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The Think Media Podcast
493: These AI Mistakes Could Destroy Your Channel (Attorney Explains the Legal Risks)
00:40:47
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I just wanted to take a second and say thank you for listening. I know that life is busy and you have a lot of options when it comes to the content you consume. So whether you're new here or you've been listening to the Think Media podcast for years, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you. Okay, let's jump into the show. So a lot of content creators and online business owners are using AI for thumbnails, scripts and logos. But most don't realize that they could lose ownership of their own content or even get sued for what AI generates.
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B
If you are just typing in a prompt and taking what the AI gives you that is not protected by copyright law, you basically have no ownership of that.
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A
Today we're joined by Autumn Witt Boyd, who's a trusted attorney of seven and eight figure online business owners and creators and she helps them protect their intellectual property, their contracts and their revenue.
- [00:55]
B
At scale, you could accidentally create copy someone else's work because again, AI is pulling from its library of things that have already existed.
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A
You're going to get the playbook that most business owners wish they had. After making expensive mistakes, what is the single biggest legal mistake that creators and online business owners are making when it comes to AI right now?
- [01:21]
B
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that we see is they are relying on it as if it's Google and it's giving them the right answer. When actually AI is generative. It is pulling from past, it is searching all the language that it has taken in and it's giving you a prediction of what it thinks the right answer might be. But if a law has changed, if you're throwing a new scenario at it that it is not in its library, it is just going to make things up, it's going to hallucinate. And so relying on it for answers to compliance with laws or what should I put in my contract can be just totally wrong.
- [01:58]
A
Is there any examples of stories that have happened of someone relying on it and then it backfiring?
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B
Yeah, we see this a lot with our clients who have big teams. So the employment laws are different in every state and they change every year. And so you can say, you know, what's the rule in Arkansas? Can I have a non compete in my contract? And it might say sure, and here are the rules for that. And it could be totally making it up or it could be out of date. So that is an area we're seeing a lot.
- [02:27]
A
So there's like a couple big areas I want to talk about. And we could go through like different areas of legal risk, like ownership and copyright, data privacy, client risk or contracts and team. But let's start about ownership because a lot of online business owners and creators are publishing content. Of course, if I use AI to write my script, do I own it?
- [02:49]
B
Maybe this is a lawyer's favorite answer. It's the worst one. So we're recording in February 2026. I like to say that because this is changing really fast. But right now, what the US Copyright Office is saying, and this may be a little different in other countries, but what it is saying is that if you using AI to create something, if there's no human really input, if you are just typing in a prompt and taking what the AI gives you and using it as a script for your video, or even creating video content, music, things that you're incorporating into your videos, that is not protected by copyright law. So you basically have no ownership of that. There's a case that's working its way up to the Supreme Court that's challenging that. So stay tuned. That may change. The bigger open question, which is what I think is more relevant to your listeners and viewers is what if I use AI to help? What if I kind of give it some ideas? Maybe I give it an outline and then I add my special sauce. How much AI is okay to get protected? And we just don't know. But our recommendation right now is the more human the better. So I like to say use it for brainstorming, for helping you come up with ideas, maybe even that first outline. But then really putting your human touch on all the stuff in the middle. And then you could use it again at the end. Say, you know, give this a proofread or are there things that are contradictory or don't make sense? You know, because as kind of that last review. But using it to create a script that you just read is a bit of a dicey area.
- [04:26]
A
Can you copyright AI content? You might have just kind of answered that, but I'm curious.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah. So right now, no, you cannot. Because it's considered machine created and our copyright laws require that human touch.
- [04:38]
A
I saw a story from Suno which is blowing up and that is where people are making music and they're making really original songs, but it's completely made with AI based off prompts. Are you familiar with that? Is that. And that's what they're saying. You can't copyright those songs.
- [04:52]
B
Yeah. So there is an argument being made that there is creativity in the prompting. And you know, if you get one result and then you ask it to change something and you go like, the case that's working its way to the Supreme Court, there's like hundreds of iterations and there's a lot of prompting. Right now the copyright office is saying, no, that that still is not protectable. That may change. We'll see.
- [05:16]
A
So I guess then the question becomes is us asking about risk? Because, okay, we have content creators that might be making AI songs, YouTube, background music, podcast, intro music, whole faceless channels where maybe you're doing devotional or scripture content over music, meditation content. There's just all this stuff that's happening. Maybe the question isn't can I copyright it? Can I monetize it though? And it would seem that in some cases you can. However, as we speak, there's mass demonetizations happening on YouTube right now of what they would call like generic AI slop or like generic repetitive content. And so there's the copyright question, which you answered. There's the can I use it though? Question, and then can I monetize it? Can you break that down?
- [06:10]
B
Yeah. So the can I use it Is going to depend on YouTube's terms of service. Like, that's their decision as a platform. What do we want to allow here? And that probably will continue to evolve as hopefully the output gets better and more interesting. And it's not just AI slop, but, you know, YouTube has a responsibility to the users and the content creators to keep it a high value place. So they are going to want to cut down on that. Now can I monetize it? That's also a YouTube question. But I think the more unique and creative that you can make your content, the more likely it is that YouTube is going to allow monetization. The other risk here is that you could accidentally copy someone else's work because again, AI is pulling from its library of things that have already existed that. So it's not creating it out of thin air. And so we've seen that with images, it's especially risky if you're trying to create, you know, a brand or a logo or trademark. You could accidentally step on someone else's toes without even realizing it because the AI is, you know, pulling from that library.
- [07:14]
A
And then what would that, what could that lead to? Being sued by them, then following up and telling you to take something down.
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
If you're an entrepreneur or a creator that wants to scale their online business, that's why we created the Think Media mastermind.
- [07:28]
B
I have so much more clarity as to my ideal target audience now, which means my content is about to be so much better and more targeted towards the exact person I'm trying to reach.
- [07:37]
A
Super intimate, high level strategy.
- [07:40]
B
I had the skills that I already knew sharpened. I feel like I went to my next level.
- [07:46]
A
For entrepreneurs and creators that want to scale with YouTube, this was the first time that I was able to get in a room with a lot of other serious youtubers and talk with other people who love creating content and love YouTube. Usually I don't get to do that, so this is really special. You can check it out atthink media mastermind.com what happens if somebody copies my content and uses AI to copy my course or AI to copy one of my videos?
- [08:14]
B
Yeah, so that's copyright infringement right now there's again a lot of litigation happening here because the AI libraries were built by taking other people's work without their permission. And so they're arguing, well, we were using it in a different way because we're using it to train the model and we were doing different things. So they're arguing it's fair use, which under copyright law is okay. It's still an open question, but I think in the scenario you're talking about, I'm imagining you think of a competitor taking your course or taking your content and, you know, using it to create basically competing content. That's always going to be copyright infringement. That's never okay.
- [08:49]
A
I mean, what makes me think though is I think that's frustrating. But how would you manage that or how would you go after that? And is it even worth it?
- [08:57]
B
Yeah. So there are, are robots that you can train now. They're all AI enabled to kind of crawl the Internet and look for things that are similar to your works. So if, you know, there are content creators that will do that and then there's services that will send takedowns and cease and desist letters and you could eventually file a lawsuit. You've got to manage where you're putting your energy. So I often say, you know, we want to protect our ip. We want to make sure we have a strong brand and that our content is our own. But also it's like whack a mole sometimes if you, you know, the bigger your profile gets, the more you will have people copying you. And most of them are making no impact at all on your sales, on your followers. You know, no one's confused about whether it's Sean's channel or, you know, Joe Bob's. So we kind of take those one by one that, you know, if you do see Someone who maybe used to work for you and is using your content and has kind of an inside view, we want to shut that down for sure. But someone you know, you have your special sauce and people follow you and learn from you because of the special way that you teach, the background you bring to it, your perspective. So that goes a long way.
- [10:08]
A
You know, you've got this framework that I want to cover in these two other areas in just a second. But before we get there, I want to go deeper and try to say, okay, but what do we even do about this besides worry and experience anxiety? You know that sometimes a topic like this is, it just feels overwhelming. There's so much AI and ignoring it or putting our head in the sand might not be wise. But for so many listening to this, we're like, we're really not that big. Who's going to come after me? Should I really even worry about this? If I use AI to generate a thumbnail or pull from some things, am I even going to show up? Like, how do you have a decision making framework to move forward so you don't get paralyzed by analysis, paralysis and anxiety?
- [10:55]
B
Yeah. So my perspective, I'm one lawyer and I forgot my standard disclaimer. This is not legal advice, so I'll say it now. I like to look at how much do we need to worry about legal as kind of a spectrum and it's depending on how much risk there is in your business. So if you're just getting started, your risk is very low is the good news, because you don't have a lot at risk. You probably don't have much revenue. No one's counting on this. You don't have a huge team. So you need to be careful. You should be mindful. But honestly, you need to be building, you need to be putting out content. You need to be, you know, growing your channel, growing your revenue. As you grow, though, as you have more eyeballs on you, as you have more, more at risk, now you've got clients, now you've got maybe a team. Your family is relying on your revenue. Now we want to start to build in more protections. So the, it kind of the, the legal protections and the amount of worry kind of scale as your business scales. But the good news is as your business scales, you have more resources. It's not just you wearing all the hats, trying to do all the things you can pull in. You know, whether that's buying a contract template, if you want to make sure your website has the right policies, or hiring a lawyer to help you With a contract, you know, you, you have the ability to get some help.
- [12:08]
A
So again, we're going to go on to the second category, but I would love for you to talk about this. So the New York Times is suing AI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies use millions of articles without authorization to train AI models like ChatGPT. That was filed in late 2023, but it continues to go on and it's claiming that OpenAI's models can generate near verbatim paid content by bypassing the Times paywall and threatening their subscription revenue. What do you know about this case and what does it mean?
- [12:42]
B
Yeah, so it's ongoing. Excuse me, in the courts. And there's been a lot of back and forth. It is an, it is still an open question. So this is what I mentioned earlier, how there are lawsuits where the companies that are training the AI on, you know, they violated terms of service, they did all kinds of things. This is the worst way. If I were in house counsel, it's mortifying. They clearly decided that this was a risk they were willing to take. So it's an open question and I think it will determine a lot of the future of how these models continue to grow because they are scraping from the Internet all of your content, my content, often without our permission. And there's not really a way to stop it is the hard part. There's also some authors that are suing because their books were used to train the AI. They're not happy about that. I think it's a, honestly, I think it's a pretty clear cut copyright infringement. But fair use is part of our copyright law. And it basically says if you're using someone else's work and you're doing something interesting and new with it, that's okay. So these are things like parody or commentary. And so that's the argument that the AI companies are kind of hooking on. Well, we're doing something different. We're making this new tool that's going to revolutionize the world. And so it should be fine that we didn't pay for any of the materials that we used to make it. I mean, I think there's no way they could have. The New York Times wouldn't have licensed it. So they kind of decided to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. It's an open question what the consequences will be. I can almost guarantee they've made way more money than any damages they will ever have to pay. So it kind of feels a little bit like we're chasing like the dragon is out of the cage and we're chasing after it. Even if the content owners win, I think it's not going to be much
- [14:29]
A
of a victory if we're still talking about ownership and copyright risk. One of the questions that creators hesitate from and they want to make content, they maybe want to jump into cultural commentary and news. And you think about this idea of using a president in your thumbnail or using Darth Vader in your thumbnail and using content in your video. How should creators be thinking about navigating likenesses of real humans? IP from Disney. Ultimately, there's also been Disney and Universal sued mid journey over images. So that's the AI side of things. But a lot of individuals are like, okay, I could get some views off of jumping on trending topics, but how do I stay safe as far as using these images in my videos?
- [15:23]
B
Yeah, so I don't know what the YouTube takedown policies are. So that would be kind of a question that you probably know more about than I do. From the legal perspective, it's copyright infringement. If you're using someone else's image or photo or music without their permission, like full stop, there is generally not a defense. What you've described, using a picture and a thumbnail is usually going to be infringement. Now, if it truly is commentary, like you're talking about the president's policies and you flash a photo of him, that might be okay. Or if you're doing a parody, you know, something funny about something he did where you're kind of making a statement with it, though you're not just using his photo and making a joke. But it's a very gray area. So that's what this. This case with the New York Times versus OpenAI, it's a new theory. Like they're going to be making new laws so they have to go to court. It's not like a defense that will stop someone from suing you. Like, if you are relying on fair use, you are going to get sued maybe, and then you have to go to court and say, no, it fits in this category, so it's okay. So I always recommend, if you can, to get a license. And some of these things, like Darth Vader, like some of the licensed characters are harder to get a license for because they want to control that a little bit more. But a lot of things, you can just find a picture that's, you know, $1.50 on Shutterstock or something. Music the same way it's not super expensive. Generally, I would say the thumbnail is probably the Bigger problem than if you're using it in your video as kind of part of the point you're trying to make.
- [16:53]
A
Yeah. So, you know, that makes sense. And I think you would drive us to be conservative on the video. On the video version of the podcast, we're going to bring up this image that I think will be very valuable for individuals watching. Fair use has been described as this, that if you only use a small portion of the material, and if you're commentating on the new Star wars park at Disney, or you went to Disney, then Darth Vader's in the thumbnail. If you're giving your take on the latest presidential policies, if only a small portion of the original material is used, if it's a new work or like you said, critique or satire or education, then if it also benefits the user and is predominantly other than commercial, I guess that's kind of gray area because is it commercial if you're making money from it?
- [17:45]
B
Right.
- [17:46]
A
And then the new work is predominantly an original product, not just some. You're not downloading a movie trailer and re uploading it, but you're commentating on things. And the commercial value of the original product isn't diminished. It also, in most cases, probably amplified positive or negative. It's more press and media. You know, a lot of gaming companies are allowing people to stream their games and put their intellectual property in the thumbnails. What's your take? When you look at this fair use
- [18:10]
B
chart, I felt like you get an A plus, Sean. That is great.
- [18:15]
A
Okay.
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B
So that each. If you watch the video, it's worth it. There's kind of petals on a flower with each of these categories that you just went through. And those are basically the fair use factors that are in the law. The one thing you didn't talk about, but it's kind of included, is this idea of transformation, which is talked about a lot by the courts. Are you transforming the original work into something new? So, like you said, you're not just showing the trailer as a trailer, but you're commenting on it or you're adding or subtracting something, making it something different. That has become a really important thing that people are looking at.
- [18:44]
A
Brilliant. So definitely, I know we have a lot of Think Media podcast listeners on audio, but you definitely want to visit the video version just to see that. And that can help you have a level of confidence, because, I mean, I think I know what you're going to say, but it's like the idea of everyone's doing it and getting away with It. So it must be okay. How do you feel about that?
- [19:06]
B
Well, I think that is important. Like, there is following the law to a T, and then there is figuring out what your risk tolerance is. And maybe I'm not following it 100%, but I understand the risk and I'm okay with it. If everyone else is doing it, that's probably a good indication that maybe the copyright holder, like you said, like the video companies who are happy for people to be streaming their games because it's like free marketing. There are some things that are probably technically infringement, but the company doesn't mind. Now, you can still get burned because they can decide, well, you're the one that we, you know, we don't like. But if your eyes wide open and maybe the worst thing that happens is your video gets taken down, like, maybe that's an acceptable risk.
- [19:47]
A
Yeah, that's good. Okay, so that first big category we're talking about, like the three biggest legal risks of AI, we're kind of expanding into other areas. On YouTube. The first area was ownership and copyright risk. The second one's data privacy and client risk. So if I upload client information into AI tools, is that okay to do?
- [20:08]
B
It depends. So does your client know that you're uploading their data? I actually, I went to a legal training last night that was on this exact topic. So it's very fresh. We're adding it to all of our contracts with our clients, just giving people notice of how we're using AI so that, you know, we're not really allowing them to opt out. It's basically, if you want to work with our firm, this is how we do business, because it's too difficult to kind of figure that out person by person. But I do think, and there may be, depending on your profession, there may be some legal requirements that you give notice to your clients if the problem is with security. And the free versions of a lot of tools are training on whatever data you give them. Some of the paid tools are also training on whatever data you give them. So you have to really be careful with those settings and make sure, especially like a lawyer, a cpa, you know, some. A doctor, you're dealing with very sensitive information. You want to make sure that you're honoring all of your legal and professional requirements. You're not giving away confidential information that should not be shared.
- [21:11]
A
Okay, and what happens if there is a data breach?
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B
Yeah, it varies by state, but there's all kinds of rules about how you have to tell people send out notices potentially, you know, by the and the security system for them to have so they can watch their credit score for three years, depending on what kind of information was let loose. So it's embarrassing, it is expensive, it is not something you want to be dealing with.
- [21:38]
A
And it's embarrassing and expensive for if ChatGPT has a data breach. But what about. Are you talking about the individual user?
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B
I was talking more about, let's say some of the scenarios we were talking about last night were, let's say you have an employee on your team who's using an AI tool. Maybe you don't even know they're using it, and they're uploading sensitive client information that then is there's a data breach and it gets shared. There's no like clawing that back.
- [22:05]
A
Yep.
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B
So the, you know, you have a risk just by your own team members, but then also the vendors you're using. And a lot of these AI companies are really new and it's exciting. They're doing really fun things. But, you know, they don't always put security first because they're innovating really fast.
- [22:22]
A
And when you also think about like, you know, we're getting more technical, but even if people are brand new, this is really good information to have as they think about scaling their online business, their content creator business. But what is GDPR or what is things like specific laws in California just, you know, considering where your content might be consumed or where your clients or customers might be.
- [22:45]
B
Yeah. So GDPR is the European Union and the UK has a similar law. They give their citizens and residents a lot of data privacy rights that we do not enjoy here in, in the United States. So if you have a lot of customers in those countries, you are going to want to pay attention to that. It's mostly, most of the rules are around how you can use people's data. And that could be something like an email address from them, opting into your newsletter or downloading a freebie. It could be their phone number. If you have a text campaign, you know, you're sending them updates or reminders. It doesn't have to be like their Social Security number or their bank information. It can be something pretty benign. And so there's very strict requirements about how you can handle that information, whether you can sell it, and how you have to tell people what you're going to do with it. California does have some privacy laws. They mostly apply to larger companies. So most, most of our viewers, they're, I think it's 20 million is the annual revenue floor for that to apply or a Hundred thousand customers in California. So it's a pretty, they have a pretty high bar, so definitely need to be aware of that. And if you are plugging your plugging this data into AI, that's just one more thing you have to disclose. One more thing that you have to be careful about if people ask you to take them off your list.
- [23:58]
A
Do you have a particular favorite LLM or workflow you like to use because of the level of security?
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B
Yeah, well, we use a legal one. Our legal research tool is Lexis and they have built in an AI. But I will tell you, I've done some comparisons where I redact all the sensitive information, but I'll run kind of a hypothetical or a scenario through and I'll ask a question because we get crazy questions all the time. Just like, hey, I heard about this new law in Oklahoma, tell me about it. And I have to go research it. And so I'll plug it into ChatGPT. Perplexity is my favorite. And then there's two legal ones that we've tried and Perplexity's answer is almost always the best, which is we're still on the free version. Like I'm not even paying for it. So it is wild. And I think why Perplexity is so good, at least right now, is that it's pulling from articles. It's almost, it's like a souped up Google. So it is pulling from real information, whereas ChatGPT is just making it up, it's getting a little better. And then even the legal research version, it's trained to be so tight to the laws that like it isn't creative at all. So if you're not using the exact same words that it knows to look for. So it's interesting how the different models are tuned and even like the wrappers that are put on them can really affect the results that you're getting.
- [25:15]
A
So before we move on to this next big category, if we're talking about three big legal risk areas, we're talking about data privacy and client risk best practices, like how do I apply this, you know, in this next month in my online business as I'm using these AI tools, creating content, uploading things.
- [25:33]
B
Yeah, I think it really depends, like do you have a big team or is it just you? If it's just you, your risk honestly is pretty low because you are in control. You know, you can test things. I would put some sort of, if you're doing any client work, I would put some sort of general term in your client contract saying we Use AI to improve customer experience. You don't have to say what tools you're using, because if you're like us, you're testing new things all the time and you're changing workflows all the time. So I would kind of just give your clients a heads up if you do have any. Again, I don't think there's going to be a lot of viewers with this, but if you do have any contracts with big corporations or universities or the federal government, they have a lot of rules. So you are probably going to want to check your contract. They may not allow you to be using AI or they may have, like, really strict restrictions on it.
- [26:20]
A
Yeah, I was going to say that's a. It's a brilliant tip to say for anybody that has clients of any kind to just add to your legal contracts that we use AI. Get that language. Right. That's. That's a sharp action item for today.
- [26:34]
B
Yeah, for sure. And then if you do have a team, even if it's just contractors, have a talk with them about what is okay and what is not okay. Are you encouraging them to experiment? Do you want to keep it a little bit tighter so that maybe you've got one person who's the designated AI tester and you're checking the privacy settings? It's very easy for there to be just a lot of people using a lot of different tools without any oversight because it's moving so fast. So kind of think about how, what kind of policy you want. I'm like the cobbler's child who has no shoes. We're working on our AI policy here at the firm. I have a meeting next week to go over it because the first version that my team drafted was totally unworkable. It had all this training requirements. I was just like, we are a small team. We are not going to do this.
- [27:18]
A
Yes.
- [27:18]
B
So just make sure it's reasonable for how you actually do business.
- [27:21]
A
And that's our third category. Just a few other things under contract and team risk. So for anybody that has a team, what if a contractor is using AI without telling me?
- [27:32]
B
Yeah. If something goes wrong, it's probably going to be your problem, not just their problem. And so that is why having some oversight, even though it's a pain, it really does like the buck stops with the company, not the contractor. So you want to make sure you at least have some visibility into what they're doing. And if you want to set down some guardrails, something like they could be infringing someone's intellectual property, like we talked about at the beginning they could be using things that they shouldn't be feeding confidential information that you wouldn't want. Even things like your client lists and things like that, you know, that you might not think of as intellectual property, but it's still core to your business and you probably wouldn't want a competitor, you know, finding it or learning. You know, if you've got internal processes and things and they're just loading them up into chat GPT to produce copy. And now like all of your frameworks or your curriculum is just out there.
- [28:28]
A
How do you feel about people are jumping on. We have coaches listening to this, people that do different coaching, they do events, they do masterminds about this. AI bots recording Zoom meetings or masterminds.
- [28:40]
B
Yeah. So we, we use Fathom at our firm. I find it incredibly useful, honestly, because I try to write really quickly, but if I'm in a conversation it's very hard for me to do both well. So I think they're very useful. I think this is the worst part of all of these new tools is you really have to look at the terms to see what they're doing with your data, how they're using it. There may be some things that you can toggle off and on. We were just updating our Zoom settings. Now Zoom has a built in AI companion. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly it does, but there's a lot of different choices that you can make, but they're not always great about telling you what those choices are. You kind of have to dig a
- [29:21]
A
little bit and I'm curious. So when you're teaching proprietary processes or. We teach all kinds of stuff here on the Think Media podcast, but then we have levels of coaching. We have a group coaching program, one on one coaching. What's your thoughts about letting someone come? I mean, I guess they can be there and take notes, but now their AI bot is joining the Zoom meeting as well. What's your thoughts?
- [29:44]
B
I do not like it. First of all, just as a participant, you see all these black screens, the AI note taker in the room. So from a participant level, it's not great, but you have no idea what they're going to do with that, that information. They could publish it, they could use it to, you know, create their own GPT to use your framework to do something else. And then there's also confidentiality issues. So often on these group calls, people are being vulnerable. Maybe they're sharing new ideas that they haven't shared publicly. They can be really Emotional spaces. And so the idea that you could have 15 note takers in a group call and any one of them could, you know, accidentally upload or a team member could access it, that wasn't, wasn't supposed to. It's just a lot of risk. So we, when we're working on terms of use and contracts, we'll often put in there for group coaching programs. Like, they are not allowed. And then you might just have to remind people at the top of a call if there is a set to join automatically, like, hey, turn please, everyone please turn off your note takers. Or you can just kick them out. It definitely opens the door to problems for sure.
- [30:49]
A
So we want to hit this gold framework that you have in the middle. And I have a couple fast questions, fast fire questions for you. And then I want to make sure that listeners get handles. And so we have a checklist coming towards the end. But if you're listening to this right now and you are thinking, I might not have this handled, Autumn actually teaches business owners and creators how to lock this down inside of what's called Fine Print Academy. Now, if you want to check that out, we'll put it in the show notes, in the YouTube description and in the podcast show notes, because really, your next mistake could be costly or the thing you don't know could be very costly. But Autumn, what exactly is that program and who is it right for? You know, to save us time, energy, risk, and protect our future.
- [31:37]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So the Fine Print Academy is really intended for folks maybe you haven't even started your business yet, up to about half a million dollars annual revenue. And those are the people who often can't afford to have an attorney in their back pocket that they can call anytime or to hire an attorney to draft a contract. So we help them set up a revenue prot Protection system. So every dollar that you're coming in the door is protected by a solid contract, by a solid refund policy. You kind of breathe a sigh of relief because you know you are protected as you're starting to work with clients or sell a coaching program. And then we have a business protection system. After you get that, after you get your revenue all protected, then we'll walk you through intellectual property, setting up a business entity, kind of all of that other stuff that goes into having a legally protected business. But it's very easy. We have human support. Of course, we do use AI behind the scenes to make it flow smoothly, but you get contract templates and real human support.
- [32:30]
A
That's powerful. What does the Typical range of hiring attorney cost per hour.
- [32:35]
B
I mean, I'm 4:50, $450 an hour and a contract. A contract, if you hired our firm is going to be probably about $5,000. So it's, it's a significant investment.
- [32:45]
A
So, yeah, hiring an attorney, 500 bucks an hour, getting one contract fully locked down, $5,000. FinePride Academy is very affordable. What do you think about it being a resource and you can just. And you guys are keeping it updated and you're staying on the cutting edges, right?
- [33:02]
B
Exactly. Yeah. We really built it because we felt like there was this whole part of the market, all these business owners who really weren't being served. It was basically either you can go to LegalZoom, you can buy a template, but you're kind of on your own. So it's meant to really have a little bit more hand holding. We at the law firm get inquiries every day that we're not a good fit to help. And it just felt like all those people were out in the cold. So we designed it to be really affordable, really accessible.
- [33:23]
A
Brilliant. So if you want to check out Fine Print Academy, just go to that link in the show notes. And I want to talk about. You mentioned this earlier, but this is your human in the middle rule. This is like a branded framework for you, and that's use AI at the beginning and end, but human in the middle. Can you expand that as why this is a best practice?
- [33:44]
B
Yeah, so it's kind of what I talked about when we were talking about copyright protection. How can you make sure that you actually own the copyright in what you're building, which is use AI for brainstorming, use it for outlining, use it for, you know, give me 20 hooks, give me some ideas, give me the topics that the most people are talking about today on, you know, whatever social media platform so you can make sure you're staying on top of trends. But then you really need to use your own brain in the middle and bring your personal touch, your human, your ideas, so that you're writing scripts again. It's fine to use it as an outline, it's fine to use it so you're not staring at that blank page with the cursor blinking at you. And then at the end again to wrap up, to make sure you know a good proofread. Am I using language that's appropriate for the level of the person I'm talking to? You know, am I using too much industry jargon, which I am the worst at? You know, that kind of final check or I like to use it to kind of soup things up, like, make this more catchy, you know, all of the things that we do to refine our work before it's finished. And then also the nice thing with video content is that the script is not the final thing. Like you're talking. You're. It's a whole nother, you know, quote, unquote work when you create the video. So you can add more human touch there as well. Ideally, I don't think we want to be reading a script verbatim so that you got the human at the beginning and. Or, sorry, you got AI at the beginning and the end, but that human in the middle is where, like, all the magic happens.
- [35:09]
A
That's brilliant. All right, I want to hit you with some fast fire questions. We've touched on a few, but, I mean, you, you could say yes or no. You might be tempted to expand, but can we use AI for voiceovers?
- [35:21]
B
Sure.
- [35:22]
A
Can we use AI for thumbnails?
- [35:25]
B
Yes.
- [35:27]
A
Can we use AI to write cease and desist letters?
- [35:30]
B
You can. It's not a good idea.
- [35:32]
A
Why is it not a good idea?
- [35:35]
B
Because the lawyer that gets it is going to know it was AI can we.
- [35:39]
A
I mean, is that what you also do in the academy? Like, you at least could have somebody help make it a little stronger or you have good templates.
- [35:46]
B
Yeah, we've got great templates and we'll give things a once over. Yeah. Make sure people aren't saying crazy things that will see a red flag.
- [35:53]
A
It's brilliant. Can you use AI to search trademarks?
- [35:57]
B
No.
- [36:00]
A
Why not?
- [36:02]
B
So AI again, is generative. It's not a real search tool. Something like a perplexity might be okay, but it's not going to catch things that a real trademark search will catch, like sound alike. It's not going to necessarily be up to date because remember, AI is always based on past things. It's. And it's, it's not going to understand the nuances of trademark law, I think is the biggest one.
- [36:26]
A
So. And I think you can actually search trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
- [36:33]
B
Correct.
- [36:34]
A
And so but you, you're. It's a really big insight. AI is generative. And so you just want to be careful. And I suppose there's always that disclaimer where it's like, check things. AI might hallucinate. And so the simple truth is it does.
- [36:48]
B
Yeah. And it misses things, I think, more than just making things up, it misses things.
- [36:52]
A
Can I use AI to search contracts?
- [36:56]
B
Yes. I think that's actually one of the best uses of AI or like to help you understand a contract.
- [37:00]
A
So if you get us contract, put that in there. Explain this to me, Point out red flags, things like that.
- [37:06]
B
Yeah. What might be disadvantageous to me.
- [37:09]
A
And then can I use AI for hiring?
- [37:12]
B
No.
- [37:13]
A
Why?
- [37:14]
B
AI has. It was built by people who have. Who are generally, no offense, Sean. Who are generally white dudes. And so it has a lot of built in bias. And there are lawsuits pending right now with people saying that, you know, AI tools that review resumes were, you know, biased against certain groups or certain protected classes.
- [37:36]
A
Wow.
- [37:37]
B
Yeah.
- [37:38]
A
Okay.
- [37:39]
B
It opens you up to potential problems.
- [37:41]
A
Got it. And. And would your framework help though, if it's like AI at the beginning, human in the middle, and AI at the end, or you want to be careful in the hiring area?
- [37:51]
B
Yeah, I think you want to be pretty careful. I would say the, the human in the middle is great for content creation. I would worry about it a little more for. For legal compliance.
- [38:02]
A
Okay, so before we wrap up, is there like a checklist of things we should do this week that is kind of based on next steps? So we leave this episode with some action items.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah. Number one, look at your contracts. If you're selling anything, whether it's coaching, you're doing client work, basically anything other than just being monetized on YouTube, check your contract, see if it deals with AI. If not, it's a great time to add it. I would also, while you're in there, look and make sure it's up to date and it matches how you actually do business. Because I find a lot of people just set their contracts on a shelf and don't look at them very often. And then you look at it and you're like, oh my gosh, we changed three things. We forgot to update our contract. And then number two, take a look at whatever are kind of the core AI tools that you're using day to day in your business. And check your privacy settings. They may have changed. There may be some options that weren't there when you signed up that are there now. And just think about what kind of data are you putting in there. It may be like if you're doing mostly marketing, it's probably fine. But if you're doing any kind of analysis of financials or anything that touches on client data, things that are more sensitive, you want to definitely check those settings.
- [39:09]
A
And maybe number three, if you have a team, should you implement or review your AI policies and workflows?
- [39:19]
B
Yeah, at the very least, I would say maybe Send out a message to everyone and just ask what people are using. That's where we started. And because we're all lawyers, everyone's like, I don't like it. I'm not using anything. We're like, great, this is going to be easy. But if you have a more creative team, you will probably find a lot of things you had no idea people were using and then you can kind of go from there and figure out what kind of policy you need.
- [39:40]
A
So AI isn't illegal, but using it blindly can be dangerous. And you've given us a lot of tips here. I want you to shout out your stuff, but I also, if people could follow you, reach out to you, connect with you, as well as remind people, though, that if you're listening to this, especially if you've been guessing on the legal stuff and you don't want to wait until you get a scary email or something happening legally that could be unfortunate or costly, then Autumn's Fine Print Academy walks you through step by step contracts, IP protection, compliance for digital businesses. So there's a link to that in the show notes and the description. But Autumn, if people want to follow you as well, we'll make sure that all of your stuff is down there. Where can they connect with you?
- [40:24]
B
Great. We are AWB Firm, which is my initials, AWB Firm at all the places. That's our website, that's our social media handle, that is our YouTube channel.
- [40:31]
A
Thank you, Autumn.