Over the past few months, I have heard of many artists whose work were 'highjacked', reproduced and sold in another country. I wanted to know more about the Copyright Laws and how they worked. I did some digging and emailed the US Copyright Office for clarification of my questions.
To sum up in short:
1) One doesn't need to register his/her work in order for it to be protected by the law.
2) The 'collection rule' only applies if an artist has one title for all the pieces and they are published as a collection. (More about that later).
3) Are US law only covers the US. It doesn't protect us from others from outside the US from taking our work and using as it were their own.
4) The link below will explain more about what we can do to protect our works from being 'stolen' from outside the US. The US does have relationships with other countries in regards to helping us protect our artwork. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf
Here is a great article covering more about International Copyright issues from Brian Sherwin a writer for FASO, with links to more related information!
http://faso.com/fineartviews/52801/some-thoughts-concerning-international-copyright
Since all my paintings are sculpted acrylic paint they have a 3D affect that cannot be achieved when photographing it. Hopefully this will help detour ones from stealing it and selling the prints. For now I will keep painting, publishing and praying for the best.
Back to work.....and having a blast!
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