Services and Programs

Creative Rights has 3 core service areas:

1. Long-Term Legal Representation

Creative Rights provides qualifying members with full-scale, comprehensive representation. This may be on a short-term project-based level. But, we also provide long-term representation in which we serve in a general-counsel type role (primarily to organizations). We are a multi-disciplinary practice, so we look to coordinate with professionals and students from a range of disciplines when doing so benefits our client's legal needs. We have two full-time lawyers dedicated to serving the needs of our clients, however, we cannot guarantee that we will have the capacity to take on every project, nor the expertise. We do not maintain a referral service (i.e. we don't take money for sending artists to lawyers). But we do maintain excellent relations with entertainment lawyers in the area, and in such situations, we will do our best to place our members with an affordable attorney who shares the same core-values and dedication to artists' rights as we do.

2. Educational Workshops and Legal Clinics

Creative Rights provides the creative community with educational presentations and workshops and a one-of-a-kind legal clinic. We cover a broad range of topics relevant to the creative community's legal needs, such as: "Copyright Basics," "Understanding Fair Use," "When Do I Need to See an Attorney," and "Negotiating Contracts." And we are always open to covering new topics. Our workshops include skill-building exercises for creators, such as mock contract negotiations and licensing/fair use issue-spotting drills.

Our legal clinics are provided in conjunction with a workshop or presentation and offer participants the opportunity to receive one-on-one legal counseling in the style of a traditional 30-minute walk-up clinic. Creative Rights staff and volunteer attorneys provide the counseling service for smaller audiences. But for larger audiences, Creative Rights brings in teams of law school students. This program is unlike anything else offered in the state and provides law students with an opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience working with artists and dealing with entertainment law issues. Students also receive client counseling training and receive background education on complex IP and entertainment law issues.

3. Web Applications Fostering Legal Accessibility

Creative Rights is currently involved in two long-term projects that have the potential to dramatically increase artists' and consumers' access to legal information. We are working with University of Michigan Law faculty as well as lawyers and law students. We seek to take scholarly work out of the realm of academia and to work with both lawyers and programers to develop powerful, user-friendly applications.