Printable View
this is a question for a friend.
what is the process/expense to get artwork protected? He has some unique stuff he does that some pro skaters/boarders are interested in wearing on shirts, stickers, etc but he is clueless on how to protect himself.
Figured since some of you do some design work you may have run into this before. Any suggestions/links would be greatly appreciated.
By definition, as soon as the work is created it is considered to be legally copyrighted by the creator in the US and is subject to all current copyright laws... that includes anything published on the web.
It is not necessary, but if you want to take it one step further and register your copyright with the government (so you can stick a little ® on it), you do it through the US Copyright Office.
http://www.copyright.gov/
I believe you can register a copyright with an online form now for $35, or via a paper form for $65, but I haven't actually registered one yet so you should go read up on it for yourself at the site.
Thanks. I told him to search for the official copyright site earlier. That should fully explain it.
The creator automatically has the copyright to original works. If someone else tries to make money off of it in some way, they can pursue damages by demonstrating that they were the originator. I think it would be easy to establish origination in his case since he would have some kind of original form of the artwork before it was turned into a shirt.
The "R" is for trademarks rather than copyrights (a trademark is a word, symbol or both that represents a company). The "R" can only legally be used if you register your trademark. Most people just use "TM" because you don't have to register and you can still pursue damages if someone uses it to profit from or generally mess with your businesses image.
The difference is that someone can argue that your trademark wasn't recognized in some region far away from where you have used it and/or that they established it there first. So, there are no damages to collect on the basis that they damaged the image of your company. If you register a trademark, you have a better case against someone using it across the country.
---
Basically, he doesn't have to do anything. If someone steals his work, he can sue that person and he would win.
It's a good idea to put "C" somewhere on the work to get the point across that he considers it intellectual property that he owns.
If he has a logo, he should put "TM" somewhere next to it. If it becomes a national company, it will probably take care of itself since he will hopefully talk to a lawyer at some point and register the logo. Registering a trademark is actually a murky thing and can be very expensive. In other words, a trademark can have varying levels of strength depending on how well an attorney establishes that the mark is truly unique and not being used in other cities, etc. Attorneys can charge a lot of money putting together these big binders of research showing that they couldnt find similar businesses using a mark like it, etc. This is needed because some person in Kentucky could come out and say that they were using the Golden Arches back in 1935 before McDonalds started using it, thus they have the true rights to the trademark and now McDonalds has to buy it from them.
FL is correct.
I was past tired when I posted that and my brain confused the registered symbol with registered copyright vs. registered trademark. Sorry.