>From lile Sat Mar 9 23:34:29 1996
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 23:34:27 -0800
From: Lile Elam <lile>
To: artlaw@art.net, ALESTER506@aol.com
Subject: Re: Legal Question
Cc: lile@art.net
Content-Length: 1926
Hi Al,
Your question was:
> From: ALESTER506@aol.com
> Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 21:20:33 -0500
> To: artlaw@art.net
> Subject: Legal Question
>
> I have a nephew that is quite a young artist. How do I copywright and
> protect his work. Any information you can provide will be helpful.
>
> My E-mail address is alester506@aol.com
>
> Thank You
>
> Al Lester
>
All artwork when placed in a fixed medium, is by default copyrighted
(as far as I understand copyright law). But not all countries
in this world respect copyright law or honor it.
Were you planning on publishing his works on the Web or Internet?
If so, the only way to protect his works is to only publish what
he really wants to share and distribute there. Once on the net,
you pretty much (in reality) loose control of the art to some
extent.
You do have complete control over which images of the art and
to what resolution and size of that art you put up on the Web
and Internet in the first place. By choosing wisely, you can
share and protect your nephew's works. Some options would be:
- post images that have few pixels (ie. stamp size)
- post partial images of art
- post images that are not as clear as the origional (?)
- sign the actual paintings with a draw program
(but keep in mind that these sigs can be clipped
off or removed with draw programs as well)
- in the future, stamp the art with an encryption
signature that is woven into the art in such a
way that no one sees it but it's always there...
Ultimately I would suggest just putting up the art which you
truly want to share and realize that anything can happen to
it. You gain so much by sharing that it makes up for any losses
that may come from what people might do with the image (ie.
print it out, use it as a screen saver for their home system, etc).
Hopefully the above helps...
Anyone else have ideas?
:)
thanks,
-lile
(a webmaster@art.net)
----- End Included Message -----