Industry Liabilities

The first lawsuit involves a large number of organizations suing Google, more specifically relating to their illegal scanning of millions of books and other publications that contain copyrighted images and displaying them to the public. This action was taken in order to protect the interest of owners of copyrights in visual works.

Basically this lawsuit was brought on because various artists, illustrators and photographers were disregarded their basic rights and were not given their due credit or even consulted by Google reps when they uploaded their work to the site. In my opinion, what Google did was wrong, they should have consulted these artists before they uploaded their work to their search engine or at least given them credit for their work.

            This next lawsuit involves the popular gaming company, Blizzard Entertainment, suing a popular cheating bot for copyright infringement and ruining the “gaming experience for legitimate players.” Blizzard notes that the bots created by the company “Honor Buddy” infringe on its copyrights, ruining the fun for other players, causing financial damage to them.

            This lawsuit was brought on because an outside company created a program that helped destroy the integrity of Blizzard games, and also diverting revenue from Blizzard to their own bank accounts. This is wrong, to create a program to basically feed of inexperienced “gamers” for their own financial gains. On top of that, there is the belief that the company made millions through the bot sales.

            The final lawsuit is filed by Modern Dog Design against Target and Disney. They claim that Disney and Target used their design in a tee shirt they were selling and also featured photos of the shirt on their website. The grounds for the claim against the two companies are the fact that they are making unauthorized copies of the artwork for use on shirts.

            This lawsuit really hits home for me because these two companies stole the image from their book and used it for their own gains, without even compensating the company or even giving them credit for using their artwork. This raises a lot of questions for me personally and also some fears, that something like this could happen to my business.

https://www.bigclassaction.com/lawsuit/copyright-infringement-lawsuit-google-lawsuits-class.php

http://sites.udel.edu/cisc356/2015/04/29/modern-dog-design-vs-target-and-disney/

https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-sues-bot-maker-for-copyright-infringement-151111/

Negotiation Tactics

For this assignment, I watched 3 different videos that each discussed negotiation techniques. The first video I watched was William Ury’s video “The walk from “no” to “yes”. One fact that I took away from this video was the story at the beginning of his speech regarding the 3 brothers who were trying to figure out how to divide up 17 camels between themselves. What I took from this short story was how to reach a mutual benefit between the 3 brothers in how to divide up the camels. Much like the story people need to step back from situations and find the “18^th” camel in and come to mutual grounds when it comes to a negotiation.

            Stephen Stuart gave the next video I watched and he discussed the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). In the video he said the best thing to remember is to not bargain over your position. Any negotiation should produce a wise agreement, it should be efficient and it should improve the relationship between parties, not damage them. A wise agreement is one which meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible and resolves conflicting interests. Basically this entire speech revolves around the BATNA and one key fact he pointed out was that a party should not accept a worse resolution than it’s BATNA and that care should be taken to make sure that deals are accurately valued, taking all considerations into account.     

            Margaret Neale gave the next video I watched and she talked about getting what you want in a negotiation.  In the video she covered the basic outline of negotiations, one thing I took away from the video was that you have information that your counterparts don’t have, and that is what you should bring to the table. If they had all your information, they wouldn’t need you but because you have unique information and they have unique information, value is created between yourself and the people you are negotiating with.

Business Finance

This month I attended a finance class and honestly I wasn't sure what to expect going into this class except that it was going to cover the finances of running a business. Boy was I wrong; it is much more than just applying financials to your business. It covers not just what kind of finances go into running your business but also how to understand certain numbers that involve making smart business choices.

I also learned how to manage my own finances and really learned how to read a variety of statements varying from credit card statements to reading the fine print of investing and how to make money through investments. Learning also what kind of smart choices to make when applying for a loan and how to get the most out of paying off bills and managing your personal finances to best impact your financial future.

Also learning how to invest properly was an extremely valuable tool. From investing in mutual funds to learning how to understand the basics of trading in the stock market, everything I learned in this class will help me to understand and manage my finances when I do decide to start my own business in the near future. Learning the smart way of starting my own business helped understand what it takes to start up my business, like instead of buying new equipment you should rent your equipment first and rent a building or space instead of buying one. These are the things that will help you turn a profit your first year of business and in the future you could buy new equipment and maybe buy your own building but first you must start from the bottom to climb to the top and have new equipment to match your desire.

Again this class really helped me understand the financial side of running a business and opened my eyes to the smart way of investing money both for my business life and my personal life.

Making A Successful Design Studio

            Looking to start my own studio I found various sites offering different advice in how to start my own studio. One of the many facts that I found most useful is that you need to be ambitious. If you have no desire to be the best at what you do, you have no business starting your own studio.

            Another fact is you have to be prepared to take risks. As any new business looking to start from nothing is the fact that you have to take certain risks. If you don’t take risks you will be a “one man band” forever.

            Next is location, location is by far the most important thing to keep in mind when starting your studio. Some things to keep in mind is “How close am I to supply shops?” “Is there parking?” “Is there somewhere to take potential clients?” These are all questions you need to ask yourself when starting your business.

            Make your studio a home away from home. Simply this means, you want to make your work place as comfortable as possible. You will be spending a significant amount of time in your studio, so why not make it as comfortable as possible.

            Believe in what you do, if you don't believe in what you are doing then why do it? Part of being a designer is believing in what you do so that your design can be the best possible.

            Be patient, having a successful studio isn't going to happen over night. This is something that is going to take time, effort and plenty of pitfalls. Some of the best studios took years to become successful. Starting off you're going to be alone, as all new companies you need to make connections in order to establish yourself in the design world.

            There are many other tips to keep in mind but these will help get the ball rolling in starting your studio.