Posts Tagged ‘dear rich’

Rich Stim answers copyright questions from a website owner and a writer, and songwriting credit question from a musician who uses a pseudonym.

Rich Stim explains basic copyright law for a designer who created a newsletter for a client, and an artist creating greeting cards using iron work designs.

This can be confusing. For example, copyright for the 1961 public domain film One-Eyed Jacks was not renewed, but the film’s score was renewed in 1989.

You don’t always get paid just because someone creates a book or movie based on your life story.

What makes fair use such a slippery concept is that it can only be proven by going to court, and most people can’t afford to take the issue that far.

If a book deal is in the works, and you feel you are entitled to a cut of the earnings, you should seek to become a party to the publishing contract.

if you’re trying to protect something functional (like the massaging book bag pictured above), seek a utility patent.

Here is some background on how these intellectual property decisions are made by doll companies.

“Good ideas are common — what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring them about.”

Any work first published in the U.S. before 1923 is in the public domain regardless of the lifespan of the author or authors.

You can copyright a combination of images and text, even if the text by itself is not copyrightable.

Clothing designs are not protected under copyright law and resale is permitted under the first sale doctrine.

Do I have the right to reproduce in my book a copy of the envelope that these letters arrived in?

Only the leader of the band signed, not the rest of us. Is he the only one bound by the agreement? Will he be the only one who gets recording income?

Generally, novelists and dramatists can get away with fictionalizing real life people and events without permission.

If the Dear Rich Staff was in your position, we’d probably give up on the $800.