Re: Important Questions

Posted by darth_paul on 2009/8/14 7:14:31
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ReddEra wrote:
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Biohaz_Daddy wrote:
Kind of a catch 22 isn't it? I know a few people who have their intellectual properties stolen and reworked into various products, concepts, and even mainstream comics. Each of the creators were so disillusioned that it for all intents and purposes ended their pursuit within that field of endeavor. However, I have never heard of anyone getting anywhere without putting their intellectual property at risk.

You can do some simple things to reduce the risks though. If you are putting a general art portfolio out there don't include consecutive pages of sequential art. It's harder to grasp the fullness of your story that way, but still shows how you handle the art form. If you have a character that has a distinct design, don't reveal it in your samples. Instead do some general character sheets that demonstrate your design ability. If you have an interview and show your portfolio, document the meeting: date, time, location, everyone who you meet with, and all of what you showed them. Seems anal sure, but having a copyright on a concept you can't prove the thief ever had access to, is like having a blank winning lottery ticket that you accidentally put through the wash.


What if I watermark everything? It's still see through so you can see the art but it clearly states that it is mine.


Well, that might be a viable solution, because anyone receiving those images would then not be able to reproduce those images in their exact form without you discovering that they stole them. However, they'd be stupid to do that to your images whether they had a watermark or not. The main thing here for you to do is as
Bio said, document everything. Have dates on all your origninal images, writings, etc. If you are sending out copies then have a signiture, date, watermark, copyright, whatever on them as well. Anything you can put on your art to prove that it's yours is how you protect yourself. Everyone has instant copyright when they first put an idea to paper and it's that solid representation of their concept that makes it solid, because you can't just copyright ideas, but you can copyright a fully work of ideas such as a character or story. Yes, you do put yourself at risk, but you need to take some risks to express your concepts, we all do. I know how you feel and where you are coming from since I mostly put my original characters out and don't do a whole lot of other art.

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