Hi folks, I am putting together an online training program and want to showcase some businesses as case studies in my presentations. My question is, do I need permission from each business to do this? I am wondering what the copyright issues might be? Any thoughts, opinions and suggestions welcome as I’d like to get this right.

for instance on here  people have posted   great   facebook  examples  without    permission….as in  they didnt  call COKE  first….

i talk about  and   refer  people to my daughters  site and  avalon  rose and  grandma  mary a lot , without  permission….i network with a lotof  businesses  and   consider  all  3  as  great  examples in their  fields… 

but if it were an actual  customer of mine i would never mention a word without  permission….

@casmccullough I worked for many years for companies that had Federal sector customers. They are notoriously difficult to get permission from to use their names, and even when it is in their interest, it can take months and months. It goes through the Dept “owner”, then Communications, and then Legal.

So, in order to be able to cite our work, we and all of the other Contractors in the govt space “sanitize” the company–eg we say “A very large federal civilian agency, or a small specialty civilian arts related agency, or a DoD, Intelligence, etc. It is also again done with some corporations and associations–many feared admitting they had a problem (that was solved) as it would reflect poorly on management.

In my opinion, it really depends on the industry you are featuring and if you can be clever in the “sanitation”. Most of the case studies I’ve written, and presentations had to be done that way.

If you’re using a company’s name, get permission.  It protects you as much as it protects them. 

You have no idea what contracts or limitations that they have regarding marketing.  For example, I would be violating federal regulations if anyone uses my company’s name in any social media platform.   A “kind’ gesture by a random stranger could shut my company down for days or permanently.

I had a client who set up a blog and lost his distribution contract with a long time vendor.  It took him 2 years to get the contract back after he took down the blog.  It came out to millions of dollars in sales lost permanently. 

@casmccullough Best of luck on your case studies. 

LOL.  I manage risk in my business every day hence the name is even in my blog identity.  If you notice, I don’t disclose my brick and mortar company’s name anywhere in social media.  The lawyers made me take down my name to Kim L. for months because they were worried that I would violate regs by using my personal name.