Crafts and Copyrights
Sunday May 20, 2007
Unless you sell patterns or assembly-line styled crafts (your design, but others make it) I do not recommend copyrights for most craft businesses. The fees and paperwork involved are one factor for my opinion, but the main reason I am against copyrights for crafts is that enforcement of your copyright can be so time-consuming that they offer no real protection from people who really want to steal your ideas. What are your thoughts on copyright protection for crafts?
Comments
I agree with you. I do think it appropriate to date one’s work, too. In addition, no work can be copied exactly. Each person brings to art and craft his/her unique execution. The truly creative person does not have time for legal nonsense unless there is deliberate malfeasance, and even then the only person to win in court is the lawyer. If one is creative, just move on to yet another terrific idea.
I do photography and copyright every pic that leaves my hard drive in the metadata. I do not display my work on websites that enable picture copying. This is what I was taught to do studying photography at Murray State U. As far as legal fees are concerned, I would not be without Prepaid Legal. They saved me tons of money establishing my business, and an event organizer who yanked the handle off my husband’s truck door wouldn’t fix it until threatened with legal action. They also got Dell to pick up a defective printer and credit me for it after their extremely sympathetic Asians said all the right things and did nothing (I’ll take a grumpy Texan who gets things done any day!)
I work too hard doing what I do, and pictures are unfortunately too easy to copy, to let anybody walk away with my work. Prints have a copyright label on the back of the print and on the backing if we sell it framed. I do not deface the front of the picture, and in any case, copyright notices on the front are too easy to edit off.
Martha Y.