Art Business Basics 101: Do You Copyright Your Work? Nov/Dec 1997

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Created: Sunday, 02 November 1997 03:27

Copyright facts are important to all creative people who show their work to the public.

Andrew Wyeth sold Chrisrina's World to the Museum of Modem Art in New York for a few hundred dollars. Nothing else has ever heen paid to him even though the museum has earned over a ntillion from reproductions.

• Possibly he willingly gave the copyright to the museum;
• Or he might have unknowingly sold it with the painting;
• Or he might have published his painting without notice. This gives to anyone who wants it the right to copy the work.

Whether you are a freelance artist who goes door to door with your work, or a closet artist who places a piece of stone in a neighborhood wine shop, you should give this some thought.

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?

• A copyright gives you the exclusive rights to reproduce, sell, distribute, display, and publish artwork and to make other types of work from it, such as reproductions from a painting or a sculpture.
• It prevents anyone else from doing these same things. The lack of the © shoves your masterpiece into the public domain where it can be freely copied.

As soon as your work is finished, and BEFORE it goes public (published), place a copyright notice (© year of completion, your full name) on it.

WHERE ON THE PIECE?

The copyright law demands that notice must be placed where the public can see it if the public looks for it. However, the law doesn't say exactly where. The Copyright Office is working on new regulations that may clarify this.

The safest course is on the back of a three-dimensional work, or on the bottom, providing it can be picked up easily. This would work on a 7-lb. stone; however, you wouldn't place it on the bottom of a 300# stone. Also, never place it on the base of the sculpture.

On two-dimensional pieces, the best location is in the lower left hand comer. It can be on the back as long as it isn't covered by the backing or the frame.

YOUR RIGHTS are protected by the law automatically, from completion until publication. In The Business of Art, Diane Cochrane states, 'The ouly time you have to register your copyright with the Register of Copyrights is if you're planning a legal action against an infringer of your copyright." However, if you have a Certificate of Registration at the time you see your work reproduced, you can sue immediately, be awarded damages and also recover your attorney's fees. If you don't, you'll have to delay your suit until you get the certificate and you will probably have to pay all fees.

So why not go ahead and register it with the Copyright Office?

IT'S SIMPLE:

• Write to the Copyright Office (Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. 20559) for forms. All works of art fall into the classification of Class VA (visual arts).
• Fill out the form, return it to the office with a $10 fee plus one photograph of an unpublished original work; if it has already heen published and seen, send two photographs. This fee will cover several of your works in a series.
• A Certificate of Registration will be issued to you. Uuless you willingly transfer this copyright, even after a sale, the copyright still belongs to you.

There is a benefit to getting your registration before you publish your work.

• If a Certificate of Registration is issued before publication or within 5 years of publication, your claim to copyright is far superior than if it has heen delayed.
• What can I sue for? Injunction, money, court costs and attorney fees, possibly a fine to the infringer.

WHAT CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED?

Your style, ideas, subject matter, themes. These do not belong to anyone. Any artist can choose your subject. But they cannot copy your work, or claim it as theirs if you have protected yourself.

INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION

Your copyright will give you international protection for most countries. The United States belongs to the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), which includes most industrialized countries, and the Buenos Aires Convention, comprised of most South American nations. Your U.S. copyright protects you in all the countries that belong to these two conventions.

The UCC demands that you use the symbol, your full name, and the year of first publication. Other conventions may have different regulations, so ask the Copyright Office.

A special provision in the Copyright Revision Act allows non-commercial broadcasting systems, i.e. public TV, to use pictorial and graphic work WITHOUT your perntission. There is the possibility that royalties could be paid to you; however, it's complicated.

SO, THINK ABOUT THIS ...

Photos of your work could be on a sleazy greeting card ... or used in cheap advertisements. As stated by Diane Cochrane, "Thousands upon thousands of artists ontit the copyright notice - maybe thinking it could deface the art - only to see their works later reproduced on calendars, greeting cards, or prints ... or transformed into T-shirts, needlepoint designs. You name it - it's been done."

So, here it is ... ©1997 Patricia Sekor

Resource list: Making a Living in the Fine Arts, Curtis W. Casewil; The Business or Art, Diane Cochrane; The Fine Artist's Guide, Sally Prince Davis; Tools or the Trade, Personal Law, Emily MadofJ.

Do You Hear What I Hear? - Sept/Oct 1997

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Created: Tuesday, 02 September 1997 06:03

I've recently returned from a symposium where I found myself often spewing the verbiage to anyone who'd listen, that one of the reasons I so enjoy attending is because sculpting is such a SOlitary endeavor. It really isn't true. No, there aren't warm bods nearby, but somehow those little voices keep me company while I'm working. Not the Son of Sam type voices where I'm being told to off the next glass artist I can get my hands on, or the Joan of Arc voices with instructions from Deity. More like mom and dad type voices, but these belong to artists, teachers, you.

Now I can drown them out with Ella Fitzgerald, or muffle them by worrying about every day life, or actually concentrating on the piece, but still a few usually come through loud, clear and dusty. That's good though, for they all have some value if only to get me mad enough to be myself Here are some that ring in my ears as I work. Many are the way I heard them, not necessarily the way they were said. A couple are Probably my own words to myself, but really I don't think I've thought up many memorable phrases even I'd remember. These are my voices; you all have your own.

Basic instructive phrases: "All forms should be based on geometric shapes." "True curves, Meredith, true curves." (It took me forever to figure out what the hell a true curve was.) "It must look like it was done with intent." "Use your safety equipment or your eyes will fall out, your ears shut off forever and you'll be spending the last years of your life matching your wardrobe to your oxygen tank." "You must be able to draw well before you can sculpt anything." (That's like telling an amputee their missing limb doesri't itch. The brain may agree, but try and tell the heart.) "A good artist learns all of the rules and then breaks them."

Repetitive questions that can either inspire me to deep, however possibly meaningless, thought, or shut me down: Why alabaster? Why stone? What's with all the damn swans?

My Best of the Big Shot collection which got me started and keeps me going: When my back and neck are hurting I eat like a mantra the words of a painter whose name I know, but of course can't now remember, "The pain goes away, but the beauty remains." The words of Brancusi, wh!ch are why I do what I do, "What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things." "Sculpture must be lovely to touch, friendly to live with, not only well made ... " Les Brown's "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars." And perhaps the hardest one of all follow, Duke Ellington's "I merely took the energy it takes pout and wrote some blues."

The "slugs" as Jennifer James calls them. Some elicited some just precious little "gifts". They all come back at times and hurt, but also get my ass going. "Your swans are irrelevant. Go back to making hands." "I would never touch alabaster. If you want to compete with the big boys and be taken serioously you have to do marble and make big sculpture." "You can't do that with stone."

Contradictions. "Why must you make all of these birds - they mean nothing." The next day - "I love this swan, I just want to touch it." Another teacher, "No *** birds are going to be made here!" The same person stroking a swan and speaking, to a group "This is a perfect sculpture."

"Maradeath!" "Merrrrradeeth "Merradetha" Many of my voices have lovely accents.

My friends that stay with me through every piece: "I hate those damn flat surfaces - get rid of them!" "Push your sculpture to the limits. " "Maybe they don't listen to you because they can't do what you do. " "Maradeath - proceed with bravery!"

My safety lines: "Only make what you love. Your heart will show in your work." "When one day at a time seems too hard, try one minute at a time." "Find one small miracle in nature every day and you'll get through." "Don't be afraid to be like Icarus. When sculptors try to reach the sun, only then can their heart soar. "

I'm not alone in remembering what I'm told. Many art students stop because of too many slugs. "Artists need constant affirmation, but when they get it, it isn't enough. That's why they keep making more art." It may not be that, it may jUiSt be that we care about what we do.

But it dawned on me the other day that I'm a teacher now too. All of us are who have been doing this longer than someone else end up teaching. Somebody may be listening to me, or to you. So we need to be careful. Someone may remember our words. No more useless, unsolicited critiques after a piece is finished. Someone's spirit is in there. We must never tell a person what we feel the value of their work isn't. And if I have, please take that voice and put it in a trash can and dump it into oblivion, because all of us only know what we know. In the simplest, purest form, there really is no bad art, because there is nothing bad about wanting to communicate or create.