Starting up a small business can be both rewarding and stressful. Upon deciding to open a new business you will need to create a website, a logo, advertisements, and social media ads. Many people turn to a third-party design program such as Canva and use their templates to begin their business creatives. However, there are legal risks with Canva that you should be aware of especially pertaining to your logo and website. Canva is a great tool to use for flyers, social media ads, and simple advertisements, but there are some areas of creative design you must be careful using Canva for that is why we are writing this article on Canva Legal Risks: Protecting Your Business Creatives. For instance, our law firm uses Canva for many great advertisement pieces, but not for logo design. One main reason for this is that if your logo is designed in Canva using one of their many templates, then you do not own the rights to that creative work. Since you do not own the rights to the creative work, you cannot trademark it. Trademarking your logo and brand is always recommended when it comes to protecting your business. This is why we want to warn others of the legal risks with Canva for your creative business designs, especially your logo. When it comes to distinguishing what you should and should not use Canva to create, it comes down to one basic question, do you want to be the only one who owns this creative and can use it? If the answer to this is, ‘Yes’, then you will want to steer clear of the Canva templates. For these types of creative works, it would be in your best interest to design them in a different way or hire someone with a signed contract for the creative rights to be owned by you. The legal risks with Canva and its use for business creative designs are all laid out right on Canva’s website. Canva tells users that they cannot trademark any of the works created using the design templates provided. They also explain that all Canva users have access to use these templates because the creative copyrights are owned by Canva. You cannot trademark something you do not own, nor something that is being freely given to others for their use. On the other hand, you can use Canva for creating a logo if you are NOT using their templates. Canva’s contract does state that if you only use fonts, certain shapes, and lines to create and design your own logo, you will be able to claim it as your own creative work and therefore you hold the design copyrights to it. In this scenario, you should be able to trademark the logo you created through Canva for your brand, and you should! This is because you are not using their creative work, but you are using their platform to design your own creative work. Canva has many wonderful tools for entrepreneurs as long as you stay aware of the legal risks with Canva when it comes to the copyrights of your business creatives. If you are looking for more guidance or need help with contracts for creative works contact us for a consultation!
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