Social Media Stars Lock Down IP Rights to Cash in on Virality

Haliey Welch unexpectedly went viral this summer after a Nashville street interviewer stopped her and asked for bedroom tips.

Within weeks, Welch had racked up tens of millions of views across social media, hired a management team and lawyer, and applied for her first trademark for her memorable “hawk tuah” innuendo. Her newly-incorporated company, 16 Minutes LLC, now has 10 pending trademark applications covering products from mouthwash to hot sauce.

Intellectual property and entertainment attorneys say they were impressed by the 21-year-old’s quick and thoughtful approach to establishing IP rights, which aligns with a broader trend of intentional content creators building up such portfolios.

As the creator economy continues to expand—projected to approach half a trillion dollars by 2027 by Goldman Sachs—content creators are realizing the importance of enlisting lawyers and stockpiling IP protections to boost their monetization and increase the likelihood of an enduring career.

“The only way we want to go in the business is long-term, where we have ownership for the client,” said Jonnie Forster, founder of talent management company The Penthouse, which manages Welch. “The only way you can have ownership is if you go ahead and trademark, so this is literally part of her DNA right now.”

Influencers are increasingly taking advantage of their established brands to create spin-off products that can generate long-lasting income streams, attorneys said. After amassing hundreds of millions of social media followers, creators like James Donaldson—known as “MrBeast"—and Logan Paul compiled trademark and copyright troves as they launched products like energy drinks and chocolate bars.

Developing a more sophisticated understanding of IP often comes with that growth, according to interviews with 11 attorneys, managers, and social media creators.

“They understand ownership and IP in a way that they maybe didn’t 10 years ago,” said Nixon Peabody partner Ellie Heisler, who has represented creators including TikTok star, singer, and actress Addison Rae.

Creators as Brands

Brands spent $34 billion on influencer marketing globally in 2023, according to Statista. But creators are no longer just ambassadors, they’re increasingly recognized by partners as brands themselves, said Amanda Schreyer, an attorney at Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton PC.

Since “content creator” has become a more popular career path, Schreyer said, they’re bringing attorneys into the fold and being more intentional about what they can do legally to protect themselves and ensure the maximum monetization of their business. IP rights can be necessary for creators to close deals, too.

“A giant corporation is not going to do a deal with you if you haven’t protected your trademarks,” Schreyer said. They’re not going to invest in making goods for your brand “if there’s knockoffs already all over the marketplace because you never bother to enforce them.”

Creators today are much more in tune with how IP can be leveraged to protect their brands than they were a decade ago, said Christina Chang, a Nixon Peabody partner. She said they don’t often approach attorneys seeking help enforcing specific trademarks, but rather with broad inquiries about knockoffs and how to push back.

“That’s why, having a robust team and IP portfolio, you can easily inform them,” she said.

Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP partner W. Joseph Anderson agreed. Creators “don’t necessarily know exactly what rights they’re relying on for it,” he said. “But they do realize that anything and everything they do has a value.”

Combating misuse increasingly includes litigation. Julie Kay Kyles, a beauty influencer with more than 7 million total followers on her “imjuliekay” Instagram and TikTok accounts, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Nars Cosmetics Inc. in January accusing it of using one of her videos as a voice-over for an ad. The case settled in August.

And a Texas influencer recently accused a fellow creator of stealing her aesthetic in a federal copyright and trade dress suit.

Creators are also using their improved IP knowledge to call out others for ripping off content or designs directly on their platforms.

“Any of you selling or purchasing merchandise online, it’s not from me, it’s not approved by me, and it’s counterfeit, and I’m not making a damn dime off of any of it,” Welch, the Tennessee woman who now has 2.6 million Instagram followers, said in a July 3 video. “But I just hired a manager and I hired an attorney, so we’re coming for you.”

Learning Protections

Christian Barker, one of Welch’s attorneys, said she’s taken to her IP education because of a desire to capitalize on her flash fame.

“A lot of those trademark applications that you see are from her—the genesis is: ‘Here’s what I’m really interested in. How does that work?’” her manager, Forster, said.

Popular stories about IP have made creators more aware of the need to protect their brands. Dorsey & Whitney LLP partner Evan Everist pointed to Welch as a key example, along with the frenzied competition to register trademarks for “very demure, very mindful” following Jools Lebron’s viral TikTok video. Anderson said he’s used those examples to coach other clients.

“We find a lot of times we get to dealing with influencers who have no idea that they have these trademark rights,” Anderson said. “’Hawk tuah’ and ‘very mindful’ are two really great current examples I’ve been using to explain to clients, you know, what their rights are and what they need to do to protect those rights.”

Building IP portfolios can be expensive, and some creators have a difficult time spending the money for it. A single US trademark application can range from $250 to thousands of dollars depending on the number of good and services covered. Billable hours can skyrocket depending on the length of the examination process, challenges to the application, and competing marks.

“We’re talking about creators who bought a camera and then literally launched their career,” said Ashley Villa, lawyer and founder of the talent management company Rare Global, whose clients include Morgan Riddle. She said she makes sure clients are serious about a venture before investing in the IP, pointing to one who stopped pursuing trademark registration of their name because it was costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Despite the cost, creators should take advantage of their IP rights to ensure brands aren’t getting away with using their creativity without acknowledgment, said Mia Lind, founder of Hot Girl Walk LLC, which owns the “Hot Girl Walk” trademark and sued multiple walking groups for infringement. Lind quit her job at Oracle Corp. this year to work on building her brand.

“Having intellectual property is just a measure to protect that and be able to be credited where credit is due,” she said.

Firms Catch Up

Even though brands have acknowledged creators’ value for years, law firms were slower to catch on.

There’s been “an appreciable change in the treatment of this type of work in the legal community,” said Rachel Nicholas, a Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP partner.

Law firms are now saying, “Hey, bring your influencers here,” Anderson said, because “when you start to see dollars, the service provider economy is going to go after it.”

A lot of influencer work is handled by boutique firms or solo practitioners rather than large firms because they rarely reach the financial value of more longstanding music and TV clientele, Anderson said.

“But I could see us sometime in the near future bringing over somebody who has a large book of business to just sort of use our firm resources to just deliver higher-value services to those clients,” he added.

Heisler leads Nixon Peabody’s entertainment team and said part of the reason she joined a larger firm was to take advantage of the resources available. She represents Blogilates founder Cassey Ho, who sought patent protection for fitness apparel designs.

“As our clients evolve, we can service all of their legal needs,” she said. “So while I’m far from a patent lawyer, I’ve looped in the right people to handle those aspects of the client needs.”

Creators may also obtain more IP rights as they pivot to revenue streams outside of social media to be less beholden to specific platforms’ algorithms.

“Longevity is the name of the game,” Villa said. “The clients that we have, we want them to have long careers.”