433: Your Legal Questions Answered: AI, Terms & Conditions, Contracts, & More with Paige Griffith of The Legal Paige

Summary

The Heart & Hustle Podcast: Episode 433 Summary

Title: Your Legal Questions Answered: AI, Terms & Conditions, Contracts, & More with Paige Griffith of The Legal Paige
Hosts: Evie McLeod & Lindsey Roman
Guest: Paige Griffith, Founder of The Legal Paige
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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In Episode 433 of The Heart & Hustle Podcast, hosts Evie McLeod and Lindsay Roman welcome back Paige Griffith, the founder of The Legal Paige, to address a series of legal questions submitted by their audience. Paige, a certified Juris Doctor with expertise in business law, contracts, and intellectual property, provides invaluable insights tailored specifically for creative entrepreneurs, particularly those in the photography and wedding industries.

1. Nonprofit vs. For-Profit Businesses

Question: Can you break down the legal differences between a nonprofit and a for-profit business?
Timestamp: [08:09]

Paige begins by clarifying the fundamental distinctions between nonprofit and for-profit entities. She explains that the primary objective of a for-profit business is to generate profit for its owners or shareholders. In contrast, a nonprofit organization's main goal is to serve a public or charitable purpose, with profits reinvested back into the mission rather than distributed to owners.

Paige Griffith (08:15): "A for-profit business's main goal is to make profit for yourself and any of the owners in your company... A nonprofit's main goal is to serve a public or charitable purpose, and profits usually have to be reinvested back into the mission."

She emphasizes the importance of obtaining nonprofit tax-exempt status and adhering to strict compliance and reporting requirements to maintain this status. Additionally, Paige dispels the misconception that all nonprofit work is voluntary by highlighting that many nonprofits have employees on payroll.

Paige Griffith (10:43): "All of the contributions... there's a ton of people on payroll that work for nonprofits... The profit of the business itself does not go to an owner."

2. Contracts with TBD Locations and Start Times

Question: How would you approach contracts with clients who have TBD locations and TBD start times due to the weather?
Timestamp: [12:30]

Paige provides strategic advice for photographers dealing with uncertain session details. She recommends clearly defining a permissible perimeter for locations and specifying that exact locations and start times are subject to change based on conditions like weather. Incorporating clauses for inclement weather and client-initiated rescheduling is crucial to protect both parties.

Paige Griffith (13:34): "You want to clearly state in your contract that the location, the exact location and start time are to be determined pending kind of weather conditions."

Paige warns against leaving start times entirely open, as it can lead to ambiguity and potential contractual disputes. Instead, she advocates for as much specificity as possible and outlines the importance of having rescheduling policies in place.

Paige Griffith (14:44): "I don't recommend for like a portrait session to have a start time TBD. I would have it as concrete as possible for contractual purposes."

3. Booking with Undefined Dates for Events

Question: For events like weddings or elopements, what if a client books you without a confirmed date or venue?
Timestamp: [25:27]

Addressing the complexities of booking services for events without fixed dates, Paige advises against accepting such bookings. She underscores the necessity of having a confirmed date to ensure contractual validity and avoid potential conflicts or financial losses.

Paige Griffith (25:27): "Don't do that... I need a date in order to secure services to have that contract be as valid as possible."

When flexibility is unavoidable, Paige suggests setting specific parameters within the contract to allow for adjustments while maintaining protection against undefined commitments.

Paige Griffith (27:18): "I always tell people, please just try to put a date on your calendar. Or just be like, I need you to go book the venue first and then come back to me."

4. Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policies for Websites

Question: Why do we need a terms page on our website? Do we actually need it in the first place?
Timestamp: [40:11]

Paige elucidates the necessity of having both Terms and Conditions (T&C) and Privacy Policy pages on business websites. While T&Cs outline how users can interact with the website, including disclaimers and refund policies, Privacy Policies are legally required in many jurisdictions to inform users about data collection and usage practices.

Paige Griffith (40:11): "Website terms and conditions is basically how users can use your website... Privacy policy is required if you're doing anything with getting people's personal information."

She recommends utilizing professionally crafted templates to ensure compliance with evolving laws such as GDPR and state-specific regulations like California's stringent privacy laws.

Paige Griffith (43:07): "We have a bundle. It comes with website terms and conditions and a privacy policy. We update it all of the time."

5. Using AI for Website Content Creation

Question: Is it legal to use ChatGPT for creating website copy as long as we have an AI disclosure on our terms and conditions page? Do we need to be concerned about accidentally plagiarizing? How can we double-check the copy we create using ChatGPT against other websites to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Timestamp: [43:56]

Paige delves into the legal implications of using AI tools like ChatGPT for content creation. She emphasizes that AI-generated content without human modification does not grant copyright ownership, highlighting the necessity for human intervention to qualify for copyright protection.

Paige Griffith (44:17): "If you use it like 100% without touching it, it is 100% AI generated content. You've made no changes. You don't own the copyright to it whatsoever."

To mitigate plagiarism risks, Paige advises users to customize and modify AI-generated content extensively. She also stresses the importance of running content through plagiarism checkers to ensure originality.

Paige Griffith (54:32): "Put it through a plagiarism platform and make sure that it didn't take it from your favorite elopement photographer or something like that."

Furthermore, Paige advocates for including AI disclaimers in both website T&Cs and client contracts to maintain transparency and manage liability.

Paige Griffith (47:50): "Disclaim that you're using AI. It's best practice for you and kind of pushes that liability and risk off of you at least a little bit."

6. Protecting Against Website Copy Plagiarism

Question: How do creators protect their original website copy from being plagiarized, especially with the rise of AI tools?
Timestamp: [56:48]

Addressing concerns about intellectual property theft, Paige reiterates the importance of using official legal channels to enforce copyrights. She acknowledges the challenges posed by AI but maintains that traditional measures like cease and desist notices remain effective.

Paige Griffith (56:50): "It's on you to check that it's not. Put it through a plagiarism platform and make sure that it didn't take it from your favorite elopement photographer."

Paige also highlights the significance of maintaining authentic, human-created content that cannot be easily replicated by AI, thereby preserving the unique voice and originality of the creator.

Paige Griffith (62:39): "People can totally tell. People can know. They see right through it."

Final Thoughts and Resources

In closing, Paige directs listeners to The Legal Paige's extensive resources, including her website, social media channels, and a private Facebook group where entrepreneurs can seek legal advice and access contract templates tailored to their specific needs.

Paige Griffith (63:21): "You can find us at The Legal Page Community on Facebook... We sell all of the full-length photography contracts... and hundreds of different full-length contracts, short forms, and a la carte clauses for you."

Evie and Lindsay express their gratitude for Paige's expertise, acknowledging the depth and practicality of the legal guidance provided throughout the episode.

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Key Takeaways:

• Nonprofits must reinvest profits into their mission and adhere to strict compliance, whereas for-profits distribute profits to owners or shareholders.
• Contracts should specify locations and start times as much as possible, including clauses for unforeseen changes due to weather or other factors.
• Website T&Cs and Privacy Policies are essential for legal compliance and protecting business interests.
• AI-generated content requires human modification to ensure originality and copyright ownership, with necessary disclaimers included in legal documents.
• Protecting intellectual property remains crucial, with traditional legal measures still effective against plagiarism, despite the rise of AI tools.

For more detailed legal templates and ongoing support, entrepreneurs are encouraged to visit The Legal Paige and join the community on Facebook.

Transcript

[Evie McLeod]

You're listening to the Heart and Hustle podcast. We are your hosts, Evie McLeod and Lindsay Roman. Welcome back to the show, my friend. We love getting to chat business and all the things with you and today we get to have a queen of knowledge on the show talking all and answering all of your legal questions. So today we get to chat with Paige Griffith, the founder of the Legal Page, a virtual law firm working with online businesses and wedding industry professionals. She's a certified Juris Doctor and holds a double BA in economics and Political science. After working as a federal law clerk, Paige traded in the traditional law life for a virtual one and opened the doors to the legal page in 2018. She helps her clients run legal and protected businesses and counsels them on issues related to contracts, intellectual property, privacy, and business law. So in case you couldn't catch that, she's a genius. She's our lawyer attorney in our back pocket here at the podcast here at the Hart University. And she is coming on to answer your questions today.

[Lindsay Roman]

Literally, we have had her on the show. I think this is the fourth time. We have partnered with her many a time. If you are new here, you've. Well, if you're not new here, you have definitely heard of her before. But if you're new here, welcome to the show. This is Paige and we are so excited. Today we actually pulled you our listeners and we asked you, hey, what biggest, what's your biggest legal questions that you would love us to ask Paige? And y' all did not disappoint. Y' all came. We talked about so many things. We talked about the difference between nonprofit and profit. We talked about terms and conditions on websites and privacy policy. We also talked about AI and just the world that that shakes up in the legal system. We also talked about when businesses do full coverage or full. What's that? What, what is the term?

[Evie McLeod]

I'm thinking of service.

[Lindsay Roman]

Full service. Things where you're trying to subcontract a bunch of other people and how to do that logistically. We talked about so many things that.

[Evie McLeod]

Are just contracts and having like uncertain start times or start dates or start locations.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, like booking a client without a date or without a location or without a start time and just how to do that safely and legally. Lot of things. So Paige came and answered all perfectly professionally and just with the class that she has always. And so today is such a good episode. So do not go anywhere. We'll be back after this theme song with Paige Griffith. Let's go.

[Evie McLeod]

Ever stop your scroll on Instagram and wonder how the heck photographers snagged those wildly candid moments of their clients. You know, the kind of photographs that make you just sit in awe of how stunning they are and the emotions that you feel from them. We have felt that too. And when we first started out as photographers, our number one goal was to make sure our clients were comfortable and feeling like their true authentic selves. And one of the easiest ways we were able to achieve that was through creative posing prompts.

[Lindsay Roman]

Because here's the truth. If you want to achieve those effortlessly candid, playful and intimate photos, you have to create an environment that allows your couples to feel comfortable to do so. And we are spilling all the tea with some of our favorite directions and prompts in our free photography posing guide. Visit theheartuniversity.comcandid to get your hands on this incredible freebie. Prepare to have your clients rave about how much fun they had with you on their session.

[Evie McLeod]

Hey.

[Lindsay Roman]

Hey. I'm Lindsay Roman.

[Evie McLeod]

And I'm Evie McLeod. And we are family and legacy focused serial entrepreneurs and the founders of the Hart University, a business education company with a mission to help you thrive in your business and life.

[Lindsay Roman]

Welcome to our Entrepreneur Cocktail hour where business and marketing strategies meet faith, real talk and raw in life changing conversations.

[Evie McLeod]

At the end of the day, we are all in this together, figuring out how to navigate the ups and downs, the messy and the beautiful and everything in between. This is a community where you can come as you are, get inspired and walk away, equipped to build a legacy filled life.

[Lindsay Roman]

You're listening to the Heart and Hustle podcast.

[Evie McLeod]

Paige. Welcome back to the show yet again, friend. Yay.

[Paige Griffith]

I can't believe I'm here again, but I'm so excited.

[Evie McLeod]

We're just gonna keep having you on indefinitely because you're so good at what you do. And I feel like legal questions and like, you know, the legal scenarios, whatever. It's one of those things that you're not like one and done. You've talked about it once for 30 minutes.

[Lindsay Roman]

People still have questions.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, like it's ongoing and you're so good at what you do. So we just keep milking.

[Lindsay Roman]

You're like our lawyer in our little back pocket and we bring you out to answer all the people's legal questions.

[Paige Griffith]

I'm happy to do it. That's what I love to do. These rapid fire Q&As are so fun for me and there's always new questions that come up and it's good for me to know, like, what are people wondering about? What do people need to know about. And I don't mind it at all. I'm happy to.

[Evie McLeod]

Yay.

[Lindsay Roman]

Perfect. Okay, well, if you are listening to this and you're like, wait, Paige, the legal page. What's going on? If we don't answer your legal question today because you didn't submit it because you're not in the little group DM that we have.

[Paige Griffith]

Or our Facebook group.

[Lindsay Roman]

Or our Facebook group. Lincoln show notes. Then go Back to episode 23, episode. Oh, I literally just blanked. I literally just blanked. Hold on, please.

[Evie McLeod]

I know. Episode 94 and episode 230.

[Lindsay Roman]

Nope, it wasn't 94.

[Evie McLeod]

It was 96.

[Lindsay Roman]

I think it was 96. Yes. Okay. Episode 23, episode 96, and episode 230. So this is Paige's fourth time on the Heart Nozzle podcast. Let's go. But if we don't answer your question today, go back to any of those episodes, and I bet you anything she will answer your question.

[Evie McLeod]

Yes. Okay. Now, Paige, anyone who maybe is listening to this, who's like, hi, okay, I really haven't listened to any of these episodes before. I don't know who this Paige girl is. Can you kind of like introduce yourself fresh to our audience? Who you are, what you do, what you love, all the things?

[Paige Griffith]

Yes, of course. Everyone, my name is Paige. I am the owner and lead attorney behind the Legal Page. We are an online legal education platform and contract shop. I mainly do a bunch of free legal education for service based businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly in the photography and wedding and event industry space, but definitely other types of online business owners as well. We have blogs and podcasts and youtubes and short form videos on every social media platform and I just dish out legal tips left and right. I love doing it. I was also a photographer back in the day. I was a photographer for over a decade. So I've kind of this unique way of being able to combine kind of the entrepreneurial world with the legal world. I have been a lawyer for nine years, which is crazy. I'm coming up on 10. I can't even believe I'm there. How am I that old? But I am. And yeah, we created the legal page in 2018. And so since then we just have loved doing what we do and helping all kinds of small business owners with the what if scenarios. What happens when I need XYZ with my client? What do I do with my contract? How do I set up my business the right way? I kind of felt like people were going down rabbit holes or googling too much or asking industry friends and they weren't giving the correct legal information. And so I just wanted to be a really good, trusted, sought after go to legal resource for everyone online. And that has is been what we've created. So yeah, that is who I am. I am also a mom now of two little kids. I have a three and a half year old and a 16 month old right now. And I live in Montana with my husband and my family and my, you know, immediate family as well. So we do a lot of outdoor recreation too.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it so much.

[Lindsay Roman]

We love having you in our back pocket and in just like this industry and you're incredible. So thank you for being on our show once more. So today we kind of said this, but we're gonna kind of popcorn questions from our audience that our audience members sent in. So I'm just gonna start us off with the first one. Paige, it says can you break down the legal differences between a nonprofit and a for profit business?

[Paige Griffith]

I really like this question because I've actually never gotten it before on a podcast.

[Lindsay Roman]

Let's go.

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah, and I think the reason being is because we all run for profit companies for the most part. Right. Like, but it was to me that people are really interested in what a nonprofit actually is. And so this is going to be really simple answer for you all. A for profit business. The main goal is to make profit for yourself and or any of the owners in your company. If you're like in a partnership or shareholders. Right. Any other large corporations that are for profit businesses as well, they're making profit for their shareholders. Your taxes as a for profit business are paid on your profits of your business. And a for profit business is owned by individuals or partners. You know, it can also be a corporation, like I said, a nonprofit. The main goal is to serve a public or charitable purpose. And profits usually have to be reinvested back into the mission of the nonprofit and they can't be paid out to owners. So you can have founders of that nonprofit on payroll. You see that with various like 501 C threes or similar kind of tax exempt statuses with the irs. So owners or founders of the of the nonprofit, like they can't just draw out money for no reason like a for profit company could. You do have to also apply for nonprofit tax exempt status. And so there is, you know, legal steps to get that accomplished. And then once you do, you do have a lot of good tax exemption there. But again you, there's a lot of regulations for nonprofits in terms of what you do with the Profit of that business and charitable contributions to your nonprofit company and yeah, strict compliance and reporting requirements. So nonprofit, it's pretty straightforward. It's not for profit. And hopefully that is the case with all nonprofits. And a for profit business is basically what all of us are doing or running as entrepreneurs. Listening to this episode.

[Evie McLeod]

I love this. Can you clarify? Because I. This is just something that I've seen in nonprofits, but could be confusing if people are like, oh, no one makes money. It's all volunteer. It's like, no. In a nonprofit, a lot of them have a salary for employees, for, you know, people, correct?

[Paige Griffith]

Oh, absolutely. Yep. All of the contributions and anything that's coming into the business. There's a ton of people on payroll that work for nonprofits. Yep.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah, but it's like that the, the profit of the business itself does not go to like an owner.

[Paige Griffith]

Correct. Yep. So same thing would apply. Say it's like a million dollar nonprofit. Just say, I don't know, whatever. They're netting a million dollars in charitable contributions every single year. They have a $500,000 payroll. The additional. So that's for founders. That's for any workers or volunteer. It wouldn't be a volunteer. Right. It would actually be someone on payroll. So there's a lot of volunteers that contribute to nonprofit work, but there's also a lot of people who are employed by the nonprofits. So Your payroll is 500,000. That additional 500,000 in net profit from charitable contributions. But it's just qualified as like, you know, profitable profit and loss statements. Those have to be reinvested back into the non profits. You can't just like pull that if you founded the non profit for yourself and your own.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

I love it.

[Evie McLeod]

I feel like that's one of those things that if you're not familiar with non profits, like I've heard people in the past be like, wait, the, the founder of the nonprofit takes like a, you know, a quarter of a million dollar salary every year or, you know, whatever. And it's like, you know, I don't want to get into the weeds of like you should take or not take. But it's also like, hey, if that's that person's full time job and they're not doing anything else because they're running this like charitable organization at the same time. It's like they, they got to put food on their table too. But it's a confusing thing that I think some people are like, no, everyone's a volunteer in a nonprofit. It's like not always. There's. There's salaries that happen in there, but it's the distinction between the profit versus just payroll expenses. So I love that. Amazing. Okay, the next question is, how would you approach contracts with clients who have TBD locations and TBD start times due to the weather?

[Paige Griffith]

Okay, so we're kind of probably talking, like, adventure photography world here, I would assume, or. I don't know, Sometimes it could be, like, a venue. What were you gonna say, Lindsay?

[Lindsay Roman]

I'm just confused by maybe the who. In what scenario would you have a TBD location?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah.

[Evie McLeod]

Is it me?

[Paige Griffith]

Is it.

[Lindsay Roman]

If you book a wedding client, think.

[Evie McLeod]

About, like, a family session.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh.

[Evie McLeod]

Like, I'm thinking of couple sessions, like, even locally, not even adventure, but like a family session. And you haven't determined the final location or the final start time, which is.

[Lindsay Roman]

I feel, like, actually pretty common.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah. Yeah, I do.

[Lindsay Roman]

Okay.

[Evie McLeod]

But I would also love. Maybe. Let's also answer this. The actual question of, like, this. But then I'm also curious of, like, what are your thoughts legally, if somebody did book a wedding or an adventure elopement or something, and there was a to be determined venue, which would probably be date? Like. Like, that could get a little tricky, but I kind of want to hear the answer.

[Paige Griffith]

Okay. Yeah. Our heads went in, like, five different places. Can you guys all agree that we are photographers and we're also educators in this space, and we've heard every scenario under the sun?

[Lindsay Roman]

We're like, wait, which scenario is this question talking about?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah. All right, so let's just take the base example from Evie, which is like, a family session that's probably in a certain vicinity, and that would happen more instances than not for a lot of us photographers in the portrait space. So you want to clearly state in your contract that the location, the exact location and start time are to be determined pending kind of weather conditions. But you always want to put in a perimeter that your services will be taking place. So within 50 miles of this specific location for family sessions, it's usually less, I would say. Sometimes people do 15 miles, 30 miles maximum within a very specific location. Sometimes it's a zip code. I will tell you guys, though, that there was a crazy horror story from a client that we received in the TLP community on Facebook, where a client was, like, just taking this photographer through everything, and they took the zip code that they had, and they went to, like, the farthest extent of that zip code.

[Lindsay Roman]

Why?

[Paige Griffith]

But, like, you know, like a perimeter of a zip code, and they were, like, in the middle. But it was like three extra miles or so, something like that. And they were like, yeah, but you said that you would go 30 miles within the zip code, which is like, yeah, that is exactly what we said. But like, why are you nitpicking this? But anyway, wow. So a lot of times I say, like, put an actual address down of like, hey, this is tentatively a location that we have chosen, but you are allowed to, you know, move that within 15 miles of that location free of charge and none of my travel fees will apply. And then you also want to make sure that you have a very solid travel fee clause in your portrait photography contract for start times tbd. This is actually where it gets tricky. And I don't recommend for like a portrait session to have a start time tbd. I would have it as concrete as possible for contractual purposes. And then you have really good language in there under an inclement weather clause and a potential rescheduling by client clause where they could reschedule four days out, seven days out. If you guys are looking at, you know, whether that could be upcoming and you guys are like, okay, we actually do just need to reschedule if they're able to do so voluntarily with no rescheduling fee applied because it's far enough in advance that would be covered under your contract. I don't like start times TBD in an actual contract for portrait photography because then the opportunity cost issue of like your retainer being paid, all of that is implicated there and you really haven't, like, it's just up in the air and what are they paying for? They're not really securing any date or any location on your calendar because it's tbd, you know what I mean? So you kind of, you want it to be as concrete as possible. I think location can have a little bit more of a TBD with a perimeter situation. Start time, keep it there. But you just want other clauses that there's a little bit of wiggle room for your clause clients. Under an inclement weather clause, though, your contract has to cover. Like if you are allowed to cancel for weather, like on your own as the photographer, you know that you've got gear and equipment and things. You and your, your safety right is at play as well and your client's safety too. Like there's liability and risk when there's, you know, massive, massive weather going on. And so when your risk meter is a little bit higher with that, you might be able to cancel within, you know, a 24 hour, 12 hour kind of time range. There wouldn't be a breach of contract situation, which is why you have that clause in your contract. And then just how reschedules will be handled. Usually when it's due to inclement weather, there's always a complimentary reschedule in most situations. And then any fees for last minute changes. So say it's like sprinkling. Let's just talk rain here. I call that like not inclement weather. I call that just weather that, that people are not like, we're getting the perfect golden hour situation. And they need to know that that's kind of a risk that they're taking when they're booking something in whatever location you're in. I'm in Montana, like I said. So we have this all the time. I cannot guarantee a golden hour. I can try to coach you into a good time of year that a golden hour would most likely be present. But if they decide to voluntarily change day of and they're like, hey, you know, it's two hours before the session or something, and they're like, I would rather move to because it looks like it's going to have better lighting and I'm going to get that golden hour. I would say, okay, absolutely. But here is, you know, my rescheduling fee that would apply in that situation because I've had this on my calendar and my date. So hopefully that answers your question for portrait photography.

[Evie McLeod]

It did. I have a follow up really quick.

[Lindsay Roman]

Well, before you follow up, I'm realizing I've never once had a client like, be it be their choice to reschedule because of weather. And I'm just wondering if that was because for the majority of the career that I've done, I've been in Hawaii and people were on vacation and like, so it's like that that's already different. And it also, I feel like for the style that I was really in at the time was very adventurous and I was very much like, embrace the rain and the wind. Anyways, sorry. Sidebar. Continue. Yeah, I just, as she was talking, I'm like, wait, I've never had a client.

[Evie McLeod]

Well, I also think I'm like, I have rescheduled like a session with a couple before, but a lot of times too, I commute like it's. I'm. I'm willing to take that, like reschedule with them because I'm like, you know.

[Lindsay Roman]

Photos will be better.

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah.

[Evie McLeod]

Well, here's the vibe. If we go with the rain tonight, like, it's usually like, it's poor. It's Gonna be drenched, like downpouring, which is a vibe. But if my couple's like, that's not the vibe we want. Usually I'm the photographer. Like, at least my schedule's at the point where, like, I don't book out every night of the week or whatever. So I'm like, I can move you, like, two days down the road for better weather for you, for better experience. Like, so I'm like, I wouldn't do the rescheduling fee, but that's also. I. I have it in my contract that I can. I just. I'm usually like the photographer that. I've had it happen a couple times where, like, they've kind of wanted to reschedule and I've been totally fine with it.

[Lindsay Roman]

But that's great.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah. I feel like it's your choice as the photographer. You want to also have the legal backup to be like, hey, if they're literally being like, there's three clouds in the sky, I want to move it.

[Lindsay Roman]

I really wanted to go on an hour.

[Evie McLeod]

I really wanted clear blue skies and I see a fluffy, like, white one up there. It's like, okay, we gotta talk about.

[Paige Griffith]

Why you have your base contract. Right. Because you're always going to get those client situations that you just know they're just trying to take you for a ride a little bit.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

And that. That's when you would, you know, go back and enforce your contract as well. And a lot of us know, too, that just because it's bad weather right now doesn't mean it's not going to be really good weather in two hours. So can you just hold out with us? But it's also the opportunity cost that you booked them on that day and that evening, and you said no to probably other clients who could have booked you on that day because you had it crossed off on your calendar. The same thing applies for portrait sessions that it does for weddings and events. And I want portrait photographers to really feel empowered to be able to state that that's their business policy. And that's why it's there for a reason.

[Evie McLeod]

I love that.

[Lindsay Roman]

Did you want to ask the wedding one?

[Evie McLeod]

Well, I have a follow up to the portraits first.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, okay. Sidebarring.

[Evie McLeod]

So, Paige, you said we're talking about TBD start times, and you said something about, like, you have to have a start time in your contract.

[Lindsay Roman]

Like.

[Evie McLeod]

Like, it can start to get tricky without it because then you're. They're not really securing a date or time. I just wanted to clarify, are you saying, like, There should not only be a date on the calendar, but there should also be like, hey, it's Wednesday, you know, November 15th at from 5 to 6pm like it should be like the exact hour. Is that what you're saying? By start time?

[Paige Griffith]

I would, yeah, I would be like.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm like, do I do that in my contracts?

[Lindsay Roman]

I 100% don't do that.

[Paige Griffith]

I, I would.

[Evie McLeod]

Taking, not.

[Paige Griffith]

I would, yeah. I've just seen too many instances. Clients are getting smarter and I think we all know it. Like everyone has laser beam focus on contracts and if they're trying to get out of a contract and trying to get a full refund situation, like how are you able to say that you were actually like securing that specific time frame on your calendar for them whereby you said no to other clients? Like usually that's why you're booking the non refundable retainer even for a portrait session. Otherwise you're going to be in a situation where yeah, you, you, you just lost out on money for that particular time period on your calendar. You're never going to get it back. And you're probably in like, yeah, you need to transfer those fees paid to something else and reschedule and all of that. So then a lot of your contract is a little bit waived. There's certain provisions that are waived there when you're doing that. I would recommend it if, if at all ask them, do you want a sunrise session? Do you want. Right.

[Lindsay Roman]

You know, which I feel like usually.

[Paige Griffith]

That part at least a time, time frame, right? Yeah, yeah, at minimum.

[Lindsay Roman]

Okay, well and that makes it because I feel like usually for me the conversation of like the specific time usually doesn't happen until like two weeks before the session. But we, we've established sunrise or sunset. It's never like you got me all day, right.

[Evie McLeod]

When I think, sometimes I like I'm thinking through it and I'm like sometimes it depends on the location because like if we're going on a hike up into, you know, a mountain or like we're on a beach where like, you know, it's that, that is different in a canyon where the sunset time might be, you know, like seven, but realistically it's going to go behind the mountains at, you know, X time. So like sometimes it also depends on location. So if that's still being determined and finalized, that affects the timing. So I'm like, do I have exact window of time on every single contract? No. So I'm being taught, okay guys, if.

[Lindsay Roman]

You don't know this, if you don't know this. You can go to Google and you can literally put in the date, the location and say sunset and it will tell you the exact sunset time or sunrise. Yeah, everyone knew that was it.

[Paige Griffith]

Again, put in at least parameters. I just want you to put in parameters. So if it's a sunrise session and that's a part of your package, like that's the one that they're booking, that's what you need to put in your contract.

[Lindsay Roman]

Okay, we will.

[Paige Griffith]

If things were to get changed, like, you can as a photographer, book a sunrise and a sunset session in the same day and probably a midday session if you choose to do that. Yeah, right. But if they're booking your sunrise time, you're not going to book anyone else during.

[Lindsay Roman]

Right.

[Paige Griffith]

Sunrise time. So that's what I'm saying here on where clients are starting to be like, well, does it even matter? Can't I just move this? Can't I get a refund? I just don't want you in those situations. So I'm trying to help you proactively.

[Lindsay Roman]

Prevent that, especially if you are booking multiple sessions per day. Wow, that's okay. Yes. Let's ask the question about if somebody, I have opinions on this, but I would love your opinions on this. If somebody's booking a wedding or an elopement or like basically an event. So not, not portrait session, but like a, let's just say a wedding for now. If someone's booking you a wedding and they're like, I love you, you're my photographer, whatever, for some reason they're booking the photographer before the venue, I. E. They probably don't have a date yet. In my opinion, don't let them book you without a date. But I would love your formal opinion of like, if, basically like the kind of, the second question that we said from this question of if she's referring to a wedding where you're booking them without a wedding date present.

[Paige Griffith]

Thoughts? It's so hard contractually to do that. I mean, in my mind I'm going 15 different places right now. Like, if someone was pressuring me to write this contract, I, I, my answer is exactly what Lindsay's is. Don't do that. Like, I need a date in order to secure services to have that contract be as valid as freaking possible. But if someone was pressuring me to do this, you still, I'm going to go back to the word parameters, like maybe a two week period of time that they're trying to secure venues. So they might be able to do this Saturday, this Saturday or this Saturday. And you can at least put that in documentation format, because if they go outside the confines of that and they've already paid you for something, but now you're not available on that other date, you're really looking at a full refund situation. So, I mean, I'm just going to all of the different possibilities here, and I just don't like it. I always, always tell people, please just try to put a date on your calendar. Or just be like, I need you to go book the venue first and then come back to me. And I will try to keep that date open on my calendar. I will let you know if someone else is inquiring on that date. You are. You know, you will have first right of refusal, more or less, to be able to sign that contract. I think there's various ways to go about it from a photographer's perspective, but I really need them to have at least a date locked down in order for my contract. Contract. And I would. I mean, I'm thinking through, like, 10 clauses right now that are implicated if you don't have a date. So that's best legal practice. Yes. I think there's maybe some adventure photographers who do things a little bit differently. And I don't know, maybe you guys have some insight from your community on maybe what they do that I'm not sure of.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm trying to think, like, from the community.

[Lindsay Roman]

No, because even if it's an elopement, in my opinion, it still needs to.

[Evie McLeod]

Usually I've had some elopements where it's like, when they've booked me, they haven't been sure if they're doing it on Friday or Saturday, depending on the permit for the national park, or like, something like that. And I'll like some. I'll put. Usually, like, I have done it a couple times where I've put two dates on the calendar to secure or one. And I've been like, if we move it to the second date, like, I'm already gonna be there. I'm just gonna wait until, like, I'll book travel based on. I won't fly out on Saturday, if you might shift it to Saturday, but I'm gonna put at least the Friday on the calendar. And if it moves to Saturday. I got you, girl. We'll shift that. Because I'm not gonna. It'll be a travel day for me either way. So I've done that a couple of times. So I'm like. I've seen that happen. But usually it's when they're booking out.

[Paige Griffith]

So Far.

[Evie McLeod]

And they're still finalizing, like, the exact permitting or. Yeah, the final location. I have booked a wedding once, which Paige is probably going to cringe. Where. Where they were finalizing their venue, but they knew for a fact they wanted me, and we put a date on the contract. And then I told them, like, and.

[Lindsay Roman]

I put this in the contract, too, but no location.

[Evie McLeod]

I had a date. There was no location yet. And I told them I did put this in the contract. I was like, you have flexibility to move this date within X window of time. And I, like, put that parameter. And I was like, and. But I need to know if this date is moving within X window of time. So there was, like, parameters of, like, we can't. I can possibly reset schedule. It depends on my availability. This is held for you, but I cannot guarantee another date. But you could move it within this parameter if absolutely necessary, based on the final venue you book. But that has to be notified within X parameter. So there were, like, parameters put in. And it was definitely one of those that I was like, I am bending legal rules for this, but it is a dream client, and they, like, want me and I want them, and so I'll do it. But it's. I would agree with you of, like, that it's not. It's not the ideal scenario. Like, I would. Nine times out of ten, rather, my clients, like, go book your venue and then come back. Don't. Let's not do this. This deciding thing. Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

Yep. Yeah. You guys answered those perfectly. I mean, there's various ways to go about it for business purposes and, like, wiggle room that you can give your clients. But just remember, from a legal standpoint, I'm going to answer this in terms of, like, how to make sure that your contract is as locked down as possible and rock solid, and that that's what I'm here for. And then you can decide how much you want to actually enforce your contract. Your willingness to enforce your contract, and I say this all the time, like, your contract is only as good as your willingness to enforce it.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

So in every situation, you know, she was wanting to enforce her contract as much as possible. She was putting very specific parameters around it. She probably had to change or modify a couple clauses in her contract. And she was looking at that because her risk meter was a little bit higher without them actually having a venue in place or a date in place at that point. But she was also trying to protect herself. You know, she didn't want them to be able to be like, okay, well, now you need to do it a month later.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

And she's like wait, what? Like that's not what we agreed to. She's putting everything in writing as much as possible with written documentation format. So yeah, I. I don't love what you did, but I think that you but I think you did it as best you could to ensure that your contract was as tip top shape as it could be. Even though there might have been a couple instances where maybe like one or two sentences would be invalid.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, totally. Is your workflow for your clients. All over the freaking place is stuff falling through the cracks and you feel so overwhelmed trying to stay on top of client communication. Don't worry, we have all been there. If that is you, you have to hear about the best investment we have ever made into our businesses. Honeybook a client relationship management software. It is an all in one project management tool that is designed specifically for creative entrepreneurs.

[Lindsay Roman]

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[Evie McLeod]

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[Lindsay Roman]

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[Evie McLeod]

Hello, I wanted to interrupt this episode really quick to remind you that we have an apparel shop with heart filled pieces.

[Paige Griffith]

See what we did there that we.

[Evie McLeod]

Have designed with you in mind.

[Lindsay Roman]

In the shop we've got T shirts, crop tops, sweatshirts, mugs, hats and more. All created with comfy and cute designs that you can rock in your everyday life.

[Evie McLeod]

This collection is for you if you love the show and want to share it with your friends in a cool way. Or if you want to wear something cute as heck that was intentionally designed with powerful phrases to remind you that you can do it. You were made to be a world changer and that the Lord created you. Wildly capable of being big freaking things now.

[Lindsay Roman]

OB this is a podcast and we can't show you how cute as heck these pieces are on the show. So run, don't walk to the Heart shop to check out our apparel and more. You can head to www.theheartuniversity.com apparel to grab your favorite pieces today.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Okay, I have the next question here.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm.

[Lindsay Roman]

I'm going to read this so I don't mess it up. Okay. How would you go about contracts with other companies hiring you to do work for their clients?

[Paige Griffith]

Clients.

[Lindsay Roman]

Example wedding planners hiring your clients and not wanting to have the clients sign multiple contracts as well as other companies hiring you to do a service service for their clients because they are hired as full service that outsource for certain things.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm so confused by that.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah, yeah, hold on. That's why I was like, let me. Because I like pre read this.

[Paige Griffith]

But realizing I, I can, I can go. I know.

[Evie McLeod]

Okay.

[Lindsay Roman]

Can you like dumb it down for us and the list listeners?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah. So there is various situations that could occur here where people are trying to either do all inclusive packages or have someone underneath them where they only have to sign like one contract. Let's take wedding planners for example. I know this is becoming a thing with like full service wedding planners that are doing it. I don't agree with it from a legal standpoint and I'm just gonna like this is gonna be the hill that I stand on because it's setting wedding planners up for failure because they're now liable for all of these other vendors actions. And then I was thinking about this also in terms of wait, what vendors are we talking about here? Because I understand like maybe a dj, maybe a florist, maybe a baker, maybe a caterer, like maybe. And I'm saying maybe very cautiously, you can tell here because a lot of times those aren't implicated things that need to be delivered after and model releases. So with photographers and videographers it gets so nuanced in terms of clients have to sign those contracts from you if you want full privileges and rights underneath it concerning model relations, marketing and advertising. I know that's a question that's probably coming up here, but just you need to think through all of that. Even if it sounds like the best case scenario, you have a really good relationship with this planner. They're trying to do all these inclusive packages. Packages. If your clients aren't signing your contract and the wedding planner is like, you have a big issue here with like probably half of your photography contract because half of that is pertaining to the client specifically. And not the planner. Yeah, but what I'm saying here is like a dj, I guess it. It kind of makes sense. Like if the wedding planner is their proxy and really the DJ is only dealing with the planner at the event. I get that. The. My risk meter is a little lower there.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah. So it's like services that deal more so with the client and with del.

[Evie McLeod]

Deliverables after.

[Paige Griffith]

Yes, exactly.

[Lindsay Roman]

Is that a thing though? Like that that planners are out here doing full service and then hiring photographers for the couple?

[Paige Griffith]

Yes, all the time. All the time. It's happening way more obviously. I think we've seen this for decades in like the celebrity space. And when they're actually like a power of attorney for the clients and the clients aren't signing anything, that's a. That's a totally different ball game. Right. But for whatever reason, there's more and more like all inclusive packages and vendors are all trying to work together. So that's my answer there. The other scenario that I was thinking of when you were asking this question is like photographers, videographers, content creators, all working together under one package. And I see that becoming more and more of a thing. I understand why. And in that situation, like you are still getting kind of all of the things that you need to get from your clients in terms of model releases, them signing off on intellectual property surrounding all of those various assets that would be delivered after the fact. But you are taking on a lot of liability. If you are hiring a contractor like a videographer, that is another business to work under yours, you're taking on all that liability. If you want to do that, cool. I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying it's pretty risky. And a contractor creator, though, is a different situation. I think that's happening a lot now where the liability is actually kind of low. In that situation, they're kind of just like an offshoot from you as a photographer or a videographer, and you just can't provide all of those services to the utmost of your ability. I think some people do. Right. Like there's all kinds of new contraptions now where you can give them a lot of content as a photographer and put your phone up on your camera and all that. I'm seeing all kinds of cool things on TikTok, but you know, I. If they want to hire a content creator, but you have a really good relationship with them and now you want to have that as an all inclusive package, please just make sure that you have a really solid independent contractor agreement with that Content creator.

[Lindsay Roman]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

And you're really explaining like what their roles are, what your roles are, what they are responsible for, what you are not responsible for. Make sure they have their own insurance because they are an independent contractor, otherwise they're basically an employee for your business. And then you're getting into a whole host of other situations when you're bringing people underneath your business. So I just also wanted to put that out there. And you know, I think us three could just talk about that situation for hours. But. But it's happening and it's happening more and more now. And I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying be very legally protected when doing so.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, yeah, somebody. I think the follow up was to that was do you have contract clauses we can purchase for this case?

[Lindsay Roman]

Like for. I think if you're like a wedding planner situation where you're trying to have all inclusive and adding on all of those clauses for all the.

[Evie McLeod]

Is that what I think so. Or even let's say for the last scenario where you're like, hey, I'm a photographer, but I'm trying to bring a content creator in to. As a package. Like even that.

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah, I don't have the wedding planner one. Mainly because I legally just. I don't think it's a good idea. And it's, it's so specific of a contract. How could I have a template that would amount to like the full breadth at every planner and every scenario that they would need? So I would just say go get that written by an attorney in your state that can really understand what you're trying to do and make sure that all of your risks and liabilities are really assessed. What I do have though is the independent contractor relationship stuff. So if you're subcontracting out services, you definitely want to add a clause like that in your contract of some sort. This also goes for like associates. Right. You want to add in associate clauses because you are subcontracting out services for that. Um, so yes, you want to make sure that all of those are in your client contract, that you are having additional contracts with assistance or associates or subcontractors to do XYZ services. But it will all still fall under your business. All communication will be through your business, you know, all deliverables will be through your business, so on and so forth. So you just have to flesh that out in your contract.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Okay, perfect. The next question we have, why do we need terms pages on. Or a term. Sorry, why do we need a terms page? On our website. Second question, do we actually need it in the first place? That's kind of the same question, but yeah. Okay.

[Paige Griffith]

Okay. Two different things going on here. A website terms and conditions page and a privacy policy page. And I think people get confused on what those two are. So we need to explain that and define those website terms and conditions is basically how users can use your website. There's copyright disclaimers, trademark disclaimers, refund policies. If you have like digital products on your website, things along those lines. It's how users can utilize your website. Best legal practice is absolutely you want to have them. This is for plagiarism purposes. This is for a whole host of other reasons that you would want them on there. That's your written documentation and proof that the users have agreed to your terms and conditions. When scrolling through your website, it yeah, it protects everything. Your content, your, you know, your logos, your designs, your copy images, those types of things. And this is going to be linked in the bottom footer of your website. What I think they're actually. And it's not legally required. I need to state that that is not legally required. Just best legal practice to have it. What is legally required that they're probably alluding to here is a privacy policy. Evie, you lived in California, so you know, you know California has one of the most strict privacy policy laws throughout the entire United States. It' a trickle down effect to various other states having and coming up with more and more privacy laws. And we also know that the GDPR exists too in Europe, General data protection regulation. So all of that to say people care about their privacy and personal information being disseminated on the Internet, you are legally required to have a privacy policy. Really if you're doing anything with getting people's personal information. And what I see most often is people aren't doing it correctly because they just don't think they have a newsletter sign up or they're not getting people's credit card information on their website or whatever it is. If you have a contact form, you're getting people's personal information, you need a privacy policy. If you have Google Analytics on your website and attached to it, you're legally required to have a privacy policy. If you are doing Facebook pixels and ads or doing anything along those lines, Meta ads like you have to have a privacy policy on your website and that is a separate legal document. You guys, if you go to the bottom footer of any website, you're going to see TNCs and you're going to see a privacy policy A privacy policy is the who, what, when, where, why of like who you're getting information from, what you're doing with it, how you are using it and when can they retract you having their personal information and take it back. So can people opt out? How can they opt out? How this all works, what cookies you have on your website? Like there it is, a long, long legal doc. Don't try to write it yourself, but both of those need to be in the bottom footer of your website.

[Evie McLeod]

Great, fantastic. Follow up question. Do you have templates for those?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah, it's definitely one of our most purchased templates. It's a bundle. It comes with website terms and conditions and a privacy policy. We update it all of the time. So just know any purchase you get from it from us at the legal page comes with future updates. And that's one of those that's like you best get it from an online reputable legal source because laws are changing all the time and those types of things might need to be upd. Like at the bottom of a privacy policy. We change those all of the time depending on what laws are coming out.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Perfect.

[Evie McLeod]

Just, just did a rebrand and a new website and I'm like, I think I forgot a terms and conditions page. Like add to do list.

[Paige Griffith]

I love it.

[Evie McLeod]

Okay. This kind of, I guess kind of ties in with that.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, it definitely does.

[Evie McLeod]

This question said, as long as we have an AI disclosure on our terms and conditions page, is it legal to use ChatGPT for creating website co? Do we need to be concerned about accidentally, accidentally plagiarizing? If so, how can we double check the copy we create using ChatGPT against other websites to make sure it doesn't happen again?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah. Okay. So at the legal page, we love AI as much as everyone else. I think it's a great tool for like quickly generating quality, ish content. And I say ish because you have to have that human component there. Legally speaking, if you use it like 100% without touching it, it is 100% AI generated content. You've made no changes. You don't own the copyright to it whatsoever. Like you would not own the copyright to your entire website. So just know that. And then the second thing here that people are really asking is like, how legit is AI? And there's a lot of problems with it. Right. The output that you're only going to get is as good as the, you know, what you're actually putting into it and the prompts you're putting into it According the US Copyright Office, it has to, in order for you to own any portion of that work, whether it's an image that we're putting through various AI platforms and culling and you know, any AI editing platforms as well, whether that's ChatGPT, writing copy for your website, you have to have a human touch on it. And the, the legal phrasing is largely human created. So that's annoying because it's, it's, that's very gray ambiguous and it's like nebul. It depends. But what I take from that is like majorly human created. So the input you were giving it was human created. The output was then reviewed by a human, was tweaked by a human, and you had the final say of whatever that work was, whether that's a blog post, that's a copyrighted work on your website, whether that's an image that you're giving to a client, the composition, you taking it, all of that. And then there's various AI components to you getting that final image to your client, but you had the final touch on all images, images, something else to be aware of. So back to the original question is, you know, I always suggest, take the AI generated content, customize it, modify it. You don't want to use it exactly how it is. AI is hallucinating like crazy right now, so be very aware of that. It's regurgitating like actual false information. So don't take it as 100% true. I was just in an AI group. I am very, very into this right now for legality purposes because I'm just seeing all kinds of issues with it. And the courts are going to have to, they're going to be behind. Right? Anything that goes through litigation is going to take years. But we're all, we're all in a trust recession. We're all like a little bit skeptical of AI right now anyway. So you need a disclosure on your website. And that's exactly right, what this person said. An AI disclaimer clause. If you're using AI at all for website purposes, I suggest you have an AI disclaimer clause. We have one. It's super robust. We've tweaked it a few, few times as things have changed in the AI landscape. And it's just one that you copy and paste and add to your website terms and conditions. The other thing people may not know is if you are using AI pretty heavily in your workflows and systems, I would suggest that you also put it in your client contract. It's Just an AI disclaimer clause. It creates that trust, professionalism, utmost communication with your clients on, like, what you're doing, but knowing that you are the human behind this business. And it's not all these AI robots that are finalizing everything for them. And that's good for, you know, copywriters, graphic designers, website designers, photographers, and videographers too.

[Evie McLeod]

I love that AI in the legal world is definitely scary. So I'm very thankful to have.

[Lindsay Roman]

I was like, that's like a whole new ball game of. Of culture shifting that. That deals with legality. So intimate, ultimately that, like, how is that.

[Paige Griffith]

Protection nightmare?

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

And I am very concerned about it, and I'm just trying. I. I'm going on every podcast I can talking about AI disclaiming right now. I think it's best practice. It hasn't been, like, you know, like, a hard stance from judges and courts and, you know, governments saying, like, you have to do this. Except there are some that are coming out now. Yeah, there's like a Utah law came out. I think Californ came out with one. Another one on the West Coast. I think it was like, Pennsylvania or Massachusetts. And governments are saying, like, this is massively violating consumer protection. There's a lot of deception here and deceit and, like, what's actually going on? Is this business actually who they're. They say they are? What about chat bots and, like, customer service bots and, like, are you actually getting the correct answer? Is it hallucinating what's going on? Like, I just first see this in the legal world is very much like, what's going on? How can we be at the forefront of this and, you know, keep our. Keep our eye on this and make sure that our clients are protected as much as they can be right now. So I just say disclaim everything. I'll make sure you guys have this so you can put it in the show notes. You guys, these are really, really easy, tiny little paragraph clauses that you can put in your terms and conditions and your client contracts. And I just suggest you do it right now. It. You know, your. Your clients will think, thank you for it.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it. No, this is so good.

[Lindsay Roman]

Well, thinking about specifically the photography industry with AI, is that kind of the recommendation, like, however you're using it, whether you're using AI in some capacity for copy, whether it's like Instagram captions or even copy on your website, and obviously you're tweaking it like you said, or you're using AI editing tools, or you're even Using like Photoshop to. To, you know, remove like a post. And obviously people do more aggressive things like add mountains in the middle of, you know, Kansas or something like that.

[Evie McLeod]

But.

[Lindsay Roman]

But I feel like. I don't know because it's. Well, it's Photoshop and even I feel like Lightroom, I don't know if that cons is considered AI kind like the, the tool in Lightroom now that, I.

[Evie McLeod]

Mean, it says AI.

[Lindsay Roman]

So I mean, yeah, it's like the content or what is it? Generative.

[Evie McLeod]

Generative AI where it's like, it's like.

[Lindsay Roman]

It's like a shortcut way basically now to like, remove something that you don't want. Like, say that there was like a dude in the background of your shot and you're just like, oh, normally I would have pulled that into Photoshop and done it like the hard way. Or I would have like sat there on Lightroom and fiddled with the bad. Like, what's that? What was it before?

[Evie McLeod]

Clone or.

[Lindsay Roman]

Clone. Yeah, yeah, clone or whatever. But now it's like, you can do the generative AI for anything in the photography industry that you're using AI, whether it's like all those examples that I just mentioned. Would the AI clause in both contract and terms and conditions apply for all those things?

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah, absolutely. And it's all about the copyrighted ownership of those works. This is particularly true for, like, brand photography too, because you probably are using the AI tool in various ways. Perhaps, like you're doing a brand shoot and you need to clone, you need to AI generate, clone, whatever out an exit sign or something. I just did this for a client and then I realized, okay, like, how much of this photograph did I use AI on and change things up? And I need to disclose that to my client just in case she goes and submits that for copyright registration. She has to disclose that AI was a part of that image or her website or whatever. You have to disclose, disclose it to the U.S. copyright Office. And then you have to say that it was still largely human created. Because if they have any disclosure issues and they run it through their meta or whatever they do, I mean, it's the federal government who knows what they're doing. But, like, they may not. They're very bureaucratic. But if, yeah, you just don't want to get caught in a situation where then you're implicated in liability is on the line for using AI in any capacity. The other thing is, is the toggling on and off. We didn't really touch on the plagiarism. Thing. I'm sorry, I didn't, I didn't answer that question. I mean there's tons of plagiarism platforms out there, so just go find one, just Google it. And you can like put, you can put your generated output from Chat GPT in it and you can basically go see where it pulled it from. That's what, that's all it's doing is pulling from the Internet. And if it's pulling an exact word for word thing from another website. Yeah, you've probably plagiarized it. Yeah, usually it's like a culmination of every everything and it's putting lots of various things together as long as you're prompting it correctly. And it's, it's also taking from your prompt as well, which is your human input, which is good. But be very aware of plagiarism, be very aware of hallucinating, and be very aware of toggling. So Chat GPT I believe has the automatic toggle on and the toggle is in the settings. That means that it will use whatever you're inputting in your whole platform to trans train its AI platform.

[Evie McLeod]

Oh, that's what I was gonna ask next.

[Paige Griffith]

You're answering my question off that. It's just for your use and it's not training the model. And we had this whole thing with like Adobe last year that was like kind of changing their terms and conditions. And I've, you know, you guys can go back to my legally legit podcast episodes on that if you want to learn more on what happened there and how they're like whole legal department had to basically come forward. It was crazy. They had like from their head of legal that talked people through, then how they rearrange their terms and conditions because people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're training your models on everything. Like, how is this even legal? Like I haven't, my model releases don't cover that. What about my clients privacy? Like there was so many issues surrounding it and they kind of backed off and they were like, no, no, no, it's not training. But you guys just take it from me, I have been in enough continuing learning education classes with AI. I have been in enough large mastermind conversations with people who are basically the biggest educators in AI and they're all saying be super, super skeptical and leery.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

Like even if it's saying it's not training it, like how is it getting trained? How is it getting better? And so just be aware of it. I think like Claude, that's a good copywriting App. I think that one's a toggle off immediately. So you have to toggle it on. I could be wrong here. I'm sure there's AI people that are like, Paige, you're totally wrong there. Just be aware that you need to go into your settings of whatever platform you're using and probably toggle it off for privacy, purp that it's not training it, and then just be really skeptical, which is why I just say disclaim, disclaim, disclaim that you're using AI. It's best practice for you and kind of pushes that liability and risk off of you at least a little bit.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, perfect. And adjust, adjust, adjust. Like if you're getting copy, like, adjust.

[Paige Griffith]

Adjust, adjust, tweak it.

[Lindsay Roman]

Don't just copy, paste it straight from. Yeah.

[Paige Griffith]

Yes.

[Evie McLeod]

Well, yeah, that was. I'm so glad you answered that because that was one of my next questions is I was like, I feel like I'm a little more aware of, hey, as a, a user of AI, like when I get copy, you know, pull pulled back at me. Like, I'm going to, I know to like rewrite and tweak and put it into my own voice or like, whatever. So like, that is something that I feel like, oh, I kind of understand that. But the thing that has always concerned me is I'm like, well, how do I make sure this copy that on my website that I have like, spent so much time, I literally like, like, did not use chat GPT at all for my website copy because I was like, I want it to be from me. I want it to be purely from my brain, like all of this. And I'm like, how do I protect my copy that I spent hours and hours and hours upon from, you know, chat GPT pulling from and all these people, like, who knows what other photographers could be using? Because years ago, I think we've talked about this page as like friends in the industry. But like, I can't tell you the amount of like, plagiarism like Lindsay and I have had on our websites. Like the amount of people who have direct word for word copied our website. And it's. It was such a different, like when I really like, was aware and paying attention. I. I know it still happens now. I just now kind of whatever. It just happens. And I'm like, I'm not gonna fight every single person under the sun. But when I was like finding out and seeing this for the first time, like years ago and I was starting to send like some, like I was reaching out to People and just being like, hey, I noticed this is exactly like copy and paste. Like my, you know, website know was sending basically cease and assists and like, please remove this. This is copyrighted. It was such a different ball game. I'm like, if I think about doing that now with AI, oh my. Like, that just feels like they could.

[Lindsay Roman]

Be like, oh, I just got it from AI.

[Evie McLeod]

That just feels like a crap show. Like, how do you. Do you have any legal thoughts on that page from like, that perspective? Like, if you notice somebody has plagiarized something from your website, from, you know, Instagram content, anything, Anything like that? Like, how do you. Or a podcast episode? Like, do you have any thoughts of the perspective of like, I feel like there's a copyright infringement, but I know that AI might have done something like, how do I handle this as a creator?

[Paige Griffith]

Well, it doesn't matter if AI was a part of it. AI is disclaiming that they have no liability there. You see it at the bottom of every time you go into chat gbt, they're like, AI can get this wrong. Just be aware. Like, it's on you and it's your duty to like go make sure that this isn't plagiarized from something. I mean, their, their models are really, in terms of. They're not going to word for word copy someone on a website. But I've heard that it has happened in like a majority of the blog post or something along those lines. But yeah, it's on them. It's on you to check that it's not. Put it through a plagiarism platform and make sure that it didn't take it from your favorite elopement photographer or something like that, you know, and the best that you can do now is to make sure that it is as much as possible written from you and as much as possible done from you and copyrighted by you. Because plagiarism still plagiarism infringement is still infringement. You can still send cease and desist and people do it all the time. So just because AI is involved in that doesn't mean that that person isn't liable.

[Evie McLeod]

That's so good. That's helpful. I'm like, I should, I should double check, run, run my website copy through plagiarisms again. Because I got so discouraged.

[Lindsay Roman]

It's a fun time.

[Evie McLeod]

It is a fun time, but it's also so discouraging.

[Lindsay Roman]

Like, I start running up my list.

[Evie McLeod]

Yeah, it's so freaking. I literally had people who were past. I mean, like, they had trust built with Me and I reached out and was like, hey, you know, had a conversation. And then that person literally was so like upset that I dared call them out on it. I don't understand their perspective. I don't know if they felt hurt. They were like upset. Oh yeah. They like full blown, like unfollowed, never talked.

[Lindsay Roman]

I'd be like, honey, I was like.

[Evie McLeod]

I'm, I'm not attacking you. This is an exact copy replication, the brain branding this.

[Lindsay Roman]

It's not attacking to pull out the truth of what is the situation.

[Evie McLeod]

But it kind of discouraged me from like continuing to like really proactively protect my website copy because I was like, I'm not trying to be a B. Like, I'm not trying to destroy your life and business. I want you to succeed. But like, let's say you will succeed.

[Lindsay Roman]

If you own who you are and be authentic.

[Evie McLeod]

Now I'm like, maybe I should be a little more proactive on this again, you know, I.

[Paige Griffith]

This is, this is a really good way to kind of end this because. No, and I'm saying I didn't mean to like end this episode. No, no. I meant to be like, let's have this conversation in two or three years. Honestly, like, the AI landscape, it's still new. It's a little more robust than it was during our last conversation. And it's like, well, what is going to happen? I'm still, you know, fighting for people's intellectual property on their websites with, you know, image usage, any, any, anything and everything online with copyright infringement. But AI could change the game here and I think we're all looking at that as intellectual property lawyers and like, what, what would be the case if these AI models get so much better in two or three years? Can you start sending C&C and DS? Do they even mean anything anymore? Are people actually going to, you know, like, bow down to them like they do now? Or is it just like, people don't care and it doesn't even matter, like, go follow suit, you're not even going to win kind of thing. I don't know. I don't know what that's to look like. I think we're going to need some precedent behind that. But yeah, it was a wild west.

[Evie McLeod]

It's scary. It's why, it's why, like, I went to write my website copy and I was like, I am doing this from my brain. I don't, I don't want, especially for something that big. Like, yeah, I might ask ChatGPT a question of like, hey, how do I recover this file and like, you know, pull some information for me, that's fine. But like my brand, like branding my brand, copy my message that I'm communicating to my, my clients. I'm sorry, but I'm like, that's, that's. I want that from my brain. I will work my ass off for that. But like I want that from me 100%. But it scares me though because I'm like, I can make that choice myself. But is Chat GPT pulling that for other people? Because that pisses me off.

[Paige Griffith]

They're pulling portions of it. Yeah. If it's on the Internet and it's open for public viewing, it's open for all AI models. I feel like we can, like your clients can see right through it. Like people can see right through, right through it. Students can see right through it. If you're an educator, like if it's not actually truthful and coming from you and it's just a regurgitation, that's I would say like pretty poor from an AI platform. People can tell. People can totally tell. And if you're not good at AI and training it and understanding the back end and knowledge base of AI and what you can put into it, you're just going to get like the same old, same generated content that everyone else is getting and getting. All of your EM dashes, all of your emojis, all of your, there's a paragraph of words that they just keep saying over and over again. People can know, they'll see right through it. And so just don't do that. Like we're not, you know, the, the trust issue nowadays with AI coming into play and just what's happened with the landscape of the online world for the past like five years with so many people coming into it and are they legitimate and it doesn't matter what kind of service based provider you are. Like you have to show your clients that you are a professional, can trust you and you know, utilize AI cautiously. Tread lightly.

[Lindsay Roman]

We love that.

[Evie McLeod]

I love.

[Lindsay Roman]

That's a perfect end. Thank you so much Paige for being here, for answering our audience's questions and our listeners questions. I feel like we, yeah, we bounced all over the place.

[Evie McLeod]

We nailed it. Paige, you are amazing. Thank you for being just a wealth of knowledge and information and giving us so much of your time over all of these years and just sharing your wisdom with our community. We are blessed by it. I have some tweaks I need to make to my own same stuff now yet again and I know our audience is blessed by it too. So thank you so much.

[Paige Griffith]

Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. And I'm always, always here to help.

[Lindsay Roman]

Oh, wait, real fast before you leave, where can everyone find you? Listen to your podcast, shop your contracts. Plug yourself.

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah, so I'm the legal page.com that's P A I G E. It's a play off my name and yes, it is trademarked, so don't come for it. I just, I had to plug that anyway. Yeah, the legal page on Instagram, the legal page on. The legal page on TikTok. The legal page on YouTube. I don't, I don't hide it. And you guys can find us at the legal page community on Facebook too. We have a private Facebook group of over 10,000 entrepreneurs. And then myself and my legal team monitor that group. So it's a good way for you to kind of get your legal Q and A answered without having to hire an attorney. We answer questions all day, every day there. And then we also have contract templates for sale. So we sell all of the full length photography contracts that we had talked about in this episode. We sell those AI disclaimers, website terms and conditions, and privacy policies. We have hundreds of different full length contracts, short forms, and a la carte clauses for you.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it. I think every single one of my contracts is one of yours. So they are. They are gold entrepreneurs. Go get them now.

[Lindsay Roman]

They're incredible.

[Paige Griffith]

Yeah. Well, thanks, ladies. I really appreciated it. And if you guys. Yeah. If anyone has any additional questions, you guys know where to find me.

[Evie McLeod]

I love it. You're the best page.

[Paige Griffith]

Thank you.

[Evie McLeod]

Thank you.