artbizbuz
…dedicated to providing tips and ideas for art marketing in the digital world
Copyright & Art Marketing
SUMMARY
Protection of Your Intellectual Property
All forms of intellectual property, including photographs in digital and analog form, are eligible for protection under the copyright laws of the United States. These laws protect the creators of intellectual property against unauthorized use of their works.
Copyright Registration
In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection.
Why Register
The more important reason to register your artwork with the Copyright Office is that the registration provides proof and notice of you having created the art, what the artwork consisted of and when it was created. Being the first to create the artwork is often the hardest thing to prove in a copyright infringement case.
Art Marketing Copyright Issues
A more compelling business reason for the artist to protect their copyright is because the artwork is your business property as well as your intellectual property. In order to be be potentially profitable, artwork – your “stock-in-trade” – must be properly protected just like any other commercial property.
Furthermore, in order to make money from your art you must have an effective business strategy for marketing. Of course marketing means that artwork has to be exposed to others. Files presented digitally are most vulnerable for plagiarism and therefore registering your copyright might be a good idea. Digital images can be protected by watermarking and other electronic means.
A watermark © serves to identify the artwork as copyrighted. But it might pose a business and marketing disadvantage because the mark might obscure part of the artwork. Or, even worse, might indicate a lack of trust to a potential business client (buyer or licensee).
Art marketing is based upon sharing of the image of the artwork with prospective buyers and other customers such as a product license for your art.
Sharing of artwork image is essential element of marketing but shared images must be protected: sometimes this involves registering your art with the copyright office. The choice is yours. We suggest that you analyze your business needs and marketing strategy before deciding how (and what extent) to protect your business investment – your art.
This is especially important when files are exposed on the the web via online marketing for print sales or marketing products that inclued your licensed art.