Starting an online comic book – copyright laws?
My best friend and I are starting an online comic book. It’s completely self financed, original, and we’re planning to purchase a domain name website. We’ve been cross referencing our characters to make positively sure that we’re not going to be accidentally stealing copyrighted material (so far it seems legit enough).
My question is, if we go to the trouble to do this project, we want to make positively sure that no one’s going to legally try to steal it. Is there a way to patent, or copyright our website and characters once they’re up?
The Berne Convention automatically gives you a copyright of your comics as soon as they are placed on a fixed material (paper, computer disk, videotape, audio tape, etc). The difference between registering for a copyright or not registering is what you can sue for if somebody does steal your characters/ideas (you would get more money if you registered for a copyright).
Just to make sure that people understand that your comics actually are copyrighted if you don’t decide to register, I would include a copyright disclaimer either at the beginning or end of each comic. On the Copyright website it says thay the proper way to write the copyright notice is to make a c in a circle (or write copyright) followed by the date of the first publication followed by your name(s) or name abbreviations that are easily recognized. IE "Copyright 2008 John Doe"
Posted in
January 12th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
any publisher would help you with that, online or offline.
References :
January 12th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
The Berne Convention automatically gives you a copyright of your comics as soon as they are placed on a fixed material (paper, computer disk, videotape, audio tape, etc). The difference between registering for a copyright or not registering is what you can sue for if somebody does steal your characters/ideas (you would get more money if you registered for a copyright).
Just to make sure that people understand that your comics actually are copyrighted if you don’t decide to register, I would include a copyright disclaimer either at the beginning or end of each comic. On the Copyright website it says thay the proper way to write the copyright notice is to make a c in a circle (or write copyright) followed by the date of the first publication followed by your name(s) or name abbreviations that are easily recognized. IE "Copyright 2008 John Doe"
References :
Here is the Copyright website where you can find the forms and what not that you need:
http://www.copyright.gov/forms/