Limitation Of Liability For The Design Professional Case: Fill & Download for Free

TL; DR - assigning infringement liability all depends on context: size of project, who the client and designer are, intended use, and relative negotiating power. That's why you hire lawyers, and professional designers who know about copyrights. And yes, as a client you can get insurance, sort of.When negotiating design services contracts, it's an open question who should take responsibility for copyright infringement (and as Todd Gardiner notes, trademark infringement as well).The client has the most direct exposure because they're the one repeatedly using the logo in public, and if the logo is too close to another company's logo (or another person's work more generally), they're the ones who are directly doing the damage. They're also the party that needs to stop if somebody wants an injunction, and the deeper pockets if somebody wants to sue. The designer has a little bit of exposure for copyright infringement if they copy something they shouldn't, inadvertently or on purpose, and little or no trademark liability.A contract can't change the direct liability exposure or bind third parties to anything, all it can do is say who owns the work after the designer finishes it, and whether one party will indemnify the other against liability (in other words, cover the other party's costs) from third party claims. Imagine you sign a contract with your deadbeat roommate to pick up a pizza for them, and then you go out and get into an accident on the way. The contract might say that your roommate covers all liability, but the person you ran into didn't sign that contract so there's nothing to stop them from suing you. Same thing with design contracts, they just say which party covers the other's costs, assuming they're insured and otherwise good for the money. The contract can also specify who's in charge of the legal case, and a whole bunch of procedural stuff.Naturally, each side wants to shift the risk to the other if they can. A form contract used by a design agency will typically say the designer has no liability to cover any designs approved by the client, and more than that, the client indemnifies the designer against third party cases. That won't get very far if, say, the designer is freelancing for Microsoft. Microsoft has its own contracts that say that the designer has to cover Microsoft's legal bills and verdicts or settlements if there's a problem, and may owe Microsoft a new non-infringing redo to boot. Either of these is fair in the right context, but can be onerous and nonsensical if used out of context. But it's largely a question of who wrote the contract, how big / important it is, who has the negotiating leverage, and who's desperate for work. With a big (say, $200,000 and up) contract you can get some heavy negotiation on these points, and that's what intellectual property / media licensing lawyers are for.To illustrate a pro-designer extreme, imagine you're the marketing head for Container Store and you hire your daughter in law's little sister to do a quick proof of concept sketch for a new in-house music label. You pay her $500. Her design looks like this:You decide that's very cool. So cool you're going to use it for some of your products, starting with a line of CD shelves. No need to hire the big design agency, you run with it. The shelves are a hit. You sell $150 million of them, and three months later you get one of these:Uh-oh. It looks like overstock dotcom has a similar logo, doesn't it? And Oprah isn't too happy either. Now who's fault is that? Probably yours, you should have hired a lawyer or at least googled things before running with the design. Even if you did have a contract assigning liability, your daughter in law's little sister doesn't have $50 million to pay off the legal claims.More generally, the client is getting the vast bulk of the economic benefit of the designer's work. It's unfair, and economically prohibitive, for the designer to do an intellectual property search or take responsibility for everything you might do with their work. On the other hand, depending on the job and what it's for, they may have a duty to be careful, and original.At the pro-client extreme, turn the tables and imagine you're a local restaurant and you've hired the biggest creative agency in the world to do some very expensive designs for your website. If they did the same thing, copying a well known brand logo, it would be reasonable to insist that they're on the hook for it.Now, regarding insurance. Many general liability policies will cover routine copyright and trademark infringement risk, and other stuff like defamation, either as part of the basic package, or a fairly low-cost rider. This is for normal stuff, like having a business name and logo. This kind of insurance is good to have. But there are lots of limits exclusions, and if there's an actual claim the insurance company will likely try to deny coverage. For example, insurance may cover using a logo as business collateral, but not as a product or service brand. Or not for licenses you extend to third parties. Or not if you're in the business of generating content and media. It's much harder for the designer to get that kind of insurance, and often prohibitively expensive.

EducationMassive revamp of education system. More focus on projects and in depth knowledge instead of cramming theory for exams.Scrap curriculum of 11th and 12th standard. Have programmes to make students aware about career choices in 10th, teach basics of only that field in 11th and 12th, say mechanical engineering and take entrance exam of that field only. This would ensure only those who have genuine interest take the stream and also students would not be overburdened.Remove Reservation system. Instead provide scholarships and monetary help to low income category students.Regular inspection of quality of education in government schools. Create schools up to senior secondary level in remote areas.Make education till age 16 compulsory, not merely a right. If the parents fail to put their children in school it would be considered a criminal offenceMake internships necessary in all professional courses.More funding for PhD students and state of the art research labs in all government science and technology colleges.2. Taxation and BudgetMake it compulsory to link all bank accounts, properties, income, assets etc with Aadhar card. Failure to do so would automatically transfer the property, bank accounts etc to the government.No employed person goes tax free. Does not matter whether your income is Rs 1000 or 1 crore, all need to contribute to the nation, within their means, though tax slabs would be different.Giving any bill other than GST bill would be illegal. If the customer accepts a rough bill he is also liable to be considered guilty. Make a centralised software to generate bills, which sends all the buying and selling data to the government so that businessmen cannot escape taxes.Scrape all loan waivers, BPL schemes, ration schemes etc to the poor. Use the money to open factories and Industries to provide them jobs. This ensures they would become an asset to the country instead of liability and government will not have to give freebies to the poor on the taxes paid by hard working people.Allocate a significant portion of budget to opening factories and industries, ranging from unskilled work like khadi, regional products etc to highly skilled IT and Electronics industries. Make specialised institutions to teach the unskilled masses on how to work in factories.Pump money into infrastructure development. Make smart cities near well established cities and industrial areas. Link them with bullet trains and airports. Give tenders to development companies with strict deadlines. Create world class port cities to help in import and export of goods.3. DefenseAircraft carriers, jets, submarines etc can wait, first ensure that every soldier gets a bulletproof vest, helmet etc. Upgrade their rifles. AK47s are too old. Give enough ammunitions to all soldiers.Have CRPF units in all cities especially near railway stations and airports.Scrap all special statuses given to Jammu and Kashmir. Work on the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. Arrest all separatists without a warrant. Give free hand to military to deal with stone pelters.Secure the borders. Have fencing throughout the border. Have the rivers which cross border under surveillance. This would also help in stopping inflow of fake currency and untaxed goods.4. Policy ChangesPut 2 child policy in effect.Take severe steps against religious fanatism. Anybody defaming or abusing any other religion in public should be immediately arrested, regardless of postMake Science education mandatory in all temple schools and madrasas. The curriculum would be designed by the government and regular inspections would take place.Recruit more judges into the judicial system. If the judge feels that either of the accuser or the accused is trying to waste time of court by making excuses, put fines on them right away.Create fast track courts for rape, terrorism, fraud, black money hoarding, treason etc to ensure these cases get swift action and are not delayed because the judiciary is overburdened.Lower custom and excise duty. Use Dubai’s model to make India the center of all trade in the world.Push for India’s inclusion in UN Security council and get a veto in UN decisions.Make India self reliant in defense sector.Encourage tech startups by giving funds to promising business models in exchange for stake in the company.Make all bill and fee payments by citizens to government online to curb corruption. Also put a limit on maximum number of days it can take for a particular task in government offices so people dont have to bribe in the first place.

Legal “partnership” means that the persons designated as partners are in a type of joint venture where each partner can bind the partnership (make deals in its name) and are responsible for one another’s torts (civil wrongs like legal malpractice) and debts incurred within the scope of the partnership. They generally divide profits amongst one another, but not necessarily evenly.Partnerships go back a few centuries and exist at common law, which means they are simply recognized through case law by judges and not formally established by legislative action. However, in the past few decades, legislatures have passed laws that establish forms of partnership commonly used by lawyers (as well as other types of business and professional associations). Entities such as limited liability partnerships (LLPs), professional associations (PAs) and professional limited liability companies (PLLCs) offer limited liability to partners (sometimes called “members”) shielding partnership from liability for the torts of other partnership (each only liable for their own torts) and limiting a partners’ liability for partnership debts only to funds invested in the partnership (you only lose what you bought in with, nothing more if things go south).