting original work is an important part of being a freelancer.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) is a term referring to a number of distinct types of legal monopolies over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions. (Wikipedia)

Intellectual property includes various types of creations such as music, literary work and artistic work.   It also includes inventions, phrases, symbols and designs. In other words, when you hear about copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and so on, you are dealing with intellectual property. Artistic intellectual property is protected by copyrights. Industrial intellectual property is protected by patents and trademarks.

There are intellectual property laws that protect rights to original material. Under intellectual property law, anyone who creates creative material of the mind that is artistic or commercial is granted exclusive rights.

Intellectual property law changes over time and it is important for freelance designers, writers and other artists to know the current laws in their area.  The primary purpose of having such laws is to grant exclusive rights to owners in order for them to obtain monopoly profits. It is a way of maintaining financial growth.

Businesses will hire independent contractors, or freelancers, to produce creative work such as articles, graphics, scripts, and other types of material. Many people believe that the company hiring the freelancer automatically owns rights to this material because they commission and pay for the project.

In reality, those who hire independent contractors do not necessarily own the final product. In fact, as an independent contractor, you have the right to retain ownership rights to the work you produce. It is important to have written agreements on the work you create to ensure that you own the rights to it.

There are different types of Intellectual property protection depending on things that we want to protect.  Each country has each own laws and fees that must be paid for patent/trademark registration. Trademarks and patents registrations are usually active for a period of ten to twenty years (depending the country local laws: i.e. Trademarks are valid for 10 years both in EU and USA).  After this initial period each country has renewal procedures, on which owners can request a renewal for their trademark or patent. In most cases copyrights are valid for the life of the author plus 50 -70 years after that (but in some countries periodic renewal is required)

More information regarding the valid period of a copyrighted material in US can be found here: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

Copyright

Copyright protects “original works of authorship” including but not limited to books, articles, scripts, software, recorded speech, databases, paintings, photographs and music.  The copyright laws worldwide usually cover both published and unpublished work.  These laws provide authors with the exclusive rights to display, rent, published, sell and redistributed copies of their work.

Patent

Patents

Patents are used by inventors’ to protect their novelty inventions.  Usually a patent is registered to protect inventions like new machines, new process and processes, hardware systems, manufacturing procedures, or composition of matter, and any other additional new and useful improvement.  Patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor to implement, apply, use, sell and/or rent his ideas and systems.

In USA patents that have been posted before November 16, 1989 last for 20 years while patents which have been submitted after November 16, 1989 last for 10years.

Trademark and Servicemark

A trademark or service mark is a symbol, graphic or word/name /expression/slogan/title that is used while trading, in order to distinguish a specific product/service or a company from others.  Examples of trademarks and servicemarks are business names like Yahoo and Google and product names like iphone and logos like the one used from Apple.  The owner of the trademark (after following the official registration process)  has the exclusive rights to use it (i.e. on web sites, on products and advertisements). Trademarks usually have a small symbol to denote their state:

• ™ (Denotes an Unregistered trade mark)
• ℠ (Denotes an unregistered service mark)
• ® (Denote a registered trademark)

Protecting Intellectual Property

In order to protect your intellectual property, it is important to first define the type of property you own. You must either obtain copyright or a patent for your work. Always have in mind that an idea cannot be patented. In order for a patent to be established the inventor must provide proofs that the idea can be implemented and it works. The patent office will require analytical documentation regarding the proposed patent. So it is highly advisable for any freelancer to keep and Investor’s notebook that will use to record the process of designing and implementing his ideas.

But before a patent or copyright can be established how can one protect his ideas?

A written agreement or contract is very important for any freelancer who wants to own rights to his or her work. On the other hand, a contract can be signed so that the hiring company obtains rights to the material. Many such agreements are signed before even a project is started. These, are usually called Non-disclosure Agreements (NDA) and among other things have specific sections regarding intellectual property, and ownership of the final products to be produced. Freelancers must always be really carefully when signing such agreements. They must always ensure that such agreements will not revoke their official ownership of the patents produced, otherwise (it is agreed so) they should take that into consideration while estimating their budgeting offer for the project.

Examples of NDA agreements are:

• http://www.iphoneappquotes.com/PDF/iphone-app-development-non-disclosure-agreement-nda.pdf
• http://www.how-to.com/Operations/NDAform.html
• http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19790553/Sample-NDA-Agreement

Once you retain the Intellectual property of your work, you must determine how this work will be used and distributed. Companies that do not sign an agreement to use your work will have major problems using or distributing it.

The next step to protecting intellectual property involves coming to an agreement between the employer and the freelancer. The contract must guarantee that all the material created for the company remains in the company and is not distributed outside of the company. Without a written agreement, the independent contractor owns copyright to any of the original work despite the fact that it was paid for. You can always register intellectual property with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to be protected under the law.

Intellectual Property Scams

Individuals need to be really carefully before exchanging information and money regarding their patents.  Until now there were quite a few cases with intellectual property scams on which adversaries were pretending to be government organizations in order to collect fees from patents.  The links below provide access to information regarding Intellectual property scams:

• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) :http://www.aipla.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Organization&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=9989
• European Community Trademarks –  Warning : http://oami.europa.eu/EN/office/adhoc/warning2.htm
• Australian Patent Office: http://www.aipla.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Organization&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=9989

With the current foreign market, it is important that all parties understand and agree with property rights. Due to outsourcing, many freelancers pass intellectual property rights to the hiring business. Intellectual property law has become far more blurry and complicated today than it used to be. As a result, it is important for freelancers and businesses to be aware of their rights and seek resources for information.

Additional Links

• USA Trademarks Search DB: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4004:9cj8ii.1.1
• Google Patents Search Engine : http://www.google.com/patents
• USA Patent and Trademark Office : http://www.uspto.gov/
• EU Trademarks and Designs Office : http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/index.en.do
• EU Trademark Application Form : http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/QPLUS/forms/electronic/fileApplicationCTM.en.do
• USA Trademark Application Form : http://www.uspto.gov/teas/e-TEAS/index.html
• Free Patents Online : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
• European Patent Office : http://www.epo.org/patents.html
• World Intellectual Property Organization : http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en

Many start-ups online are managed by people who work from home and profit from selling goods to other people. Many such businesses belong to retirees that have still the strength be active in the job field. The key to increasing profits is identifying and buying cheap overstocked wholesale and surplus products that you can resell to your customers. There are many wholesale companies that offer all sorts of products and are very eager to work with new businesses. Wholesalers turn to offer their overstocked products in really small prices. Along with this it is pretty easy to identify liquidators which buy and sell products from closeout businesses.  Buying such products may give a huge competitive advantage over rival businesses. Getting into B2B auctions will allow you to even bid and buy such products in even smaller prices. In today’s economical crisis such advantage is what may keep you in the business.

The Benefits

Save Money: By buying wholesale products to resell, you are saving a lot more money. This is especially beneficial in the long run because you will save a great deal of money on one transaction. Not only will you save by turning to wholesalers and liquidators, but buying in bulk will help you keep even more money in your pocket.

Better Customer Service: Wholesale and closeouts products are not just beneficial for saving money. You can also improve your inventory by having more of a single product or a variety of different products. In other words, you can keep restocking because you can actually afford it. Your customers will come to you because your supply will always be full and they will not have to wait long for their package. In turn, you will keep your customers and get more new ones, which will ultimately increase your sales.

Flexible Negotiations : Dealing with wholesale companies for cheap products means that you will eventually find a wholesaler that you like. By building a relationship with your wholesale company, you can also start to negotiate and agree on better deals. When you buy in bulk, you can also get more discounts.

Easy starts: As a start-up business you can always turn to surplus and closeouts products, in order to fill your on line store and e-business.  New entrepreneurs can easily start-up a new business spending the least amount of money possible.

Each one of us fears the economic recession, the uncertainty of the future, the laid offs, the economic crises, price hikes and much more. A recession seldom gives any reason to smile for anyone. The recent recession has resulted in thousands of professionals loosing their highly paid and cushioned jobs, which they certainly had not anticipated. The news were filled with mergers, bankruptcies, economic crises, stock, market crashing and so on. Thousands of careers and families are at stake but there is little nay one can do about it.

How to Deal with Recession

Recession is a fact and we should accept and face it bravely. This is not the first time we are facing it and certainly not the last time either. Then, why not try to make the recession an opportunity. It might sound weird to some that one can turn recession into an opportunity. To be able and overcome such depressing feelings that any recession usually brings, it is very important to arm your self with self-confidence.
We must always remember that every cloud has a silver lining, and this stands also for the recession. To overcame the recession one has to start think positive, and try to make (or see) the disadvantages into advantages.
Very few of us realize that recessions can provide great opportunities too. Many do not realize, as they are constantly sulking or worried about the uncertainties of the future. The victims of a recession have to look beyond that and search for potential possibilities.  In most cases there are many options still left, for people to try their luck on.
There are thousands of possibilities for a better career if you give it a thought.  Some of which are starting your home business, or doing remote work as a freelancer. Maybe the recession was a wake up call for you, to help you start something new, something that you like more than working 9to5. With this I certainly do not mean that must do meager jobs, as this would further bring down your morale. You need to do something that you always wanted to do but the hectic working hours kept you away from it.
However just sitting on your sofa and being worried about your future will certainly not change anything.  You need to be optimistic and keep looking for opportunities that can help you go through these tough times. Remember that a recession is always the time for new markets to show up.
Internet could be a great option to turn to in such times. There are umpteen numbers of opportunities on the Internet that could give you an opportunity to rebuild your career. You would be pleasantly surprised, with the number of opportunities the Internet has to offer. Actually opportunities on the Internet are always there but it’s only during a recession that many bother to go thru them. So, if you have not tried your luck online, then just try it once and you will definitely not get disappointed. This might seen untrue to many but it is not so. It is a known fact that with or without recession people turn to the Internet for almost anything your can image, from booking tickets, buying products, information on places and much more.
The recession today has made people extremely cautious of the amount they spend to buy goods. They turn onto the Internet looking for people and shops offering the best deal, without sacrificing the quality of their products or services. This could give you an opportunity to start your own online business, which will deal with a number of different commercial products people could be interested to purchase. And consider that there are no business borders on the Internet; your eBusiness could easily reach millions of possible buyers.
There are several programs on the Internet that could give you an opportunity to start your very own online business. But, forget that negative thought that just crossed your mind, if you don’t have the technical skills to develop an ecommerce site, there an plenty of places on the internet where you can auction such projects and easily find freelancers to make it for your.
Starting an online business usually requires only minimal initial investment; you don’t have any overhead expenses like employee salaries, utility bills or rents, as you can comfortably manage it from the comfort of your home using a personal computer and an Internet connection. Such a small home business could be easily expanded into a large enterprise.
But if you don’t want to start your own business from scratch, recession is the best time to invest on an established business or even identify businesses for sales. During the recession many business owners, due to their financial needs, are ready to accept new investors or sell their business with flexible financial terms.
Looking at the profits, you could soon realize what you have been missing, and that you too had the required entrepreneur skills in you. This unfortunate period has worked like the boon for many. A number of people have been forced into the realization of their hidden potentials.
Some people will be glad that Recession happened. They grabbed this opportunity to explore their hidden talents and make more money than they have ever dreamed off.

What about you?

Are you still on your sofa feeling depressed, hesitating to explore this great opportunity or are you already planning for your new career change ?