I am Patrice — the founder of Creative Genius Law, a law firm for creatives. I want nothing more than to help right past wrongs by empowering Black creatives to own your intellectual property, keep creative control, and to be paid fairly and generously for access to it.

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The biggest hurdle that keeps this out of reach for most of you is not the lack of legal representation. It’s how systemic racism shows up when larger brands + companies want to use your brilliance to make them look good, sell more, and stay relevant.

I started my firm just over ten years ago because I knew so many independent creatives who lacked legal representation. With a background in economics, I saw an opportunity to help them protect the value in their intellectual property and use it to build generational wealth. I was intentional about working with emerging talent at earlier stages of their careers because this is where I could make the greatest impact.

I quickly realized that when Black creatives arrived to the negotiation table there was almost always an invisible system working against you.

Systemic racism shows up in the practices and policies of large companies who want to work with you. How they do business with you often deepens the inequities you’re already facing and causes harm in the long run. Especially when it comes to the impact on your intellectual property. Your creative work doesn’t just have the potential to allow you to make a living wage. It can lead you to wealth, impact, and legacy. It can lead you to real freedom.

I’ve seen emerging Black creatives victimized by systemic racism in different ways, often starting with budget disparities. The budgets for campaigns that involve Black creatives (i.e. budgets for multi-cultural campaigns) pale in comparison to budgets for non-black folks. Black creatives are often asked to work for free and when you ask about budget, you are told there isn’t one (or that it is barely there).

Here are other ways these issues show up:

one.

Fellowships and contests typically presented as opportunities to help are actually crowdfunding creative content for free as a part of the submission process. Even the “winners” don’t fully win in the long term because the brand who hosts the “opportunity” often keeps full ownership (and control) of the intellectual property created by the winner. This is a systemic issue and exploitive of emerging Black creatives when you are doing what you feel may be necessary to propel your career. Prime example is when my co-conspirator in IP, Janeya Griffin and I wrote an open letter to Black women everywhere, titled Don’t let Spotify Monetize your #blackgirlmagic, warning of the issues we saw with Spotify’s Soundup Bootcamp. Janeya is the co-founder of ConCreates, a creative agency powered by formerly and currently incarcerated creatives and sees similar inequities in her work.

two.

Work by Black creatives is blatantly swiped by larger companies + brands who fully expect that you won’t be able to invest in the legal representation to fight it (what I call, the “so what” mentality).

three.

There’s often a lack of respect for Black creatives during the negotiation process. I’ve been told stories of companies that are outright offended that Black creatives have the audacity to want to negotiate at all. To be clear, in my law practice, I do not see that same level of push back with non-Black creatives. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I’m sharing what I’ve seen and been told.

You put so much into your work + you deserve more.

Your family does too.

No matter how hard you work, many of you will never realize the full potential of your creative work for reasons beyond your control. You already are frustrated. You feel undervalued + disrespected. And, this leads to burnout. You’ve probably already been talking about these issues with friends, on Twitter threads, and at night behind closed doors. And you stay torn between choosing another path or accepting this for what it is. In the recent state of the world, particularly the United States, you’ve probably felt compelled to call these companies out. Some of you have.

I, too, have been fed up for a long time. I’ve addressed some of these issues in my client representations but that doesn’t empower me to fix a system that’s broken. 

Then 2020 happened and it was my tipping point.

I saw companies proudly make Black Lives Matter statements and, some, highlighted plans of action to be more inclusive and equitable.

My immediate thought was, great, you want to center Black voices. But what about equity for those Black creatives whose voices you want to amplify? Are you making these statements publicly, but privately, continuing to minimize the value of their creativity? Are you still planning to exploit their IP without paying them or offering very little? Are you going to continue to keep ownership of all of their IP when your grant, fellowship, or contest was presented as a way to help them? At the same time, I saw some folks bravely sharing their experiences publicly.

And, here we are.
BLK: an initiative to end the exploitation of Black creativity.

I don’t just want to see my clients win. I want to see all Black creatives have a fair shot at winning whether you work with me or not. But, systemic racism makes it harder for you to use your intellectual property to actually build generational wealth. We can make a real impact by challenging companies to remove systemic barriers that keep Black creatives from generational wealth. We will execute BLK in three phases.

FIRST. We need to tell your stories. The harm I’ve described here can be easily dismissed or minimized when companies believe that these incidents are isolated. But, I want to illustrate as best we can, how perverse the inequities are, so that we can tell the collective story of harm. Starting now: you can submit your experience. Did a company want to hire you for a campaign and not want to pay you? Did they want to fully own the intellectual property you created for free? Just let us know what happened. You can choose to remain anonymous, that’s up to you.
SECOND. We will compile the stories into a report that will be combined with a call to action for larger companies and brands. The ultimate goal will be for these company to get more equitable practices in places when retaining the services of independent Black creatives or otherwise using  intellectual property created by Black creatives.
THIRD. We will report back on progress. This phase will evolve as we see how this initiative develops.

You can help in two ways. Share this page + submit your story on the form below. 

I will know that we’ve done our job well when I hear fewer stories about how companies are devaluing your creative capital, they stop pretending as if you don’t deserve to be paid, they stop perpetuating a culture that imposes guilt on you for engaging in the negotiation process, they stop acting as if the only way they can do business with you is if they own + completely control your intellectual property, and you are landing 5- to 6-figure opportunities because your work is that damn good. And finally, I will know that we’ve won when you come back and tell me how your creativity became the catalyst for building your generational wealth.

Let’s lean into our collective power. Together, forward.

 

  • Include your industry, profession, city and if you feel comfortable, the company involved. We will not include the companies in individual stories, but will make the decision whether to include them in our reporting and whether to specifically send the call to action to them.
  • This is completely up to you and we fully respect your decision. This is a public initiative.
  • We will primarily keep this page updated with new information on the initiative. However, if we send email updates, would you like to be on the list? NOTE: This is not an email list to market law firm services - this initiative is happening because I think it's necessary.