Re: FLASH: Copyright - a bit long. Was: who owns the fla?

[John Croteau]

Hi Frederico and all,


> >The web has created a very interesting field of who owns what.  Would

> >it be proper to add a visual "all rights reserved" or copyright on all

> >Flash movies?

It won't hurt, but it no longer has any legal bearing.

All ORIGINAL work (images, text and script) is now protected at the time

of creation. Only older works that preceeded these laws and

international treaties require a copyright notice.


> Not only proper, but highly recommended in many cases, even when the

> visual content might be adversely affected. In those instances, we advise

> presenting copyright info in advance, then fading it out, or presenting

> it at the end, or both. As long as it exists somewhere in the visual

> file, you're OK. (much like the copyrights attached to a film or TV show,

> be it brodacst or on portable media)

A copyright notice is not required and has no legal bearing. Whether or

not a copyright notice is posted or not, if you own the copyright it is

yours. Posting a copyright notice is also unlikely to dissaude anyone

who is predisposed to copying your work. However, it can not hurt and

may have some value but primarily in advertizing your name. There is no

need to go back to add copyright notices to your work.


What does have benefit is sending your copyright infomation to the the

US copyright office (assuming it is distributed in the US). This helps

to validate your work and can save legal costs if legal action is

needed.

 

> (hint) Some of us have created hacks to embed the copyright within the

> file itself, also.

Adding a hidden mark may aid in proof that a work is yours. Open

declarations of copyright are likely to be removed, but a well hidden

mark that you are aware of but the copier has no knowledge of will

usually provide overwhelming proof that a work is yours.


For those who want to know more details - below are a few of my links.

Further investigation will reveal case law and very specific legal

details. As always the details on the Web keeep growing and the

following links provide even more info on US and International Copyright

than the links than I provided the last time this discussion came up.


http://www.shsu.edu/~lib_www/copyrigh.html

http://www.copyright.com/Resources/default.html

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

http://www.wipo.org/eng/iplex/index.htm


-- 

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-----------                               -----------------------

John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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