Flounder - Someone's ripping you off

Just found someone selling these prints on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2001&item=3943638373&rd=1

As I've got the original painting 2 yards away from me, I'm wondering whats going on. Who are these people? Prints were never made from this, right?

Trader Woody

[ Edited by: Trader Woody on 2004-12-02 18:14 ]

Man this guy is probably making more money off my art than I am. Al (Alnshely)
told me that the guy is selling them in an antique store in Honolulu as well.

This was the first mug painting as well as on of the first tiki paintings I did. I sold it on ebay about 4-5 years ago.

He contacted me about a year after he had bought the painting and asked for permision to make prints. I said no but I guess he didn't like that answer.

Sorry Woody, I painted more than one but I painted yours with love. LOL

And the one with love is the most important of all.

Contact ebay. They'll put his membership on hold. Then, contact him, or ebay, find out how many he's sold on ebay, and demand part or all of the money, being that its your design, your painting, your signature. A buddy of mine took someone to small claims court for putting his photograph on t-shirts, and ended up with $5,000 after lawyers fees.

Get on his ass man!

One more reason why I dislike Ebay...
Ebay encourages ripoff artists like this...

Tear 'em apart Flounder!

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer on 2004-12-03 10:10 ]

I love eBay, but it's a real shame when you see people pull a stunt like this. Take him down if you can.

hey flounder, i bought these at the post office yesterday...

you can show them who's disgruntled!!!

To all my original art I sell I usually add a piece of paper (sometimes glued to back of work) that says to the effect that: "Yes, you own this original art, but no you can not copy it, make copies or it or sell copies of it. I retain the copyright to the work of art."

I had an art show opening a couple of weeks ago and an elderly gentleman (over 70) came up to me and was showing me a notebook full of all the fake postage stamps he was making from the thumbnails of my art he took from my website! He would then glue these "postage stamps" to "official" postage stamp collector´s pages and sell them at stamp collection fairs as collector foreign stamps.
He wanted me to autograph them all so he could get a higher price for them!
I told him to stop it immediately and destroy them all. He acted like he did not know what he was doing was illegal.
Not only was he stealing my art, but he was trying to pass it off to stamp collectors as stamps from foreign countries.
Amazing what people will do....
Then after that a guy came up and told me how he had bought one of my paintings a year before and printed up 500 postcards with my painting on it and sent them out to all his friends. ARRRRRRRRRGggghhhh!!!!

How many paintings did you do of each models ?

Lake, from that comment I guess we should expect to NEVER see your tikis on eBay right? I would hope not after a comment like that! No offense to you dude, but...are you sure your not pre-maturely cutting yourself off from a rather inexpensive worldwide advertising market to turn some off your stuff before even trying it?

eBay is not the only way or place to sell your stuff, so please don't get me wrong.

Lake, not everyone who aquires it's service is an offspring of other rip-off artist that happen to use the service.......so why should the people that use it properly be penalized in your eyes for things others have wrongly done. Does this make "me" and others on this forum who use eBay look bad to you? I just want to know......

I understand it's your own opinion and that's cool, but I say don't knock-it before you try it...

No offense Dave,

G.

Sorry Flounder about the problem. I hope you get it straightened out. Legal matters can pre-vail.

G.

Devil's advocate You sell your art, the original. Why should you even be able keep any creative control over it after it is no longer your property? You created it yes, but as an artist you sold it to the highest bidder or gave it away to a friend(which I can agree would give you say). I just don't like the idea of not having full ownership of something if you to buy it from the creator. Copyright laws are a headache, but again why should a person who sold the art retain any control after they sold the original. Don't get me wrong I love flounders art and like the idea of getting something back for what you put into it
(emotional, monetary, celebrity,ect...). Just my interpertation of things over a cup of coffee.

On 2004-12-03 09:38, tikifreak wrote:
Lake, from that comment I guess we should expect to NEVER see your tikis on eBay right? I would hope not after a comment like that! No offense to you dude, but...are you sure your not pre-maturely cutting yourself off from a rather inexpensive worldwide advertising market to turn some off your stuff before even trying it?

eBay is not the only way or place to sell your stuff, so please don't get me wrong.

Lake, not everyone who aquires it's service is an offspring of other rip-off artist that happen to use the service.......so why should the people that use it properly be penalized in your eyes for things others have wrongly done. Does this make "me" and others on this forum who use eBay look bad to you? I just want to know......

I understand it's your own opinion and that's cool, but I say don't knock-it before you try it...

No offense Dave,

G.

Gary... I'm not saying anything against any artist here or otherwise who sells on Ebay... its not my cup of tea and I don't like how situations like this arise with people's art work. Someone is making money from Flounder's original artwork without his approval. Its not a copy, or a close resemblence... it is his artwork and his signature appears in the reproduction.

We've seen so many original pieces of art duplicated and sold on Ebay to unknowing buyers...

No offense to you if you want to sell there and no it doesn't make you look like a ripoff artist...

I guess seeing this and meeting Flounder in person really set me off on this topic... he deserves better and is a very talented artist.

You sell your art, the original. Why should you even be able keep any creative control over it after it is no longer your property? You created it yes, but as an artist you sold it to the highest bidder or gave it away to a friend(which I can agree would give you say). I just don't like the idea of not having full ownership of something if you to buy it from the creator.

It's called intellectual property law. Do you really think someone who buys a painting, for say $100, has the right to reproduce it as prints, bedsheets, underoos, or anything else, making wads of money? Do you really not understand how this is detrimental to the artist?

This attitude is why artists have historically been screwed.

I agree with what you are saying totally Lake and Flounder deserves all the support. I understand all that.

My point was to hope you could see what I was trying to say to YOU about marketing your stuff. Just trying to help.

Lake I guess I should have expressed myself to you privately. We've had good conversation about this kind of thing and I was just hoping to open your eyes to something that just happens to work great for me. Just tried to get you to peek around the blinders is all.....You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink it kinda thing.

I understand it's not your cup of tea, and I respect that, just like offering my stuff for sale through the use of Tiki Central and the forums is not my cup of tea.....

Ok. I'm done.

Nice little clean 2-4ft swell here the last couple of days. Wish you could of got some.

G.

On 2004-12-03 10:08, Lake Surfer wrote:

I guess seeing this and meeting Flounder in person really set me off on this topic... he deserves better and is a very talented artist.

I deserve nothing except for spankings from many naughty naughty women.

On 2004-12-03 09:48, Mike the Headhunter wrote:
Devil's advocate You sell your art, the original. Why should you even be able keep any creative control over it after it is no longer your property? You created it yes, but as an artist you sold it to the highest bidder or gave it away to a friend(which I can agree would give you say). I just don't like the idea of not having full ownership of something if you to buy it from the creator. Copyright laws are a headache, but again why should a person who sold the art retain any control after they sold the original. Don't get me wrong I love flounders art and like the idea of getting something back for what you put into it
(emotional, monetary, celebrity,ect...). Just my interpertation of things over a cup of coffee.

In this case I really don't care. I painted a still life of something that was already created by another. In a way I have ripped someone else's creativity off. My wahine was the one who told him that he could not make copies. If someone took one of my original paintings and tried this you can be sure that I would nip it in the bud.

If it was legal to reproduce a painting you had bought from let's say Shag well he probably wouldn't sell it in the first place. The reason is because he makes more money off the prints than the original .

Just think about it.

Every once in a while I do a search on the internet and find art taken from my website without permission used to decorate other websites.
Example -the yellowish Chardonnay wine bottle and glass painting found at the top of this page on an Italian library website:
http://www.romacastelli.it/vivavoce/vivavoce-1103/index-1103.htm

One would think that a library would understand copyright laws.

A tip to help avoid people taking your images from the internet.
Lots of people just go to Google and do an image search, then steal the images.
For example, check out the search for images for "tiki" on google:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=tiki&btnG=Search

Never give your .jpeg or .gif file you use on the internet the name of your object.
For example, instead of tiki.jpeg use 23t235.jpeg (or some other nondescript word).
If you use tiki (or whatever your object/art is Google will find it and catalog your image for all to steal on its website.

Flounder,I had to sue this cat a little over a year ago and it was the worst time!I won he appealed and I won again, still bad times.He scanned alot of my paintings and was trying to hold my images from me just the digital file.I am always looking for "rip offs"If I sell a full size Giclee" print on canvas some jerk can scan it and sell 3rd generation prints,I make 90%of my cash from prints.I really don't know how we can stop them,I have a image thats been tattooed several times ,I had know idea .This really started alot of thinking,Matt
http://www.fishheadart.com

[ Edited by: fishhead on 2004-12-15 09:28 ]

fishhead - who was doing the copying of your art and where was he selling it at?

Maybe he is stealing other´s art, too, and they could take action...or all artists could take action against him.

It is very risky to sell prints, that is for sure. Here is a link to a guy that encourages people to bring in posters for him to scan, make copies of and make ceramic tiles for personal use or to sell:
http://pacificatileart.com/art-posters.cfm
"Pacifica Tile Art Studio will scan any poster or art print and then reproduce onto ceramic, glass, or marble tiles."

So someone could take our art there, this guy will scan it in, copy your art without your permission and put it on tiles for someone else to sell...and we don´t get a cent...

Just so you all know, I e-mailed the person selling the prints and pointed out that they seemed to be in breach of copyright. I asked a few salient questions and got no reply. So, sue the bastard!

Interesting points raised, though. Now that I've got an original of Flounders, I'm sure that doesn't give me the right to mass-produce it? Does it? I've also got an original of one of his paintings that Flounder used to make up prints. Does that muddy the water even further?

(Not that I'll be making any prints any time soon - unless I lose my job.......joke)

Trader Woody

And added concern for an artist who knows that someone is ripping them off - making unauthorized copies of their art- and does nothing about it, is that the next person that does it and the artist DOES take them to court, this person can reference how the artist did nothing to the previous copyright violator and probably win.

This is why Kleenex and Xerox and now I see Ti-Vo are alwasy sending lawyer letters out to people that "mis-use" their trademarked names; such as "She made a Xerox of that".

When someone buys art, unless it is specifically stated in a contract, the person buying the art does not have the right to make copies of it. They do have the right to own the art, display it, sell it and even destroy it (yikes!) - but they can´t make copies of it.

These are some good sites to visit for more copyright background info:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
http://www.whatiscopyright.org/
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/

Toontz,it was a local guy in O.C. a real dirt bag.
He ripped off a surf photographer ,printed tons of his images .The artist saw his work in a frame shops catalog and said thats mine ,told him to stop etc..

On 2004-12-03 09:48, Mike the Headhunter wrote:
Devil's advocate You sell your art, the original. Why should you even be able keep any creative control over it after it is no longer your property? You created it yes, but as an artist you sold it to the highest bidder or gave it away to a friend(which I can agree would give you say). I just don't like the idea of not having full ownership of something if you to buy it from the creator. Copyright laws are a headache, but again why should a person who sold the art retain any control after they sold the original. Don't get me wrong I love flounders art and like the idea of getting something back for what you put into it
(emotional, monetary, celebrity,ect...). Just my interpertation of things over a cup of coffee.

Because we, as the artist, own the idea. Thats our client's piece of paper/canvas/etc..., but the image, the idea, belongs to us and us alone. I am an artist as well. I paint watercolors of Moais. I produce them, and own the vision. The concept. The idea. The client I sell it to, they just get a copy of that, so they can hang it up on a wall and enjoy it. But its not now THEIR idea, vision, and concept. Its mine. Does that make sense? I hope I explained that well, and got my point across ok. :)

This is making me nervous about putting my paintings up for sale on Ebay. And I just opened up an Ebay store, for this very purpose... but it didnt occur to me that people would be ballsy enough to steal artwork for profit.

Flounder, PLEASE... dont let this go unsettled. If you fight back on this now, then you are not only looking out for yourself, but for all the rest of us who paint as well! I had the pleasure of meeting you and "Mrs Flounder" at the Hukilau, and I thought you were both lovely people. You dont deserve this, and I hope you get it settled soon. :)

Best Regards to you!
Lenore

On 2004-12-03 11:13, FLOUNDERart wrote:

In this case I really don't care. I painted a still life of something that was already created by another. In a way I have ripped someone else's creativity off. My wahine was the one who told him that he could not make copies. If someone took one of my original paintings and tried this you can be sure that I would nip it in the bud.

If it was legal to reproduce a painting you had bought from let's say Shag well he probably wouldn't sell it in the first place. The reason is because he makes more money off the prints than the original .

Just think about it.

Ahhh... ok, I see your point then. I didnt think of it in that way. Well if it doesnt bother you, then I am glad you are feeling ok with it. I didnt think of the angle that you had not painted original mug designs, but instead the designs of others, so you feel funny about making a big deal out of this. I still would, but I understand now why you dont want to. Thats perfectly understandable. :)

By the way, your artwork is spectacular! Thanks for sharing it with the world! :)

Lenore

[ Edited by: kipepeo on 2004-12-16 12:26 ]

A while back, there was a guy putting one of my designs on cheap clocks and selling them. I contacted him about 3 times and was ignored. He then received a letter from my lawyer, and that got the message across to him.

http://www.samgambino.com

[ Edited by: Sam Gambino on 2004-12-16 20:35 ]

I knew an artist that painted original paintings of Disney characters (Mickey, Donald, Uncle Scrooge)without Disney permission. He also made prints of his "original" Disney renditions and sold them.
Someone bought one of his Disney originals and started making and selling prints.
The guy got a lawyer and sued him for making copies of his original reproductions of Disney (copyrighted and trademarked) characters.
Anyway to make a long story short, Disney found out and slapped a lawsuit on both. Neither had any money and went away with a slap on the wrist - don´t copy our Disney characters. (It´s okay to make a painting of a Disney character - just don´t try to make money off it.)
Disney did offer the "original" Disney art copier a deal. He could make original Disney paintings if he signed a licensing deal: $100,000 up front to Disney per year, plus Disney accountants could check his accounting books anytime, 24 hours a day.
He no longer paints Disney stuff.
I talked to him at an art trade fair a while back and now he is doing copies of Marilyn Monroe from photos he saw...

If I'm not mistaken, I think the same thing can happen if you're doing paintings of Elvis. His image is copyrighted and carefully protected. It seems like Marilyn's image would be protected too if someone is trying to profit from it.

I noticed in the eBay auction of this art "print" that it did not sell, which got me thinking.
One can protect the integrity or validity or value of one´s prints somewhat. For example, the unauthorized print in question on eBay was not signed, numbered or dated by the artist - in effect it was just a photocopy.

As the artist one can make his/her prints more valuable and authentic by employing these things:

• Sell only prints that are numbered, dated, signed, and even titled written by hand from the artist.
• Supply a Certificate of Authenticity that his handsigned by the artist.
• Add a special mark or stamp on the front or back side of the print that is a one-of-a-kind design that only you can put on the print.

On your website point out that only prints with these items are authentic prints by you and offer to view any copies to determine if they are fakes.

This will not necessarily stop copies being made, but will add extra value and authenticity that copiers cannot put on the prints or will go through the trouble to do.

Guys, Guys .... First - you must include a Copyright stamp (the "C" in a cirlcle)and the date on all of your work, no matter what it is. This puts everyone on notice that the artwork is the creative property of someone. If a prospective rip-off artist takes one of your prints to the local print shop (Kinko's, wherever...), they will refuse to copy it. He can make those crappy inkjet color-copies until his heart's content, but nothing of quality. Secondly, if your artwork contains the Copyright symbol, you now have an easier legal case against the perp. He can't plead ignorance. If there is no symbol, it's pretty much open turf and anyone can reproduce it. Worse yet, they can beat you to the punch and copyright YOUR design before you do!

I am friends with Buddy Holly's widow. She owns outright the copyrights and licenses for most of his music as well as full licensing rights to his name and his likeness. Anyone wanting to sell something with his name on/in it or a photo, drawing, stick-figure of him has to get permission from her (and always at a price). Don't get ripped-off, people. Protect yourself first; if you don't you are just asking for trouble and you'll have a very hard time getting legal satisfaction from rip-off artists... yea - a letter from an attorney might get them to stop, but after they sell how much of YOUR designs?

Thanks kipepeo, your response was the one that made the most sense and put it all in perspective. So unless you get total control via contract when you purchase it you own nothing, that's pretty right on for the artists. Since I am working on some mug designs now this and a couple of other copyright threads here have been very helpful.

On 2004-12-20 23:55, MaiTaiMafia wrote:
First - you must include a Copyright stamp (the "C" in a cirlcle)and the date on all of your work, no matter what it is. If there is no symbol, it's pretty much open turf and anyone can reproduce it. Worse yet, they can beat you to the punch and copyright YOUR design before you do!

I'm sorry but this information is incorrect. Copyright begins when the piece is created. As quoted here, *"Copyright is established when an original work is created, composed or written and fixed to a tangible medium such as paper, canvas, recording, a hard drive, on film, etc. The copyright is owned by the creator.

Registering your original work with the Office of Copyright is not required for intellectual property to be protected by copyright.

While registering for copyright is not required, the legal registration with the Office of Copyright will benefit the copyright owner should an issue of infringement occur. Registering copyright is beneficial because you cannot sue for copyright infringement without registration."*

http://www.rightsforartists.com/copyright.html

**Poly-Pop ***

He who dies with the most broken mugs WINS!

[ Edited by: PolynesianPop on 2004-12-21 08:26 ]

PP-

Having been involved in a few litiginous circumstances in my life, the one thing I learned was that in court, the person with the most paperwork wins. If you clearly establish the "when" of your creation, you are a lot better off than if you did not. Hence, the copyright symbol and date... Without it, you can "say" you created the piece on such and such date, and that the creative property is yours, but then so can another person. Until you clearly establish you rights to something, it's just your word against theirs. It sucks, but that's the way it is...

MTM,
I understand what you are saying. I agree with you when you say:

On 2004-12-22 17:57, MaiTaiMafia wrote:
If you clearly establish the "when" of your creation, you are a lot better off than if you did not.

When I said your information was incorrect, I was referring to when you said:

On 2004-12-20 23:55, MaiTaiMafia wrote:
If there is no symbol, it's pretty much open turf and anyone can reproduce it.

This is not true. Again, just because it doesn't have the copyright symbol on it doesn't mean its not protected by copyright laws.

I would bet that some artists here on TC (or elsewhere) do not put a copyright symbol when they create and sign an original painting or carve a wall tiki -- but that still doesn't mean its ok for anyone to reproduce it.

**Poly-Pop ***

He who dies with the most broken mugs WINS!

[ Edited by: polynesianpop on 2004-12-23 08:18 ]

And adding a copyright symbol can sure make a work of art look ugly. Besides, a shifty lawyer could say you manipulated the date on the print or art (made it earlier)to help your case.

The best way to copyright and get your added rights as the artist is to formally register your copyrighted works with the U.S. government. It is fairly simple and cheap to do. Just photograph or scan all your work onto a CD and, following their procedure, register your copyrights with the copyright office. Costs $30 for as many as you want to register at one time.
That way your copyright is officially dated and registered.

Poly Pop & ToonToonz are correct-- you don't need the copyright symbol for copyright to exist, it's automatic. It's still a good idea to register copyright, though. In the event that you need to take legal action against someone, your copyright must be registered before you learn of the copyright violation in order to recover legal fees or statutory damages.

Here is an old topic with some information.

On 2004-12-23 03:35, ToonToonz wrote:
And adding a copyright symbol can sure make a work of art look ugly. Besides, a shifty lawyer could say you manipulated the date on the print or art (made it earlier)to help your case.

The best way to copyright and get your added rights as the artist is to formally register your copyrighted works with the U.S. government. It is fairly simple and cheap to do. Just photograph or scan all your work onto a CD and, following their procedure, register your copyrights with the copyright office. Costs $30 for as many as you want to register at one time.
That way your copyright is officially dated and registered.

Here's a cheaper way, and trickier way to copyright something. You can't beat a USPS postmark! Take a pic of your piece, put it in an envelope and send it to yourself. Dont open the envelope when you get it, just file it. The postmark assures the authenticity of the copyright. No judge would ever go against the goverment. If none of this makes since it's because I'm drunk on rum.

The purpose of registering a copyright also gives the author/artist additional protection. When one registers it and then one has to sue some one for unauthorized use of the art and one wins can also receive payment of your legal fees.
Without registration one cannot claim for legal fees.

Plus there are additional problems with the art in the postmarked envelope; such as:
Once the envelope is opened it is no longer any good. So if you have to sue more than one person for illegally copying one´s work, how do you prove in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lawsuits that the date is correct?

And you can only put one work of art per envelope - whew! I´ve got hundreds and hundreds of pieces of copyrighted art - I would need one heck of a filing and storage system for all that.

The copyright system is cheap and effective and takes about as much time as the sealed envelope and postmark trick. (And have you tried to read the postmark on an envelope lately? - I can hardly ever read the date on it.)

You can win a million judgements but collecting is another story.

Ben duhhh?you only sue the people with money....hey it worked for me.

PolyPop... you're right... and I didn't explain myself well enough. But you've all got the basic idea: copyright your stuff or you are leaving yourself wide open. And like the Reverend says, winning is one thing - collecting is a whole other matter. But at least with the copyright, you're covered. Now all you have to do is figure out which lawsuits would be worth your time. At least if you send a letter telling someone they are violating your copyrights, you have a good chance of getting them to stop (or a "better" chance anyway)... Protect yourselves, that's all I'm saying...

Since the "mail it to yourself" thing is so frequently sited as a way to "prove copyright", I want to repeat this:

On 2004-12-24 07:06, ToonToonz wrote:
Without registration one cannot claim for legal fees.

In order to recover legal fees your copyright must be legally registered with the Copyright Office before you learn of the alleged copyright violation. Postmarks do not cut it.

If your copyright is not registered before you learn of a violation, you cannot seek to recover legal fees. Unless you have the $$ to pay your own lawyer, this means you can't really do anything beyond asking the violator to stop.

On 2004-12-16 12:21, kipepeo wrote:
Because we, as the artist, own the idea. Thats our client's piece of paper/canvas/etc..., but the image, the idea, belongs to us and us alone. I am an artist as well. I paint watercolors of Moais. I produce them, and own the vision. The concept. The idea. The client I sell it to, they just get a copy of that, so they can hang it up on a wall and enjoy it. But its not now THEIR idea, vision, and concept. Its mine. Does that make sense? I hope I explained that well, and got my point across ok. :)

That is a fine answer, BUT one question. If you "paint watercolors of Moais" aren't they in turn the lost Polynesian people of Rapa Nui's intellectual property? How about a painting or drawing of a house? Isn't that the architect's? Not that I am disagreeing with you but there is question there.

On 2005-01-12 04:51, Rattiki wrote:

On 2004-12-16 12:21, kipepeo wrote:
Because we, as the artist, own the idea. Thats our client's piece of paper/canvas/etc..., but the image, the idea, belongs to us and us alone. I am an artist as well. I paint watercolors of Moais. I produce them, and own the vision. The concept. The idea. The client I sell it to, they just get a copy of that, so they can hang it up on a wall and enjoy it. But its not now THEIR idea, vision, and concept. Its mine. Does that make sense? I hope I explained that well, and got my point across ok. :)

That is a fine answer, BUT one question. If you "paint watercolors of Moais" aren't they in turn the lost Polynesian people of Rapa Nui's intellectual property? How about a painting or drawing of a house? Isn't that the architect's? Not that I am disagreeing with you but there is question there.

I think it comes down to the fact you can't copyright an idea. The "idea" of Moais isn't protected, but the actual physical Moais are. You couldn't copyright the idea of painting a watercolor of a Moai, but you can copyright your watercolors & protect them from being copied. I believe you can also sue under copyright protection if someone copys your style too closely without saying that the physical object is a copy, a pastiche, "in the style of," or in some way lets people think that the copy is an original by you.

On 2004-12-23 03:35, ToonToonz wrote:
The best way to copyright and get your added rights as the artist is to formally register your copyrighted works with the U.S. government. It is fairly simple and cheap to do. Just photograph or scan all your work onto a CD and, following their procedure, register your copyrights with the copyright office. Costs $30 for as many as you want to register at one time.
That way your copyright is officially dated and registered.

When I first became a professional artist (meaning dirt poor no income artist) I went to the gov site and read everything there was to read about copyrights, contracts, permissions, etc.

The way I understood it (because the government can't use normal english) is that it costs $30 for each piece. Did I read that wrong? The reason I'm asking is that two years ago, I might have been able to afford $30 for each piece, but now that is completely impossible.

I did know that I owned the copyright regardless of registration, and pray that it never comes up. I mean, I'm not even making money from my art, so I wish somebody else luck with that!

Do correct me if I read it wrong, because I can get a lot of pictures on a CD! For $30, I could register it all. There's a huge difference in money spent here.

After reading all of the comments in this thread, I hesitate to put anything else on ebay. My first experience hasn't been very nice, and I'm not any better off than I was before.

Would love to get feedback on this...since I've only started this business recently, I want to do it right. Otherwise I have to go get a job...(yea, right)

One of the techniques I've heard in the past to make registering less expensive is to create a "book" of your images and register that. Then you can include as many images as you like and they are all covered for the $30.

And a suggestion for painters and other artists -- if you do choose to put a copyright notice on your art, you don't have to put in a conspicuous place on the image. You can put it on the back of a canvas or the bottom of a mug. It doesn't really matter where it is, it just helps if it's there as a warning to would-be infringers.

On 2005-01-13 01:51, Hot Lava wrote:
One of the techniques I've heard in the past to make registering less expensive is to create a "book" of your images and register that. Then you can include as many images as you like and they are all covered for the $30.

If I were to place photographs of my pottery, would the pottery itself be copyrighted, or just the photographs of the pottery?

I need the pottery itself to be copyrighted, because my stuff is hand-built, and I don't want some idiot with a mold to come along and ruin my rep.

I know it's a technicality, but the book would be an easy way to register if it works like that.