I know this is't a anime studio question, but my content is made in anime studio.
I am trying to creat a small mini series like Ninjai the little ninja(www.ninjai.com). I'm in the middle of building a website for it.
My question is: How do I copyright my material. I hope to be able sell it on dvd later(hopefully) and I am trying to figure out how to build a privacy policy, terms of use, and all that stuff.
If anyone could tell me any sites that can explain it for a 15 year old(i'm really 17 just terrible at legal crap), that would really help.
I have Copyright issues
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NightmanGX
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It's pretty simple, really: US copyright law says that an artist's material is copyrighted at the moment of creation.
Theoretically, you don't have to take any specific action to have the legal right to profit from your work without someone else taking advantage of your designs.
Just put the copyright symbol (C) on your works (although even this is not a legal necessity).
Now, are you still concerned that you may one day have to take action to protect your work? Well, if anyone did copy your work without your permission, you would have to contact them and ask them politely to remove their work from sale or from public view.
If they failed to do so, and this mattered enough to you, you would need to find a lawyer to file suit against them. In order to prove your case, you would probably need to be able to prove that your work existed prior to their work.
That's why people file their designs with the Copyright Office of the government--it's the best way to prove that your design existed on a certain date.
There are other ways to prove that your work existed at a certain date. (Maybe someone can expand upon or improve my explanation.)
EDIT: I've now just verified my explanation above against the description given by that marvelous fount of human understanding, Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law
Note that in general, the Wiki is a great place for the kinds of question you asked, and lots more.
(And please ignore the mean and reckless people who like to put down Wikipedia.)
Theoretically, you don't have to take any specific action to have the legal right to profit from your work without someone else taking advantage of your designs.
Just put the copyright symbol (C) on your works (although even this is not a legal necessity).
Now, are you still concerned that you may one day have to take action to protect your work? Well, if anyone did copy your work without your permission, you would have to contact them and ask them politely to remove their work from sale or from public view.
If they failed to do so, and this mattered enough to you, you would need to find a lawyer to file suit against them. In order to prove your case, you would probably need to be able to prove that your work existed prior to their work.
That's why people file their designs with the Copyright Office of the government--it's the best way to prove that your design existed on a certain date.
There are other ways to prove that your work existed at a certain date. (Maybe someone can expand upon or improve my explanation.)
EDIT: I've now just verified my explanation above against the description given by that marvelous fount of human understanding, Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law
Note that in general, the Wiki is a great place for the kinds of question you asked, and lots more.
(And please ignore the mean and reckless people who like to put down Wikipedia.)
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NightmanGX
- Posts: 60
- Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:14 am
- Location: San Diego, CA
- Contact:
Bingo.NightmanGX wrote:Thanks for the help human.I have read that mailing a copy of your work to yourself and not opening it is proof in court that your work exisited.There are other ways to prove that your work existed at a certain date. (Maybe someone can expand upon or improve my explanation.)
I knew I was forgetting something important.
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NightmanGX
- Posts: 60
- Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:14 am
- Location: San Diego, CA
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[1] Trademarks are handled by a different office--the US Patent and Trademark Office.NightmanGX wrote:One more question: Tradmarks. Where do I get the title for my series trademarked so it can't be stolen, or is it that same thing?
[2] Trademarks are not intended to protect the titles of artistic works, but can protect the name of a series of products, including artistic works.
A quick web search turned up the following:
http://www.intelproplaw.com/Forum/Forum ... 1134777407
[3] I'm not sure what kind of protection is available for titles, but I get the impression it's pretty slim....
[4] (For the record, I am not a lawyer.)
You'll be able to get more wisdom from others on this forum, or by doing the right Web search.
From what I've been told by people in the know, mailing stuff to yourself and not opening it is totally useless legally. It doesn't mean anything in a court room.
A while back I wrote a series of short 1 to 2 minutes scripts. They were silly and I didn't think anyone was going to "steal" them, but I had an opportunity to let someone "out west" with "connections" take a look at them.
They wouldn't even accept them AT ALL until I had registered them with the writer's guild. (nothing came of it so I am going to animate it myself).
This was a very simple and affordable on line process. I submitted my scripts as pdf defined as a series, paid $20 and now at least those creations are "safe". http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/
This isn't any type of "official" government protected thing. I believe it is just a way to prove with some kind of outside source the origin and ownership of any type of written work. They have some "clout" so if your work is there with your name on it... it's protected.
Everything you do creatively is probably going to be written down first anyway. It is the WRITING that needs to be protected even more so than the title or image.
I don't believe titles can be copyrighted or trademarked. For instance there are many books and movies with the exact same title. This is very difficult to do. I think it also depends more on how much money and influence you have.
True story from the DVD audio commentary for the movie "Dark City":
Spielberg threatened the producers of the movie "Dark City" when they were planning to call it "Dark World". Spielberg was about to release "Jurassic Park: Lost World" and felt this would cause confusion and hurt their franchise and threatened to delay the release by going to court over the title even though they would probably lose. Spielberg had no "legal" right to prevent that title being used but because of Spielberg's influence and money "Dark World" became "Dark City". Just the threat was enough. They had even printed posters with "Dark World" on it. If you can find one of those they are probably worth some money.
I read in an interview with a screen writing instructor that the odds of having your work stolen is minuscule. That is the very last thing to worry about. He gets very annoyed with students who are afraid to read their work in class because it might get stolen.
I wouldn't even worry about it. Submit the written script or treatment to the writer's guild or pay to have it "officially" copyrighted and that is enough.
-vern
A while back I wrote a series of short 1 to 2 minutes scripts. They were silly and I didn't think anyone was going to "steal" them, but I had an opportunity to let someone "out west" with "connections" take a look at them.
They wouldn't even accept them AT ALL until I had registered them with the writer's guild. (nothing came of it so I am going to animate it myself).
This was a very simple and affordable on line process. I submitted my scripts as pdf defined as a series, paid $20 and now at least those creations are "safe". http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/
This isn't any type of "official" government protected thing. I believe it is just a way to prove with some kind of outside source the origin and ownership of any type of written work. They have some "clout" so if your work is there with your name on it... it's protected.
Everything you do creatively is probably going to be written down first anyway. It is the WRITING that needs to be protected even more so than the title or image.
I don't believe titles can be copyrighted or trademarked. For instance there are many books and movies with the exact same title. This is very difficult to do. I think it also depends more on how much money and influence you have.
True story from the DVD audio commentary for the movie "Dark City":
Spielberg threatened the producers of the movie "Dark City" when they were planning to call it "Dark World". Spielberg was about to release "Jurassic Park: Lost World" and felt this would cause confusion and hurt their franchise and threatened to delay the release by going to court over the title even though they would probably lose. Spielberg had no "legal" right to prevent that title being used but because of Spielberg's influence and money "Dark World" became "Dark City". Just the threat was enough. They had even printed posters with "Dark World" on it. If you can find one of those they are probably worth some money.
I read in an interview with a screen writing instructor that the odds of having your work stolen is minuscule. That is the very last thing to worry about. He gets very annoyed with students who are afraid to read their work in class because it might get stolen.
I wouldn't even worry about it. Submit the written script or treatment to the writer's guild or pay to have it "officially" copyrighted and that is enough.
-vern
All that registering will not prevent anything from being "stolen" or ripped off, mind you. The registering is just some help for the creator in case there's a legal action against the thief.
1. You can't prevent anybody from copying your stuff from your website. Everything put online is technically open to everybody. You can't prevent anybody from putting your stuff on their own website, and you can't even prevent them from claiming that it's their work (instead of yours).
2. In order to fight this, you must get knowledge about the incident. This is the hard part since you can't possibly monitor all websites in the world for your content showing up.
3. Even if you restrict your observations to the commercial world (or your small part of it, like comics or cartoons), somebody else might get off with it because you don't notice.
Sounds pretty hopeless, eh? But!:
4. Companies of a certain size have great interest not to use anything from any uncleared sources because their financial risk in case of being found stealing is much bigger than any profit from using that stuff.
5. Those who steal typically are just little stinkers. Most of them are not even worth the amount of work of an email exchange.
6. Unless you yourself have a certain reputation and a noticable body of work, companies tend to ignore claims of "this was my idea first and you stole it", especially in the context of fandom.
Conclusion: Your work must be good enough in order to get stolen. You can't prevent any stealing. But you can act like a pro: sign your work, register whatever is possible, be polite in writing.
1. You can't prevent anybody from copying your stuff from your website. Everything put online is technically open to everybody. You can't prevent anybody from putting your stuff on their own website, and you can't even prevent them from claiming that it's their work (instead of yours).
2. In order to fight this, you must get knowledge about the incident. This is the hard part since you can't possibly monitor all websites in the world for your content showing up.
3. Even if you restrict your observations to the commercial world (or your small part of it, like comics or cartoons), somebody else might get off with it because you don't notice.
Sounds pretty hopeless, eh? But!:
4. Companies of a certain size have great interest not to use anything from any uncleared sources because their financial risk in case of being found stealing is much bigger than any profit from using that stuff.
5. Those who steal typically are just little stinkers. Most of them are not even worth the amount of work of an email exchange.
6. Unless you yourself have a certain reputation and a noticable body of work, companies tend to ignore claims of "this was my idea first and you stole it", especially in the context of fandom.
Conclusion: Your work must be good enough in order to get stolen. You can't prevent any stealing. But you can act like a pro: sign your work, register whatever is possible, be polite in writing.
You might want to check this out then : www.copyright.gov for U.S copyright.
this day in age i really really wouldn't worry about your ideas getting stolen unless it is a really unique idea and worth the effort...
if youre making a pretty basic animation, i mean, seriously, look on youtube. do you really think with the millions of animations out there, anyone is going to want to specifically steal yours?
you're 15 yrs old. I've been there before, trust me. But realistically, the last thing you need to do is worry about copyrighting things right now... if you ever complete the series you're working on, and have the money to distribute it to DVD, even then... unless you hit a cult status, you wont really ever have to worry about people stealing it.
RonC
if youre making a pretty basic animation, i mean, seriously, look on youtube. do you really think with the millions of animations out there, anyone is going to want to specifically steal yours?
you're 15 yrs old. I've been there before, trust me. But realistically, the last thing you need to do is worry about copyrighting things right now... if you ever complete the series you're working on, and have the money to distribute it to DVD, even then... unless you hit a cult status, you wont really ever have to worry about people stealing it.
RonC
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