Intellectual Property (IP) and the ability to develop, monetise, protect and renew it lie at the heart of how valuable a Professional Services Firm / Individual can be. Firms protect the IP they have developed (methods, tools, software, etc) with clauses in engagement letters and contracts.

So what happens to all this IP when you move to web 2.0 and collaborate with others in forums, networks and communities? Well it depends on the Terms of Service that a particular site provides to you as you visit and participate.

Some like YouTube make it clear that while you retain ownership you effectively loose control over your IP in any content you post to Google + the YouTube user base and that it is your responsibility to make sure that you've not infringed anyone else's IP rights. "you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website......"

At the other extreme, many sites clearly display All Rights Reserved, Copyright or the © symbol. Whilst the legal status of these descriptors varies by country, under the Berne Convention, copyright for creative works does not actually have to be asserted / declared - they are automatically in force when the work is created by an individual or a Firm.

So what happens when we have mashups and communities that depend on sharing, re-use and re-mixing? Enter the world of Creative Commons - a set of standard licenses that a Firm / Individual can select from to grant permission as they see fit.

With this mind, as an online professional, some of the questions you need to think about are..

• Which elements of your site / blog are covered by which type of license?
• Would your activities benefit from letting others re-use your content?
• Have you chosen the right license for a particular piece of content?
• How to publish content which is a mix of All Rights Reserved and Some Rights Reserved?
• What do you include in your Terms of Service?
• Are you happy with the Terms of Service of the communities you participate in?

Yes  - we will have to rethink a few things!

p.s. The tagline is borrowed from Michael Wesch's great video on Web 2.0. Although it is hosted on Google, I have Michael's permission to re-use on my site (subject to the credits shown). IP 2.0 in action! If you've not seen it yet you are missing something.