It's great to see this info shared. Creators are always so worried about having their ideas stolen, but the best way to protect your stuff is to share it, not hide it.
This very helpful I forgot that they used to do that with the envelope very useful for people who want to keep proof if they don’t own a computer and just purely wanna keep it on paper
Thank you so much for this extremely helpful video! I have been somewhat panicking about this very topic so having someone explain has been a very enlightening experience. Thank you again!
I have a son 14 years old. He has a lot of artwork spanning over 11 years. All of the same characters. The information he has on these is unlimited and I'm overwhelmed with where to start. I almost need a professional in the gaming, trading, or character development field to help with advice or direction. I don't have any experience or knowledge in this area. He is brilliant. I'm posting in hopes of someone providing advice.
You are right about inherent copyright, and it’s very useful to prove precedence w posts, emails, etc. The HUGE advantage with filing officially BEFORE publication, at least in the US, is that if somebody steals big enough that you should take them to court, you can sue them for YOUR lawyer fees as well as damages as long as it was filed before publication. You WILL need to officially file at some point if u want to defend it in court, but if filing happens after publication u can only sue for damages. This is important because taking IP issues to court is INSANELY expensive. So: do you have inherent copyright? Yes. Is that enough if you actually need to find a lawyer and sue somebody for stealing and profiting off of your work? …Not if the value of your work is worth more than the $80ish it costs to file for copyright before u post something online. :)
FYI: The *US Copyright Office* (USCO) states, “The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a *‘poor man’s copyright.’* There is NO [emphasis added] provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is *NOT a SUBSTITUTE* [emphasis added] for registration. Relying on the poor man’s copyright, notarization, emailing, or any other type of time-recording to validate your copyright authorship (creation) and copyright ownership claims can be quite easily faked. On the other hand, it’s much more difficult (impossible?) to falsify an issued US copyright “Certificate of Registration, as a copy will also be placed in the USCO’s on-line Public Catalog database for the public to access and verify. So, whether you’re out of the UK, EU, Australia, or the US, if you’re selling, licensing, sharing, or distributing your artworks, photographs, games, books, blogs, music, and other creative works on US selling platforms and/or directly to US-based clients AND you want to retain STRONG copyright protection against American infringers, you really need to have a timely copyright registration in-hand, either registered BEFORE the infringement begins OR registered WITHIN three-months of first-publication, as that will typically provide your US attorney with the necessary LEVERAGE to push the US-based infringer to settle out of court. If the infringer doesn’t settle, and you prevail post-trial, the defendant/infringer is now liable (responsible) for statutory damages (from US$750 to US$150,000) AND your attorney fees & legal costs (at the court’s discretion). To mitigate their legal & financial exposure, most all non-Fair Use, non-judgement-proof US infringers who are facing a timely registered copyright claim will want to quickly and confidentially settle out of court and put their infringing actions behind them. Without a timely registration, US and international creatives can only pursue “actual damages” (typically the missed licensing fee or the cost of the copied works) and/or the infringer’s “disgorged profits.” And unless those financial damages are SUBSTANTIAL and PROVABLE, like the US-based infringer prominently included your artwork in its advertising campaign, on soup cans, on apparel/merchandise, and in other commercial media, your attorney fees will typically exceed any money you receive post trial or via an out-of-court settlement, making it un-economical to pursue US copyright infringers. Joshua Kaufman is a Washington, DC copyright attorney/litigator. His short video addresses the economics of not timely registering works against US infringers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cBOKkrleY3Y.html Write back if you’d like to receive USCO links on how to register (protect!) your creative works against US-based copyright infringers.
The cards and paper in an envelope does not count for anything (in the USA anyway), there is really no way to prove when the envelope was sealed (or potentially opened and resealed). My understanding is an official copyright with the government will allow you to collect more money from someone who infringes your design (they will have to pay your lawyers fees after you win the case). I'm not a lawyer, so don't rely on my advice, but I've read up on this a bit.
What about a spin off of a game? Say perhaps the rules are the same/similar but the characters are altered with altered names? Would you still need to change the rules? Sorry for having so many questions.
So, I’m a bit confused…do you need a copyright symbol or no? And if you don’t pay for an ACTUAL copyright can you still put the symbol or does the symbol not matter at all?
So I’m making a board game/card game so it will be using a lot of art and text. I like in the USA, so the laws here are probably different on how copyright works. Basically after researching the general laws. Pretty much anything you make by default in the US art wise (art can be anything) is protected by a basic copyright law. But you can pay to have your copyright be formally recognized by the Library of Congress by paying money. With this, the main perk is that you can more easily sue people if they take your stuff.
@charlesh4333 wrote, “Pretty much anything you make by default in the US art wise (art can be anything) is protected by a basic copyright law. Not quite. Many US works are not copyrightable. About 5% of works submitted to the US Copyright Office (USCO) are refused registration, as the works either lack the minimum creativity and/or do not fit within the scope of US copyright subject matter: See “Things Not Protected by [US] Copyright” www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf @charlesh4333 wrote, “But you can pay to have your copyright be formally recognized by the Library of Congress [USCO] by paying money. With this, the main perk is that you can more easily sue people if they take your stuff.” That’s correct. If your work was *“timely”* registered, you can pursue ENHANCED money damages against US infringers. However, the vast majority of US-based creatives skip registering their creative works altogether. Importantly, US creatives help presumptively PROVE via prima-facie EVIDENCE their copyright validity (copyright authorship & copyright ownership claims) by timely registering their works with the USCO. See 17 USC § 410(c). The US copyright registration system is very much a vetting process that helps authenticate our copyright claims. In the US, it’s not the original or RAW file that necessarily proves your copyright ownership/creation, but rather your issued-copyright Certificate of Registration - you’re official United States government date stamp! A RAW file, SASE, emails, and other non-USCO proof recordings can be faked! An un-registered US copyright claim is, way too often, *WORTHLESS* and NOT enforceable for money damages. *This applies equally to US, EU, UK, and other international creatives who want to pursue US-based infringers for money damages.*
I am still drafting on my channel my art isn't official and if I do make cards that are not officials and will change are those pervious version are copyright?
Hey Zack, I have a question. If someone (like me) we’re to use the idea of having two or more cards to combine into eachother to form one big card. That wouldn’t be stealing the idea of combiners from chaos galaxy if it had been originally done in games like YugiOh or the Transformers trading card game right?
I don't think anyone can claim ownership of the general idea of putting 2 cards together to make a larger one. Along with your examples, a similar mechanic was also introduced in one magic the gathering set (eldritch moon). just don't call it the exact same thing and make it work exactly the same.... differentiate it a little bit.
@@123stevehead All my combo beast cards are is just combination. They don’t have a special move like Zack’s or the other ones. They just are stronger normal cards but they can be played as a single card as well or the two separate parts can be played as individual cards
No, this wouldnt be stealing at all - you cant own the concept of playing 2 cards next to each other! However if you were to use the same card templates and names as another tcg's combining mechanics then it would be stealing
Hey I know you’re not a lawyer, but in your experience or knowledge, is it legal to run a prototype with copyright art amongst a community to play test or is that illegal. The game would be making no money, it would just be for free play testing.
Not a lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, but as an informed person: this may fall under Fair Use, which is something that usually has to be defended in court (expensively) if things get that far. But it is also on the copyright owner to flag and ask to remove unauthorized copyrighted materials. So: is it IP infringement, and possibly illegal, yes. Does it qualify as Fair Use? Probably, especially as there’s no money involved and this is more for proof of concept than actual play, but Fair Use isn’t inherent - it may be tested in court, which is expensive and easier just to follow a cease and desist or swap art out rather than legally defend. But if you are just doing these as prototypes and not posting online, there isn’t a way for companies to even police unless u start posting on social media or selling prototypes w copyrighted art. I’ll add this: most reputable printers, even print-on-demand companies, are sensitive to copyright. So even if you could do it and it may qualify as Fair Use, it’s much safer for printers to just say, “sorry, we aren’t touching that” than to try to justify being involved w printing something that includes other people’s IP.
@@bennybosque okay so it’s entirely possible that my personal play testing would never get back to artists, but it does just seem better to not use copyrighted art. It seems a simple solution but that reply helped a lot to confirm for myself. Thanks so much for that response!
Zack are you gonna a battle for the new starter decks the storms of rokah and the creations of Teklar battle please make a battle for the new starter decks
