Need to Copyright your work?

[ZAZKAT]

New to print on demand.  Have you found the need to copyright?  Or is the primary problem, just people copying the idea of what it is that you are doing?

[rebeccawang]

You should always register your original works with the Copyright office if you are selling them online.

[ameliacarrie]

I just posted this somewhere else but maybe it will help you....

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION - Here is some advice my friend taught me. She is a copyright and trademark attorney and has worked for Louis Vouitton, Tori Burch, Benefit, Western Digital, you name it and charges $600 an hour.  She stated that the moment you publish your work online it is copyright protected. So, go to the bottom of your product page. Zoom out and then take a screen shot of the page as you want to include the part at the bottom that shows the date and time your design was published to Zazzle. All our products have that. 

TRADEMARK PROTECTION - For me I registered a couple trademarks with the USPTO.  Did it online myself.  One was rejected. One was accepted. The hardest one I had to argue over with the copyright attorney was to Trademark my name Amelia Carrie.  I found the attorney's at the patent office to be very friendly and willing to offer some help for free.  

Good Luck

[Windy]

I think you are right @ameliacarrie , I have heard the same. The creator of the work "owns" the copyright. The question is how can any of us possibly DEFEND a copyright. Defense of copyright of one work, let alone dozens, or hundreds does not seem like something I could afford. Registering for OFFICIAL copyright protection does nothing to bring down the cost level of copyright protection. @ZAZKAT  So I don't bother.

[Barbara]

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@ZAZKAT wrote:

New to print on demand.  Have you found the need to copyright?  Or is the primary problem, just people copying the idea of what it is that you are doing?

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From what I've seen and what I've experienced, here on Zazzle, there are a number of idea copycats. It's rare to see outright copyright infringement. On the other hand, our designs are stolen right and left by places such as Amazon. The best anyone seems able to do is to get Amazon to take down the infringement, but the same product will pop up again under a new seller. Fighting this legally would require a massive class-action lawsuit, and it would have to be against Amazon, not the infringers who are, for the most part, in China. In other words, we learn to live with it unless we don't create too terribly much a year and can afford the copyright fees.

[mylittleeden]

Unfortunately policing all your designs and work soon becomes a full time job on it own!

[BastardCard]

It can be like playing whack a mole. I did just get one shut down. Someone had stolen one of my designs directly via screenshot and was selling at some POD I'd never heard of. Only reason I found it is the guy posted on Facebook to a group I belong too... a group I had posted that design to in the past myself. That one really got me irritated.

[ZAZKAT]

Any ideas as to what type of designs get stolen less often?  Is it the complexity?  I've watched POD video's and you see the guy behind the computer with a one through ten step on how to copy and paste from another site with tiny changes and call it their own.  That blew me away.  They state that's how they make quick money on POD.  The new way of doing business.  Ha.