Re: your views on copyrights

[Philip Rink Jr]

At 6:45 PM 5/7/98, Tracy wrote:

>About this topic, and in a nutshell, it says that every piece of creative

>art is copyrighted to the creator upon creation. The only way that the

>copyright does not immediately fall to the creator of the work is if the

>author did the work for hire. In such a case, the person who paid for the

>work owns the copyright, unless there was a prior written agreement between

>the artist and the person(s) who hired him/her.


True, prior to 1984. Back then, the commissioner of a work was considered

the author, and therefore held the copyright. The revisions to the

Copyright Act made in 1984, although not abolishing the concept of "work

for hire" as some mistakenly believed, did make it a matter of agreement

between commissioner and author as whether to consider their relationship

to be "work for hire." Since this would effectively mean giving up

copyright ownership, most artists would not make such an agreement. The

newer law goes into detail about what exactly this means, and really

protects the interests of the artist more than the older law.

        The freelance artist owns the work, and that's that, and sells the

right to reproduce (copy - "copyright," see?) it . Now, many buyers refuse

to buy anything less than "all rights," and many artists sell off all

rights too easily, in the belief that they need to do this to generate

work, but that's a different discussion. Of course, if you're drawing a

paycheck from da man, you're giving your life away, but at least you eat on

a regular basis.

        May I recommend _The Copyright Book_, William Strong, MIT Press.

There is I think a newer edition which covers digital issues than the 1990

third that I have. Having moved from pictures to pixels, I'll have to pick

it up.


Phil




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