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[aageon]

Welcome to:

How-To Protect Your Artwork

This Isn't necessary for these forums, but it can be useful if you are serious about your artwork

Introduction:

I'm going to talk about the steps you can take to protect your artwork.
Copyright is the best option to protect your work. Copyright is legal protection for the creators and gives you proof of authorship. So it's very useful to have it on these forums.
This gives the creator the choice to share his artwork or not.
Unfortunately, the internet made it easier for copycats to steal your work or pass it off as their own.

How-To:

* There is a big difference in copyright between continents.
Unlike the U.S., some do not provide the automatic copyright of your work, but a license and certificate of proof of ownership is always good to prove you are the rightful creator and can protect you world-wide (even useful for the U.S.).
This work can be independently verified by a third party like: http://myows.com/ : This is free!

There you can register and upload your files for verification, after a few minutes you will receive a confirmation of your newly copyrighted artwork.

Example:




* For the US: Copyright Protection Is Automatic
Under the present copyright law, which became effective January 1, 1978, a work
is automatically protected by copyright when it is created. A work is created
when it is “fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registra-
tion in the Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protec-
tion under the present law.

There are, however, certain advantages to registration, including the establish-
ment of a public record of the copyright claim. Copyright registration must
generally be made before an infringement suit may be brought. Timely registra-
tion may also provide a broader range of remedies in an infringement suit.
http://www.copyright...rcs/circ40a.pdf
http://www.copyright.gov/ for all the information

You may add the © sign to your thread. Example: © 2011 Your Name

Final Words:

Protecting your work is important and is fairly easy to do so.
I myself have used both methods to protect my work in any continent.

So keep an eye out and know your work can be safe on the internet.

Your fellow Belgian Minecrafter,

AaGeOn

[BidoofRacer]

Neato. Thanks for this.

[aageon]

BidoofRacer, on 15 July 2011 - 10:10 AM, said:

Neato. Thanks for this.

no problem, glad to help

[LoveToast]

Very Useful for 3rd party textures and music, nice

[Ekalb]

You don't need the copyright symbol for work to be copyrighted

e: also stop pretending that a lawyer will care if someone uses your tiny sprited images for a minecraft texture pack.
In addition to this; no sane person will be willing to pay a lawyer for something so trivial.

[aageon]

Ekalb, on 15 July 2011 - 11:29 AM, said:

You don't need the copyright symbol for work to be copyrighted

e: also stop pretending that a lawyer will care if someone uses your tiny sprited images for a minecraft texture pack.
In addition to this; no sane person will be willing to pay a lawyer for something so trivial.

Just formulated it wrong that's all Fixed.
Sorry to say but I do have a lawyer, because I don't only create minecraft textures
Textures that I make aren't only used for minecraft and so on.
So If you don't find this thread informative why bother to write a comment?

[Ekalb]

aageon, on 15 July 2011 - 11:38 AM, said:

Just formulated it wrong that's all
Sorry to say but I do have a lawyer, because I don't only create minecraft textures
Textures that I make aren't only used for minecraft and so on.
So If you don't find this thread informative why bother to write a comment?

Rather than attempt to be informative with this thread you are only spreading misinformation.
So even if someone takes a tile or two out of someone elses texture pack;
1) a lawyer will not care for it
2) no one is going to pay a lawyer to investigate/pursue it
3) you have no means of actually suing someone because all you have is a screenname they use on the internet.

The only power in this is given to website moderator/administrators who may remove content if properly contacted. Don't kid yourself/anyone who reads your posts.

[aageon]

Ekalb, on 15 July 2011 - 11:41 AM, said:

Rather than attempt to be informative with this thread you are only spreading misinformation.
So even if someone takes a tile or two out of someone elses texture pack;
1) a lawyer will not care for it
2) no one is going to pay a lawyer to investigate/pursue it
3) you have no means of actually suing someone because all you have is a screenname they use on the internet.

The only power in this is given to website moderator/administrators who may remove content if properly contacted. Don't kid yourself/anyone who reads your posts.

This isn't about lawyers, this is how to protect your work.
So wait, I work for a digital art and entertainment firm and my own side-firm now.
So you are telling me that someone stole their work lawyers won't take it seriously?
Sorry to say but it's very ignorant of you, but in this thread I'm not talking about lawyers.

http://myows.com/ even provides: get unauthorised copies removed and so on.

What people will do or not do isn't your call. This thread is just on how to protect your work in an easy way.

[Detsuahxe]

If you're not going to discuss the use of lawyers to enforce copyright, then what ARE you talking about? Copyright only protects work because it is a mechanism by which use of material can be controlled.

You can claim copyright for a texture pack. The law might even say you HAVE copyright for your texture pack. But without any means to enforce your copyright and punish violations of it, you cannot protect your work.

Ergo, this thread is utterly pointless. Nice thought, though.

[Dustyboozer]

what, exactly, is the point of copyrighting Minecraft texture packs? I'm not trying to be offensive but i personally think anyone who does this needs to get over themselves. same goes for people using profit gaining links and such. silliness.

[FrigginSandvich]

I put mine on myows.com just to scare off remixers, not because I am going to send lawyers after them.
I think it's useful to bring this into light.

Also, what's wrong with profit gaining link, provided that you have an alternate?
Can I not gain some money from my work?

[aageon]

FrigginSandvich, on 15 July 2011 - 12:26 PM, said:

I put mine on myows.com just to scare off remixers, not because I am going to send lawyers after them.
I think it's useful to bring this into light.

Also, what's wrong with profit gaining link, provided that you have an alternate?
Can I not gain some money from my work?

This thread is indeed intended for that, a little scare is good enough for some to stay away.
That's the whole purpose of this thread.

[Dustyboozer]

FrigginSandvich, on 15 July 2011 - 12:26 PM, said:

I put mine on myows.com just to scare off remixers, not because I am going to send lawyers after them.
I think it's useful to bring this into light.

Also, what's wrong with profit gaining link, provided that you have an alternate?
Can I not gain some money from my work?

providing an alternative download is much better, although i don't see many people doing that. the idea of making money off of someone's video game sits wrong with me for some reason, but again, its just my opinion. still, the way you are going about it (providing an alternate link) makes much more sense and i agree that there is nothing wrong with that.

[RileyVace]

You know how I deal with people stealing my work or claiming it as my own?
I just link them to the thread/page with the date mine was made.

Simple.
If you don't have that much, or they got theirs posted before you did, then hard luck to you bud.

[scelton315]

I don't know why this was locked so I've opened it again.

[aageon]

scelton315, on 14 August 2011 - 01:34 PM, said:

I don't know why this was locked so I've opened it again.

Thanks for unlocking, it may be useful now for the new rules on the forum.

[aageon]

updated the post a bit

[aageon]

added examples

[Dirty_Christ]

Very informative, but it's important that people know it isn't a necessary process to register your work and get certificates and stuff when trying to abide by the new set rules in the forums. If you're only trying to license your work just so your thread doesn't get deleted (as BluesteelAU has threatened), you need only a mere paragraph (typed up by you) stating the terms of use and distribution for your pack and inserted into your thread.
If you ask me, the less legal junk going around in these forums, the better.

[aageon]

Dirty_Christ, on 14 August 2011 - 02:28 PM, said:

Very informative, but it's important that people know it isn't a necessary process to register your work and get certificates and stuff when trying to abide by the new set rules in the forums. If you're only trying to license your work just so your thread doesn't get deleted (as BluesteelAU has threatened), you need only a mere paragraph (typed up by you) stating the terms of use and distribution for your pack and inserted into your thread.
If you ask me, the less legal junk going around in these forums, the better.

Well added this to the OP: This Isn't necessary, but it can be useful if you are serious about your artwork

I for one don't see why I wouldn't protect my artwork as it's so easy to do it and can prove that you are the owner of your work easily.
It can help the mods/admins to determine who the real creator is if someone stole your pack.

I don't only use my artwork for minecraft, so it's a great and easy option for me.