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An Overview of Critical Legal Issues For Cartoonists, Part 1© Stu Rees
This is the first installment of a multipart article directed toward the aspiring cartoonists among you.
Every cartoonist needs to know quite a bit of law. Simply put, you are not in the business of selling cartoons. Rather, you are in the business of selling the legal right to use your cartoons. Not knowing how to protect your rights will lower your income. Copyrights Copyright registration is cheap, easy, feasible without a lawyer, and definitely worthwhile. Although you technically own a "copyright" without the registration, an unregistered copyright is nearly useless. Registration gives your copyright teeth. For example, in a lawsuit you would be able to recover legal fees, expenses, and "statutory" damages. To illustrate, if you sue a fraternity for printing 50 t-shirts, but your copyright is unregistered, you might lose $3,900, even if you win the case. How? The court might set your "actual" damages at $2 per t-shirt (a reasonable royalty) for a total of $100, but you would not be entitled to recover your $3,000 lawyer's fee and $1,000 in expenses. With a registered copyright, the same infringement might return a $10,000 profit from the $10,000 "statutory" damages and $4,000 to offset your lawyer's fees and expenses. Furthermore, opposing lawyers understand the difference between a registered and unregistered copyright. Since a registration lowers your risk and greatly increases that of the infringer, the opposing lawyer is much more likely to respect your cease and desist letter and/or settle out of court. Best of all, you can register an entire year's material with a single $30 filing fee. For more information and filing forms, visit the U.S. Copyright Office at www.loc.gov/copyright or call (202) 707-3000. Trademarks Federal trademark registration is expensive (at least $325 for the filing fee alone), time consuming (1-3 years), usually requires an attorney, and is often unsuccessful. As with copyright registration, trademark registration adds important rights to the unregistered trademark rights you get simply by using your title. Still, most cartoonists postpone registration until the feature generates enough money to pay for it. If federal trademark registration is too expensive, there are a few inexpensive actions you can take to enhance your trademark rights. Go To Page: 1 2 |
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