This post is a short extension and continuation and summary from a previous article: Importance of Copyrighting Your artwork - it would serve well to read this before reading the following, as good background knowledge.
1) Deviant Art
By uploading your work to a personal gallery on deviant art, you can protect your work under a variety of licences such as the creative commons license.
Creative Commons Licence
2) Post It to yourself
The first way is to for instance with a logo, save all formats of the file you have onto a disc, and then send the disc in a sealed envelope by recorded delivery to your home or business address. Keep the postal marks and seals on the letter and file it away in storage, never to be opened unless required in court. This is further enhanced by also placing in the envelope documented proof of the idea evolution, such as initial sketches/(film or media cards)photographs/materials that went into the final composition. This is not the ‘proper’ method of copyright, all it can essentially do is in court prove that you created the work first.
3) Copyright UK
Whether you are a song writer, designer, artist, author, company or individual, if you produce original work, it is important to protect your intellectual property. Our registration centre provides the very best secured back up and archive management for your work, meaning we can ensure that you always have evidence to support you in any future disputes.
4) Photographic Cataloging
The easiest way to copyright your work yourself, with little or no cost, is to photograph and catalogue it. Each photograph will be date stamped on your computer enabling you to easily prove that you created the work first. Make sure that when you create the catalogue disk that you put a written file on it with the titles and dates of the works, this document too will be date stamped.
5) Internet
There are also some internet sites that offer copyright protection on your work. How they operate is to accept photographic files of your work, they time and date stamp them and give you a certificate proving copyright belongs to you. You choose a length that you want the work protected for, normally ten years, and then pay a set amount. Should your work then be copied you can take legal action because you will have proof that you created the work first as the copyright company will give you all the documents you need to prove when you lodged the work with them along with a copy of the copyrighted work. It’s not as official as copyrighting your work through the proper channels, but it is a lot cheaper considering that copyright infringement is a grey area and difficult to prove.
All content © 2010 by Acuity Designs
[...] Ways To Copyright Your Work 9 04 2009 Acuity Designs have a very good article on how to protect your work with suggestions how you can copyright your [...]
This is false.
You Copyright your work upon it’s creation; not through one of these methods.
‘In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights.’ – Wikipedia
.-= Phill Price´s last blog ..Tweets and news you may have missed 2009-08-17 =-.
[Reply]
Hi Phil,
you make a good point – however whilst the Berne convention protects the creation – It doesn’t help in a legal dispute where the issue of who created the work first is paramount and where the issue of copyright is likely to be raised. The above mthods provide accepted means within the UK of prooving the time and date of your creation – thus strengthening your copyright claim.
.-= Acuity´s last blog ..Designing With Distractions =-.
[Reply]