WIPO’s “Creators Learn Intellectual Property” (CLIP) Initiative Expands: Now Supporting Visual Artists in Understanding and Managing their Rights

WIPO’s CLIP today expands beyond music to cover visual arts, offering painters, sculptors, illustrators, photographers, muralists and other visual artists practical information on how their intellectual property rights can help them protect, share, and monetize their work.

CLIP was launched in 2023 to address a gap – creators not knowing about their IP and other rights, and how to use these rights to earn a livelihood in today’s music industry. It is available online for free in 7 major languages and uses only content that is written by creators for fellow creators.

From an initial focus on musicians, today’s expansion into visual artists advances CLIP’s goal of supporting creators across multiple disciplines.

Creators often think that talent and passion is all that is needed for success, neglecting to learn about the business of being a creator and how to manage their rights. This is where CLIP comes in. It is a free, online platform that covers all aspects of the modern creative ecosystem, including copyright, to help creators earn, succeed and continue creating.

CLIP Visual Arts guides creators through the visual arts ecosystem, including key aspects of copyright and other IP-related issues. Topics covered include authorship, protection of artworks, creators’ rights, attribution, licensing and the common ways artworks can be exhibited, shared and commercialized.

The new content follows CLIP’s creator-first approach, combining down-to-earth explanations of IP with key insights and hands-on experiences from visual artists and other art world professionals.

As creators we often make important decisions on our own — decisions that can affect the visibility of our work and the growth of our careers. CLIP brings practical knowledge together in one place, and it comes from creators as well as for them. That's why I wanted to be involved, and why I'll be sharing CLIP with the artists around me.