Hello all,
I recently added hand-painted greeting cards to my inventory and have been enjoying painting them immensely. My fiance suggested I learn about protecting my designs from theft. Copyright? trademark? I sign each card. The back of each card is stamped with my company logo - which I also designed and no, the artwork I designed for my logo is also not protected at the moment!
I don't know how I could copyright every single card I make. And the logo, advice on that would be appreciated as well.
What do you all do to protect your art? Or do you just go on good faith that no-one will take your images? I've gotten such great advice here and would appreciate your input!
Eva
Replies
Registering your work with the copyright office. If you were a photographer you could put hundreds of images on a single CD and register them as a single registration. You need to check the registration information but I would suspect you can photograph all your paintings and put the images on one CD just like photographers do.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
www.copyright.gov is the site for the US Copyright office. Go there and gather as much information as you can.
I have seen on occasion where artists have placed a copyright notice on the front of the print in small letters at the lower corner.
You would trademark your company logo, but that can be complicated and expensive. So you just put "TM" in small letters next to your company design.
And there's always the sign in your booth: "I have the copyright on my work and a pitbull of a lawyer!"
You definitely need to trademark your logo.
Not sure on the copyrighting. I too am starting to wonder and look into these issues. I believe it has been discussed before though. Use the search bar, and search Copyright. Also Google copyright and trademark. But research everything before actually paying for anything. If you have any lawyer friends, they might also give you some insights.