We want to encourage everyone who takes our courses or reads our book to spread the word about Building a Second Brain, to share what they’ve learned, and to make their own contributions to the PKM ecosystem.
At the same time, we need to make sure we protect the intellectual property we’ve invested in. That’s why we put together the following guidelines to help our customers, followers, and collaborators distinguish between what’s proprietary and what’s not.
The purpose of these guidelines is not to grant or take away any rights or permissions. This document is meant to be purely explanatory. In particular, our legal team wants us to emphasize that nothing here should be understood as legal advice or as any sort of license.
<aside> 📌 Original works of creative expression are protected by U.S. and international copyright law. For Building a Second Brain, that includes all the course materials—the lecture slides, the recordings, the worksheets, the exercises and activities, the written content, etc.—as well as the overall organization and framework of the course curriculum (for example, the selection of topics, the number of modules/units, and the order in which they’re presented), all of which is owned by Forte Labs, LLC.
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What copyright doesn’t protect, however, are facts or ideas. Here are some dos and don'ts:
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<aside> 📌 There are a number of names and symbols associated with Building a Second Brain. These are trademarks of Forte Labs. Many, like “BUILDING A SECOND BRAIN,” are the subject of registrations issued by the trademark offices of the United States, European Union, and/or other governing bodies around the world. This means that Forte Labs has the exclusive right to use these phrases (or anything confusingly similar) as commercial designations.
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However, it doesn’t mean that we claim any ownership over the words themselves in the abstract. For example:
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