{"id":457,"date":"2022-01-11T07:15:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T07:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/?p=457"},"modified":"2022-01-11T07:15:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T07:15:28","slug":"copyrights-for-one-and-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/copyrights-for-one-and-all\/","title":{"rendered":"copyrights for one and all!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right up front: if you have a copyright issue, get a lawyer<\/em>. You may think copyright is simple, but you’re wrong. If it were simple, there would not be a lot of very rich copyright lawyers, eh?<\/p>\n

As a creator, you automatically have a copyright once your expression is in tangible form. That won’t do you any good if someone steals it and you go to court however, unless you also filed a registration for it with the Copyright Office.<\/p>\n

Copyright rules are decidedly not<\/em> cut-and-dry, but more like a bowl of slippery spagetti. For example, in the US you cannot copyright a website… but there are some slippey exceptions, usually involving parts of it. (Use care: you don’t want to file a copyright on someone else’s copyrighted work.)<\/p>\n

There is a treasure trove of incorrect information on the internet. (No, you cannot use \u00a0‘just the first N notes’ in your own song. Yes, there is “fair use” except when there is not. No, you do not update your copyright notice each time the year changes. No, mailing your song lyrics to yourself is not “just as good.”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, you -can- register a whole slew of photographs at one time and for one fee… if you do it right.<\/p>\n

My best advice is simple: file the copyright. Then hire a lawyer if you ever need one.<\/p>\n

Next: read up on it. The Copyright Office circulars are short and understandable.<\/p>\n

Here’s a good place to get the gist of it:
https:\/\/www.copyright.gov\/circs\/circ01.pdf<\/p>\n

and here’s the aforementioned website info:
https:\/\/www.copyright.gov\/circs\/circ66.pdf<\/p>\n

Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right up front: if you have a copyright issue, get a lawyer. You may think copyright is simple, but you’re wrong. If it were simple, there would not be a lot of very rich copyright lawyers, eh? As a creator, you automatically have a copyright once your expression is in tangible form. That won’t do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-info","category-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valleau.art\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}