Research copyright

[Simon_P_Cooper@adobeforums.com]

I am carrying out a BA research on copyright – this is serious

Some of you are aware that images/illustrations are not 100% safe-proof on the net.

How do you feel about the copyright laws for the internet and do you understand your rights?

How important it is to protect your work on the net?

Do you hand over your copyright to the buyer/client?

If a client buys your image/illustration copyright and made a big profit, how would you feel?

Many of you may know that net users can download and save artists work onto their computer and modify it and claim it is their own work. How do you feel about this?

You do not have to answer all questions above.

With your permission may I use your name and email address in my research.

Please reply to [email]simon@pitsea.demon.co.uk[/email] I will not pass on your email address to any persons or third parties.

[James_E._Talmage@adobeforums.com]

I often do not understand the confusion & disagreement over copyright issues vis a vis the web. Copyright is copyright. The validity of the law is not dependent upon the *ease* with which it can be broken.

Pretend there is no internet. But there is this wonderful, new, and empowering technology readily and conveniently available to me, embodied in a machine called a "Xerox."

With it, I can--at negligible cost--very very easily make multiple copies-on-demand of the latest Tom Clancy novel.

Therefore, the new technology has somehow rendered copyright obsolete?

I don't think so, and I doubt Mr. Clancy's lawyer thinks so either.

;-)

JET

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

I agree with James. And I might mention that "changing" an original, copyrighted piece is only the option for the owner of a copyright "they have the right to create a derivative work from the existing work". If a court of law could see "any" similarity with the original the abuser could (and probably would) be in violation of copyright law.

And from a practical side, my 20+ years in business showed me that most artists, quite frankly, did not care what happened to their work after they did a piece and they were paid by the company (assuming of course nothing defamatory was involved). I'm not saying this is right, but it was rarely an issue. And... most companies would require that "they" were assigned total copyright control of a concept to be acceptable to them. Here again it was indeed rare for an artist to maintain rights (usage fees, etc.) after they handed the work over and they were paid by the company.

Gordon