Copyright on the web

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jan 29, 2002 11:51 pm

Hi guys,
I want to start my web-based comics, but I donno anything about copyright. That is: I have 2 comics characters and I would create a website about them and their comics.
What happens if an ugly and nasty bad guy steals my ideas and characters? What would you do if somebody uses your comics with his name and you find it out? How can we protect our work?

Ale

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:26 am

I'm sure that there is something that you can do, but I choose to enforce my ownership of my characters by just drawing comics with them in it all the time. I once read something by Cerebus creator Dave Sim that if anyone wants to do a story with his characters, they were welcome to. A sort of macho "let the best man win" sort of attitude...

I did once hear that if you draw your characters and send them in the mail to yourself, the package with the characters becomes proof that you created them at a certain date (or mailed them at a certain date), thus protecting you legally if someone else tried to steal your work and then turn around and legally try and stop you from drawing your own creation.

The main thing is, start drawing the comic and then worry about legalities.

Good luck to you!

That is just my opinion, though...

vince

ScottE · Post by **ScottE** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:53 am

If you send stuff to yourself in the mail, you've only proved that you live at your house; it does nothing for copyright (never has, never will).

Copyright in the US is awarded instantly upon the act of creation of the material itself (it does not even need to carry the Copyr. symbol and/or date to be copyrighted).

Registration (requiring a one-time fee) entitles the copyright holder to recovery of legal fees and damages should your work be plagiarized. Otherwise, if someone else wishes to use your work, that someone must get your explicit (written) permission to do so, and rights are certainly never transferred without a written agreement.

ScottE · Post by **ScottE** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 2:00 am

More info:

http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/copyright.html

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 3:06 am

Wow, thanks Scott. I checked that document and I found all the infos I need.

Ale

Tailsteak · Post by **Tailsteak** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 9:29 am

To be honest, I've never worried about copyright. No one's going to steal my stuff and make actual money with it. No one's going to write slash fiction with my characters. I mean, why would they?

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 10:46 am

...well, it seems that you found what you were looking for. Good luck!

vince

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 4:50 pm

Assuming you mean United States Copyright laws, there's a lot of information to be found at the Library of Congress site here:
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/
(Includes some international-related documents.)

And some more specialized links to more information here:
http://dent.edmonds.wednet.edu/IMD/copyright.html

As well as here:
http://www.benedict.com/

For less USA-centric information, try the World Intellectual Property Organization, here:
http://www.wipo.org/

I was hoping to point you toward the Cartoonist's Fountain of Knowledge website, but that appears to be down- temporarily or permanantly, I don't know. It would be a pity to lose that collection of links, old as it was getting. I even tried to see if Google had it in its cache, but it seems not to.

Tragic Lad · Post by **Tragic Lad** » Sun Feb 10, 2002 11:11 pm

>I was hoping to point you toward the
>Cartoonist's Fountain of Knowledge website,
>but that appears to be down- temporarily or
>permanantly, I don't know. It would be a
>pity to lose that collection of links, old
>as it was getting. I even tried to see if
>Google had it in its cache, but it seems
>not to.

The site as it was March 9th, 2001, is available for viewing at the Internet Archive. Go to http://www.archive.org and enter the URL in the 'Way Back Machine'.

Of course, archives of the net such as this and Google's cache bring up an interesting (c) question unto itself. If the internet archive swings past my site and takes a copy and then stores it in it's records, or if Google creates a cache of my site...
is that a copyright infringement?

lylebclarke · Post by **lylebclarke** » Mon Feb 11, 2002 4:06 am

Both Google's cache and The Wayback Machine give pretty clear instructions on how to remove your sites from their archives. So if you leave your site there (after finding that it is there) then it is not a copyright infringement, because you are giving them permission implicitly by not removing it.