Re: Copyright Infringement

[Iris Nevins <IrisNevins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To Mary Crest....

I have had more infringements than I care to remember, thankfully none
recently. Seems people 10-15 years ago just figured..."well..I bought the=

paper I can do what I want with it"....never mind the copyright warning o=
n
the back of the sheet. Of course they NEVER saw it until I sent a letter =
=2E
It happened so many times that I had a form letter in the computer and on=
ly
changed names and dates! Many other marblers in the '80's had this happen=

as well.

We sort of acted as watchdogs for each other and would get a magazine ad =
in
the mail, cut out by another marbler saying.."I KNOW this is your work..d=
id
you get a fee?", or a phone call to buy this or that book where the dust
cover had our work reproduced. I can't begin to imagine how many went
unnoticed.

Thanks to a handful of us getting tough, it doesn't happen much anymore.

Basically I handle it by starting out nicely, saying I know they didn't
mean to do this and probably misunderstood the copyright notice, but it
leaves me in the position of not being able to re-sell that design for
reproduction for quite a while because everyone wants an individual look =
on
their product. So please, send my usual fee, I will send you a letter of
release, we'll stay friends, etc. Usually this works. I had one horrible
experience though I won't go into, but had to pull out the copyright
registration number. It took a long time and a lot of phone calls and
letters to Florida, but I did collect eventually.

One time someone ripped off a design, that I had just authorized to someo=
ne
else, printed a brochure with it, and the person who had my OK and paid a=

fee saw it. They went hysterical and threatened to sue me, thinking I had=

sold their design to someone else. The second party could not of course
show my letter of authorization because they hadn't gotten one, I pulled
out the registration number for effect, and they had to destroy their
brochures or face a copyright infringement suit. =


Glad to not have these headaches so often anymore.

Iris Nevins