What Do You Want to Know About Copyrights and Trademarks?
Hey there Bakers! We have an exciting opportunity. Over the past few years, as the rise of Internet artist and designer portfolios, we have also seen the rise of copyright infringement and what we might want to call “copycat” art. We have seen friends’ work taken and reused by large retailers for profit without permission. So how do you go about protecting yourself from falling victim on this great big place called the Internet? Well, we wanted to get you the best advice possible, so we teamed up with legal veteran, Scott Schwartz who hails from major law firm Cozen O’Connor.
Scott has agreed to answer selected questions regarding protecting your work, dealing with copyright issues, and what to do when you find someone using your work (Scott calls that infringement). So, email us your questions or put them in the comments on this post and he will answer them in an upcoming post.
Scott reminds us that his responses should only be read as general legal comments about copyright and trademark law and they are not a replacement for attorney advice from an attorney that you hire and that is familiar with all of the facts and circumstances of your situation. Scott is really looking forward to responding to the selected questions but his answers do not create an attorney/client relationship.
Here is some more information about Scott:
Scott has a practice focused on all aspects of trademark, copyright and unfair competition law and related litigation. He represents clients in a wide range of industries and at different stages of their corporate development helping them identify and protect their intellectual property rights and assets. Scott routinely counsels clients on branding issues such as clearing and registering their trademarks and addressing enforcement issues. Scott joined Cozen O’Connor’s Philadelphia office in June 2002 and is a member of the Intellectual Property Department. Before joining Cozen O’Connor, Scott was in-house counsel at Intel Corporation for more than three and a half years as a senior attorney responsible for implementing and managing global trademark enforcement and protection strategies for marks including the Pentium® and Intel Inside® trademarks. He also served as an associate at the intellectual property law firm Woodcock Washburn. He is a regular speaker on the topic of trademark and copyright law. In addition to appearing on local news programs discussing issues from the iPhone trademark to the Wal-Mart “Smiley Face”, Scott has spoken at multiple International Trademark Association programs and CLE courses put on by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute and the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Associate of Corporate Counsel. He has been quoted on intellectual property issues in BrandWeek, Best’s Review, and California Lawyer Magazine. In addition, Scott previously chaired the U.S. Legislation and Regulations Subcommittee and New Regulations Subcommittee of the International Trademark Association. Scott is an adjunct professor at Drexel University in the Entertainment & Arts Management Program of the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design where he teaches Copyrights and Trademarks for Entertainment & the Arts. Scott also proudly serves as a board member of Federation Early Learning Services. Scott received his bachelor of arts degree from American University and his law degree from the University of Buffalo School of Law. He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New York and Washington, D.C. Scott is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild, having appeared in his youth in various commercials as well as more recently in an independent film.
What are the differences between images that are public domain, royalty-free and rights-managed?
I’m a designer working primarily with public domain images, and most of my clients are independant crafters. Here’s one of the questions that comes up quite a bit from them:
How does copyright work with arts and crafts in regards to derivative works? Specifically, can an artist cut out an image from a copyrighted book from the 1960s and use the original image unaltered in their craft (such as a note card or a necklace)? What if the image is altered or part of a collage? Many of my clients are under the impression that as long as you are using/recycling the original art and not making any copies of it, you’re okay. Is that true?
I know in one case a court found that adding a frame to original copyrighted work was considered creative (and therefore derivative) and not okay, and in another adding a copyrighted image to a tile was not considered creative (and thus not derivative) and therefore was okay. Is the crux of the issue whether something is transformative/creative/derivative? Or is something else going on?
A more general version of this question would be what are some common pitfalls or misconceptions (for example about fair use) that crafters who sell their items need to look out for when creating work with images that did not create themselves.
I’m currently a Graphic Design student. I’ve been working a lot on photography lately and I would like to know if there is a rather simple way I can copyright my images. I must have thousands of images by now, and registering them w/ the copyright office would be very expensive. I’ve talked to some pro. designers/photographers and one of them told me that they just email a CD of their photos to themselves as a record (keeping the package unopened, and archived, I guess). Is this a good and legally strong method for copyright?
[...] a while back we asked you to submit questions for Scott to answer about copyrights and trademarks? Well, lucky ducks, answer time has come! This [...]