Do You Copy That?

As little while back I asked for some input about the whole watermarking issue. I had been reluctant to post my past photography in the gallery, and even a little hesitant to post new work on this site (even though that’s the main goal of this blog…to get me creating new work, or maybe inspire others to). I was unclear about how copyright worked and was worried that I might get taken advantage of somehow. Well, after picking the brains of some of my peers and doing a little research, I have gained a basic understanding about intellectual property rights and as a result, finally made a few decisions. I thought I’d share my findings with you.

Mine mine mine mine mine.

First of all, as creator of the contents of this blog (unless otherwise noted), I automatically have copyright over what you’ll find in here. That is, I have the sole right to produce or reproduce my textual or visual work (or a substantial part of it) in any form, and am protected under the Copyright Act. There is some fabulous information about Canadian copyright at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website, if you are so interested. Even though copyright exists automatically when an original work is created, registration of that work gives you a certificate that states that you are the owner of the work, and it can be used in court as evidence of this ownership.

Now, if you know me, you’ll know that I am not one of those uptight individuals who needs to be the sole person attached to their work. I have created a lot of stuff over the years and never gotten any credit for much of it. For the most part, I am okay with that. Most of the time, if somebody wants to use one of my photos (or whatever) for something, I am more than willing to let them. BUT. I appreciate being asked before hand about these uses, and I expect to be appropriately credited if the situation warrants (like if one of my photographs is used in a newspaper or something similar).

Given that I’d rather my stuff get shared around rather than hoard it all to myself, upon the suggestion of my friend Keith, I looked into something called Creative Commons. Essentially, this group wanted to develop a set of user-friendly licenses that would enable creators to share their work under certain conditions. There are four different license categories that you can choose from, depending on how much control you wish to maintain over your copyrighted material. For a list of these conditions, please check out the Creative Commons Canada website. Bottom line, this seems a much friendlier way to go about doing things.

And so. In addition to doing “sensible” things that will hopefully deter outright theft – like posting only low resolution images, not plastering my images all over Facebook, and having an invoice ready to be sent out if I should discover some of my work being used inappropriately (thanks to Don and Andrea for their suggestions!!!) – I am also adding a Creative Commons / some copyrights reserved statement to my blog. As well, I have uploaded some of my past works to the gallery and will continue to add my new creations to my posts. Whew. That was a lot of work.

Of course, this whole endeavour took a lot of my time today, so in lieu of “creating” something new, I invite you to go and check out the photography pages in the gallery. =)