DIY Comics for Beginners Pt. 5

Posted: Tuesday, August 19, 2003
By: Darren Schroeder

How do you copyright your work?

If you publish it then you have legal protection without having to do anything. Liberal use of TM and (c) is just a way of you letting people know that you want to exercise your rights as creator of the work. If you want to be extra protective, get a copy witnessed and dated by a Justice of the Peace, Solicitor or Notary public so you have evidence that you produced the work at a certain time. Locally we have the New Zealand National Library that attempts to hold a copy of all works published in the country. Under the Legal Deposit system publishers are required by law to send three copies of everything they do to the library for no charge. While this is a cost to you, sending these copies records when work is published and also ensures you can can get access to your work if you loose all your copies, and your comic is preserved for posterity's sake. There is a similar system in Australia and Canada.

Emilio Diaz had an interesting experience which points out how complicated the copyright area can be:

"I originally registered the name "Mantaman" under COPYRIGHT with the Library of Congress. Then..a few months ago Before Mega Con, I decided and found out about Trademarks. I then tried to register the trademark for the name and found out another company had already registered the name Mantaman! Well, suffice to say I was rather upset at this. So I then had no choice but to change the name to something else. I decided to change it to: THE MANTA and the name stuck ever since. The fans actually like the new name better and are behind me one hundred percent."

For more information on copyright issues have a look at www.copyright.org.au

If you have some information on copyright in your neck of the woods let us know.

DIY Comics

Pt. 1 - Writing
Pt. 2 - Artwork
Pt. 3 - Materials
Pt. 4 - Publishing
Pt. 5 - Copyright
Pt. 6 - Distribution

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