Worried Man (and Artist)

And to all of the lady artists my apologies, the language is a limited thing and I am so old that using person to indicate the collective mass of humans just sounds wrong on my ear, so it will remain man as in mankind not man with pants or what’s happenin’ man?

So you all read my last, well, almost last, penultimate post about making up your own postcards and you went out last night and dug around in the closet and found that wonderful piece of art and you scanned it into your computer because you read my other post about why every artist ought to have a scanner and now you have it and all of the other pieces of the puzzle, but you are still worried about someone stealing your work.

Whew, that was a mouthful, okay a line-ful.

People steal. They do it all of the time and having the Net at your finger tips is just a case of throwing gasoline on the fire. Halloween is coming up and poor ole Jack Pierce, Universal’s master monster maker is going to have his images stolen right and left. Folks just can’t help it; Jack’s view of the classic movie monsters is just burned into the human psyche like Robert Newton’s Cayman Island accent means pirate. You didn’t know that was Robert Newton’s contribution to movie magic? Five of the greatest actors of all time, Wallace Berry, Orson Wells, Charleton Heston, Anthony Quinn and Jack Palance all played Long John, but it’s Robert Newton we remember, Jimboy, (wink, wink).

So like Newton’s iconic performance Jack Pierce’s makeup will always be Frankenstein’s creature, the Mummy, the Werewolf, (he did the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman too, but he hated Lon Chaney, thought he was a lousy actor and made the Wolfman look like an enraged cocker spaniel, his words.) It’s just a fact and so is stealing.

People honestly don’t mean to, they do it without thinking. See a picture on the Internet and copy it so that you can use it for your haunted house, scrapbook, tablecloth, whatever. No one thinks a thing about it.

So if you are really worried don’t ever let your artwork be seen.

My own work has been lifted a time or two. I noticed that some nice folks from Portland are doing Murder Mysteries at the Red Lion. They call themselves Poison Pen Players. Never bothered to check the Internet I guess or they did and went ahead with it anyway. I’ve used Poison Pen Murder Mysteries since 1987 but who’s complaining?

Okay, so that might be my logo, but it isn’t a complaint. They are probably just trying to make a buck and never meant to be a rustler.

So what can you do besides not ever show any of your work?

You can officially register it with the Copyright office in Washington, D.C.

http://www.copyright.gov/

It is pretty easy and doesn’t cost all that much and if you ever get really offended you must have done this if you want to file a lawsuit.

But probably you don’t want to do that, hire a lawyer, put on your good clothes and spend a month or maybe a few years waiting for the case to come up, so what to do?

Why not just use the Copyright symbol ©? Most people will see it and think twice before they rip you off for commercial gain.

Where is it? I’m glad you asked. On my ole Windows XP machine you go to the Insert menu, click and when the drop-down list shows up go to Symbol select the Copyright symbol © and click insert.

That’s all there is to it and it should make you sleep a lot better at night. Won’t stop a determined thief, but you can always write him a letter and threaten his gizzard. That won’t stop him either, but it will make you feel a lot better.