Copyright, who has the right!?

[Mona Youssef]

Dear creative members,

As Tom has mentioned it” Sharing is caring”. For this reason, I would like to share with you my knowledge regarding copyright and this subject will be opened for discussion. Your comments and experience will be very much appreciated.

Because not every artist can afford to register his/her artwork and pay for each piece, I have invested on this issue to come up with the most economic legal ways that would suit the majority. Again caring for others have motivated me to do so. Although, I have been a fine artist for many years, it took me long time to learn little. I had to read many books about copyright, consulted with my lawyer, who is specialist in copyright, called the copyright department and spoke to different ones, and have gone through several experiences.

Finally, I found out that registering a painting or artwork sooner or later dose not guarantee that will not be copied by someone else. However, should the case reaches the court here are some of my tips:

1- There are specialists in investigating the date of the canvas and the age of colors. In this case, they will be able to know which artwork had been created first.

2-Keeping any sketches, negatives or photographs, from which the idea of artwork was composed/created. These can be a good prove of copyright. On the negatives or photographs there are always dates.

3-Putting the negatives, photos and sketches in an envelope and mail it to yourself with introduction letter to yourself describing the artwork and the date created and finished. Do not rush to open the envelop, just because you saw your name and address on it. When a situation arises and you have to take it to the court, the envelope must be opened by the Judge. This is considered as a authenticity of copyright and inexpensive.

4-Artists used to write the date beside their signature on the artwork. From my experience, please do not do that any more. The reason is that you are making it visible to those who are out there ready to copy your artwork. They simply can write older date. I usually writ it on the back of the canvas with big unerasable marker.

5- Do not reveal the location from which you have taken your photographs. Yes, they are waiting to know from you and go to the same place and take same shots, But they will still copy your painting/artwork. Those group” we copy right we do not copy wrong” believe that having the photographs is enough to prove their copyright, WRONG!

6-While the artwork is in progress, please take photographs of each step. Keep them in a safe cabinet or mail them to yourself. Professional art investigators can recognize the logic progress of each piece of art and what result should come to!

All the best,

Mona Youssef

[Daniel Caleb Thompson]

Dear Mona and others,

While there is some sound advice here (and definitely to some degree accurate) the "poor man's patent" (mailing drawings etc. to yourself) serves primarily to protect intellectual ideas (like a rotor-design for a helicopter) from theft - and at best serves a qualified lawyer in court as evidence. However there are more issues here than just being right: For one, fighting a legal battle is NEVER free, unless you have a trial-lawyer in the family - and arts legislation is one of the stickiest areas around.

Furthermore, different nations have different legislation: copyright is almost always limited to country or region - and for "global" copyright you end up paying through the nose. TO make matters even worse, you pay to file your (usually it is a design for something to be mass produced like a logo or a chair etc.) design with its description in A PUBLIC REGISTER FOR EVERY THIEF IN THE WORLD TO SEE. (And at 150€ in Germany per EU-wide copyright, the piece of paper with the stamp is probably more expensive than the materials I would use for the painting!!!)

I have a different suggestion: Use Creative Commons.
If you look around, you can even find a timestamp version if you are really concerned about being "first". Creative Commons can be used to register everything from your blog to your photo to your painting. Although it seems limited to the "virtual world" of the internet, this is not the whole story. Slapping a CC tag to the website (I hope if you're reading this you have your own website too.) where you document your work online and presto-chango: rights protection and management for you.

And here is an even more radical suggestion: Be so unique that by the time people start copying you and your work, you are already somewhere far beyond what they can do. That means that you are free from worry that someone is stealing from you, because in reality - you are the only one who can steal your ideas - by not realizing them...

I think that the real issue at hand is something I give quite a bit of thought to: collaboration and inspiration. I am inspired by my artist-friends, and sometimes I see their styles creep up on me like a lazy smile of a good friend with whom you just spent a week camping. Am I stealing from them? No, of course not. I think that openness and sharing is important in the arts industry, without which we could just simply forget the whole thing. Which brings me back to creative commons: If you reserve all rights, then technically speaking, no one is allowed to share your content with their online-networks of friends without your explicit written permission - and that is a career killer. ;-)

Best regards,
Daniel Caleb Thompson

[Mona Youssef]

Hello Dear Daniel,

Thank you for participating in this topic of conversation and for sharing your valuable points. I could not agree more that arts and legislation are very much apart and that each country has its own set of laws whether acknowledging the copyright or disregard completely. In fact this the main issue that artists, worldwide, must come together to unify such laws to be applicable in each country. Artists must be taken seriously and with respect for their intellectual properties.

Unfortunately, even the countries who introduced such laws, in the form of protecting intellectual property, was not meant only for this reason, if you know what I mean. For the very same reason you have mentioned that registering copyright for each piece of art can cost and an arm and a leg in some cases. The unique thing is, that the owner of an artwork, still have to wide open his/her eyes to find that some individuals or some countries, who do not have copyright laws, have allowed themselves to copy it just right.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have taken a look at Creative Commons and is almost similar to my contract I provide for my client whether art buyer, printer or dealer etc. Of course, the contract will be adjusted according to the agreement between both parties.
I have not heard of timestamp! Would you please elaborate more! As well would I like to have more explanation about presto-chango!? Is having the CC on a website is considered as an official documentation for the copyright!?

Good idea about being unique, it is indeed very unique idea. However, I have the experience when an artist copied one of my painting but painted with her own style and was cleaver to use same composition, idea and colors ect. Eventually, she paid the price which cost her reputation.

As far as inspiration goes, we all are inspired by creation surrounding us. However, two artists can see same object yet, deliver it, express it or paint it differently in diverse subjects and unlike composition etc. Here where creativity can play its roll. My article is pointing the case as of my fellow artist above which I would call it stealing. This is as a result of, not only lack of uniqueness, but also, lack of integrity. Having the artwork displayed online does not stop those, who do not have online artwork, from copying it and selling for much less as my above fellow artist did, that what I call it career killer. Explicit written consent is one of other ways not to kill a career but to eliminate such behavior from spreading. Artwork can be shared to be viewed and not to be copied for we do not want to mix and match :-))

Mona

[Daniel Caleb Thompson]

Mona,

A timestamp is something that a server does that certifies a file was added to the server or a field to a database at a specific moment. Without going into the details, this is basically like a postmark - however, the main problem is one of reliable authority. In this case the authority should probably be certified and regulated. (Because of the "touch" command used by linux people to change this timestamp on files...) I am sure that File-Reg International Ltd. uses something like this as does the newcomer registered commons.

Presto chango is just a figure of speech that means something has suddenly happened.

And as regarding artists unifying in order to make this kind of thing better - there is one international community of artists based in Germany that I know of who are working on this.

Cheers,
Daniel

[TOM Merilahti]

Dear Mona and Daniel,

I must say that it's really interesting to follow-up your dialogue.
There so much I see I can learn from you. Thank you! Brgds. TOM

[Mona Youssef]

Dear Tom,

Thank you for keeping an eye on the quality of information posetd on this great platform which I do appreciate very mcuh and being part of it.

Respectfully

Mona

[Mona Youssef]

Daniel,

Thank you once again and it seems to me that will thank you over and again on your next comments :-)

I gathered from what you are saying that timestap happens automatically the moment a file is added to the serve, right?! However, that server must be legally registered/certified, right? How do we know if a server is legally certified or not! What server would you recommend!? Is Registered Commons free service! I have looked at it and one must sign up first but we do not know what is behind the screen!? Would you enlighten us please! In “Publish and register your works” What is required? Images, certain resolution, description of artwork, I believe, and how many dpi!

How about the digital timestamp for 35 years, what is the cost and what would happen after the 35years!? If the artist is not available, for any reason, who will take over the copyright! Dose this company believe in the Orphan artwork!?

It has been for a while that I decided not to post my new artwork on my website for the very same issue we have been discussing, until the copyright issue is resolved internationally. However, from your great knowledge, do you think that registering the artwork with Registered Common would make the difference and why?

I am very glad to know that finally some organization is taking care of the issue I have been calling for attention for a longtime. Is that international community working to unify the copyright laws only in Germany, worldwide or certain countries? Do they need a speaker for artists Here I am :-))

Mona

[TOM Merilahti]

... not to forget FILE-REG. TOM

[Mona Youssef]

Thank you for the reminder Tom

[Daniel Caleb Thompson]

@ mona: i am not a representative of registered commons, and unfortunately do not have the time to follow up on all of your questions. (i believe tom even answered some of them in the post to which this thread responds.) i am a strong believer in creative commons and copyleft and believe that after a certain amount of time things should enter the public domain regardless of authorship - especially if they are of cultural value. 35years? too long, in my opinion.

probably the safest and most free way to combine the best of all the worlds, is in my opinion a combination of creative commons and archive.org, which crawls the web and archives it. try their wayback machine to see your website the way it used to be. and, although I am not a lawyer, archive.org is a long-standing well-appreciated web-service whose data "might" stand up in a court of law. they consider themselves to be a library, as does the state of California.

@tom: i did mention your FILE-REG service, however, for my needs (I use linux and create many very large files) it is neither very appropriate nor within my budget. sorry.

[Daniel Caleb Thompson]

http://creativecommons.org/videos/media-that-matters

check out this video about creative commons benefits and introduction.
enjoy

[Daniel Caleb Thompson]

http://ourmedia.org/ is a place where you can upload your images and videos and so on.

Here is a workflow example:
1) Upload an image to a page on your site or a post on your blog (or use a service like http://flickr.com or http://ourmedia.org. note that when you use ourmedia.org, your content will be registered at archive.org)
2) Attach a creative commons license (with flickr.com it is a setting in your account, for your website paste a link that you get from creative commons into your code)
3) Tell the world.

[Mona Youssef]

Daniel,

The information you have provided is very much appreciated. I do understand the time factor though, and realize how busy we all are. Therefore, I will stop my questions here.

My knowledge is that creative work, intellectual property goes to the public domain after 50 years and not 35. Now you wish to reduce it!. I will not ask you why, but the question will remain in my mind!

Whenever you find time to spend on this issue and wish to share more information with us, it will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you once again

Mona