{"id":765,"date":"2012-08-07T16:45:09","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T20:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=765"},"modified":"2012-08-07T18:49:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T22:49:29","slug":"famous-last-words-i-can-do-this-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=765","title":{"rendered":"Famous Last Words: I Can Do This Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Lucida Grande;\"><strong><\/strong>For those of you who would do anything to avoid hiring a lawyer, we suggest that you pick up the September 2012 issue of Consumer Reports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>CU rated three well-known DIY legal sites and found them to be no match for a pro even at the most simple tasks. \u00a0Photographers, illustrators and artists require the use of paperwork which takes into consideration a multitude of issues and factors such as copyright, payment (and late payment) terms, media usage and so forth. The sample invoice in our book Photographer&#8217;s Survival Manual addresses those key issues and many others.<\/p>\n<p>CU found that using either Legal Zoom, Nolo or Rocket Lawyer is generally better than drafting documents yourself if you have no legal training. But unless your needs are &#8220;extremely simple&#8221; you are better off with a lawyer. We have never encountered a photographer or any creative type, whose legal\/business needs were &#8220;extremely simple&#8221;. Anyhow, you need not take our word for it but you ought think twice before going against both our advice <strong>and<\/strong> that of the unbiased Consumer&#8217;s Union. If you are in business, you will need the assistance of a lawyer and even an accountant. Just like photographers lament people who hire \u201cUncle Jimmy\u201d, \u201cAunt Julie\u201d, or \u201cAverage Joe\u201d to take photos, rather than hiring a professional photographer, we ask, &#8220;Why aren\u2019t <strong>you<\/strong> using a professional for\u00a0<strong>your<\/strong> needs?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For those of you who would do anything to avoid hiring a lawyer, we suggest that you pick up the September 2012 issue of Consumer Reports. CU rated three well-known DIY legal sites and found them to be no match for a pro even at the most simple tasks. \u00a0Photographers, illustrators and artists require the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5,20],"tags":[92,87,86,89,90,88,91],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","category-paperwork","category-stuff-you-should-know","tag-consumer-reports","tag-diy-legal-forms","tag-hiring-lawyers","tag-legal-zoom","tag-nolo","tag-paperwork-2","tag-rocket-lawyer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}