Thank you so much for your kind and supportive words (Your questions are replied at the end of this post)! I know that the majority of our community is nice, trustworthy people who wouldn’t upload my work to any file sharing services/groups or I would have quit designing digiscrap stuff years ago. Ztampf! wouldn’t be where it is now without your support and patronage :). So thank you again! I took a couple of days off from the digiscrap land – I admit that I’ve been fuming a lot about it but I don’t want to let the pirates to bring me any more loss and negative effects as they have already done. And I have always known that this is part of the risk of the kind of business I’m in. Plus, I have plenty to do and to prepare before my trip – so I’m dealing with this as best I can.
Right from the start, I have implemented any security measure within my means and I have always included my Terms Of Use file within all download folders. My Terms Of Use is available for all to read on my site here and any one can email me with any questions about it.
And today, I have registered The Great Expectations Collection to the US Copyright Office through their new online registration system! I’m one of their beta-testers now :). Why US while I’m residing in Hong Kong – you might wonder. Well, I only have a few customers in Hong Kong (even paper scrapbooking is rare in Hong Kong – let alone digi!) while US is my major customer base. This doesn’t mean the work is only protected within the US; all original creative work be it registered for copyright or not are automatically copyrighted and protected under the International Berne Convention.
How about Digital File – is it ‘tangible’? Well, according to the US Copyright Office, it is – below is from their FAQ section:
Is it legal to download works from peer-to-peer networks and if not, what is the penalty for doing so?
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney’s fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights.
Whether or not a particular work is being made available under the authority of the copyright owner is a question of fact. But since any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium (including a computer file) is protected by federal copyright law upon creation, in the absence of clear information to the contrary, most works may be assumed to be protected by federal copyright law.
Since the files distributed over peer-to-peer networks are primarily copyrighted works, there is a risk of liability for downloading material from these networks. To avoid these risks, there are currently many “authorized” services on the Internet that allow consumers to purchase copyrighted works online, whether music, ebooks, or motion pictures. By purchasing works through authorized services, consumers can avoid the risks of infringement liability and can limit their exposure to other potential risks, e.g., viruses, unexpected material, or spyware.
So there! Registering copyright, while it is not necessary under the Berne Convention in order to have your work protected by law, will be useful should we (as a group of designers) decide to file a lawsuit against the pirates. I can only afford to register little by little though… As you can see, it is pretty costly ($45 per work or per series/collection – or $35 for a limited time as beta-testers). But I’ll invest back some of my income for this. Oh yes!
And now… let me answer some questions asked through the Comments on my previous post (thanks for asking them :)):
- Jennifer asked: “how would I know if I was buying something illegal?”. Well, you can’t be very sure unless you’re shopping at reputable shops where you know they do things correctly. Even reputable shops sometimes could unknowingly sell pirated designs. Sometime last year, a few ‘designers’ were selling my BeRibbow as part of their kits – some customers who came across them informed me. Two of them quickly apologized, she got it from someone else and didn’t know any better. But the remaining two adamantly denied it. Against all unmistakable proof they claimed that they made the BeRibbow from scratch themselves. Yeah, right – with all the little folds and highlights and additional touches that ‘accidentally’ identical with mine! So… usually you’d find out – perhaps later – when you came across the original designer’s site or something like that. Or, you might notice that the quality and styles of certain item/elements look markedly different from the usual ones you got from that designer – or from the rest of the stuff included in the kit. But really, there is no definite, easy way to find out… That’s said, if you got the stuff through file sharing groups or sites – chances are they are not legal although there are people who legally share their own work that they made for fun as a hobby.
- Melanie asked: “To be sure, is it okay for me to use your kit pieces to make a card and print it out – or even email a FLATTEN COPY (not the layers) jpeg or png file to someone?”. The answer is yes! You can use my kits to create anything for your own personal use. This includes creating/printing cards, scrapbook layouts, hybrid crafting, etc. to give to your friends and family as gifts. And yes, you can email your creations using my kits as flatten files. For more information, you can peruse my complete Terms Of Use here.
- Anna-Marie asked: “I don’t understand, do they just say it is their own work? How can they post it when their is someone else’s name on?“. Well, I guess this one is rhetorical. But yeah, in some cases they just took my BeRibbow and put it as part of their own kit with their own name as the designer for the whole kit. The cynic in me thought: perhaps there are other designers’ work in that kit too! Ugh! No self-respecting designer would do that. I guess people like this just don’t deserved the title as a ‘designer’.
- Adi requested: “I would love to hear about the Becket’s play… ;-)”. Don’t worry, it will be on my next post :).
- Lynn asked: “I’m not sure how they were sharing. Was it a blog leading you to a file share site? Can’t that individual be tracked and brought to justice?”. Usually they are members (or owners) of file sharing group. They upload the files to a file sharing sites and then distribute the links through their groups. Oh yes, some of us are working to track them down – with the goal to eventually bring them to justice. Yep!
If any of you have any more questions, just holler, OK! :) Thanks again for your support!
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