pugdog
Administrator
Jul 7, 2002, 4:42 AM
Post #1 of 1
(1056 views)
Shortcut
Private Reply
|
|
Copyright -- some thoughts and links
|
Can't Post
|
|
A copy of a post I made on another forum:
Some info:
You can't copyright a Title. Unless the title has a number in it, ie: Halloween II, Jaws 3, in which case you sort of "protect" your themed work from imitation by making it a "Series". Someone would not be able to call their slasher movie about a masked killer "Halloween _____", and it would somewhat trickly to put out a movie about anything called "Halloween ____" because of the "series" protection -- but not impossible.
How many books have the same titles? How many movies? Loads.
Images and artwork are "protected" from the moment of creation. The only way you get any "teeth" though, is to file with the copyright office.
Writings are also copyrighted in the same way.
Photographs are *ALWAYS* copyrighted unless SPECIFICALLY donted to the public domain. There is no such thing as a public domain photo! Photos found on the Internet, in books, on the street, anywhere, are *ALWAYS* copyrighted. There is no "assuming" an image was public domain because it was found in the newsgroups, or on a CD. The law protects them from the instant the shutter is clicked, and some states provide extra protections. People ignored that for a long time, and even now, still do, but the law is pretty clear on it -- it's *NOT* a "grey" area.
Some things, such as works created in a restricted or rules-driven space (15x15 grid, beaded pins, icons, etc) would have a problem, since there is only a certain (finite) amount of ways to do something in that, and it wouldn't necessarily be uncommon or unreasonable for someone else to come up with it. Your protection would best be from the trademark office, if you really did come up with something unique (document it with the copyright, then file for a trademark). No guarantee you'd get it, trademarks have really tough rules, but it might be your only way to protect something "uniquely" yours in some situations.
Of course copyrighted, or trademarked patterns -- Mickey Mouse, Pokemon, Scooby Doo, etc -- are protected in any sort of medium. Some companies are tougher at enforcing it, or more lenient with "fan" works than others -- they are *STILL* protected!
Your PATTERNS (the physical instructions), your photos of your pins, etc, are copyrighted under the rules above -- even if the image/subject could not be. This means while someone else could duplicate the work and the patterns, they could not simply duplicate your pattern/instructions.
Collages, derivative works, etc are "grey" area, and are usually looked at on a case by case basis.
In something like beading, if the majority of people think you copied it, you probably did. If the majority think the "original" source is being a w@$#%@*! for causing you problems, you probably didn't. (The concept of taking it to court to "prove" is really expensive, and requires you to have filed the papers with the copyright office within a certain time frame.)
We've been dealing with image/etc copyrights on-line since there was an on-line (1984 or earlier), and with in-print even before that, and these are the basics.
One of the best places for on-line copyright information is http://www.eff.org or directly to their Intellectual Property (copyright, trademark, etc) page: http://www.eff.org/IP/
What is "Fair use"
http://www.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.html
An explanation of the hows and whys of copyright
http://www.eff.org/IP/cni_copyright.faq
And the all time classic "Copyright Myths FAQ"
http://www.eff.org/IP/cpyrt_myths.faq
Hope this helps.
PUGDOG
Eclectia Hobby & Rock Shop
http://pugdog.com
http://betterbeads.com
PUGDOG's Rock & Bead Shop
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
|
Bead Banter
SEARCH
WHO'S 
LOG