OUAN402 - PPP:
Albeit taking some time for me to actually put in a little energy and write a blog post about my understanding of the legalities in the industry, here it is, finally! Don't hold your breath though as I'm not writing a essay...
When time came to learn about this misty area within the art world, it certainly helped me a lot to understand what meant what when it came to distribution, who owns what for how long and so forth. Copyright means that the creator, publisher, author or whoever made something they're particularly proud of and want to distribute, has complete control over what happens to it as they are the creator and therefore own the rights to their work. The work can be collaborative or independent, it can still be covered by copyright laws.
Content produced in the UK is automatically protected by copyright regulations, which is a Brucie bonus for the likes of us as we don't need to apply to protect our work! If some cheeky beggar decides they're going to manipulate, distribute, alter in any way, shape or form, or duplicate your work and make it out as their own, then that's a big no-no unless permission has been granted by the owner of that work! This can be applied to any form of media really; video games, books, music, applications, drawings, illustrations, pretty much anything!
I also didn't know that any literary, artistic or photographic works are protected by copyright for the life span of the creator +70 years on top of that after they've died! That's pretty handy! However, sound recordings only used to be protected for 50 years until Cliff Richard (the ancient fossil in a 20 year old's body!) got this raised to 70 years in 2011.
You don't always need to ask permission from the owner so long as it's not for commercial purposes. That would be incredibly cheeky to be making money off of someone else's hard work if they don't even get a sniff of the money made! If work is shown internationally via a website for instance, you must use a "©Grace Elmer - 2014" in the footer or appropriate place as UK laws on copyright don't apply elsewhere in the world.
If someone passes your work off as their own (this has happened to me unfortunately, of which was soon resolved as they were featuring it in a magazine even though they didn't write me as the artist! Grrr!), the best thing to do is have a chat and a cup of tea and sort it out. If this doesn't work, resort to violence. No, don't. Get your solicitor involved as if you have the original piece of artwork, you can deposit it with them as proof of creation. You could also be a little inventive and post your artwork to yourself with a dated stamp on it to prove that at some point in time, your work existed and you were involved with it.
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