Have one of those on your materials? You should.
It also brings to mind one of our more unfortunate experiences with a disputed design and copyright registration. A few years back we licensed a large collection of 3D products that had a variety of designs and dozens of skus that ran (with refreshes) for several years. We were a bit surprised when we got a call last summer from a family member who had seen our garden gnome and angels at… an HBBCS (Humungo Big Box Craft Store that does not start with “M”).
Cool, we thought – until we discovered that our manufacturer never sold them to HBBCS, but apparently their factory had. Welcome to the world of overseas sourcing.
We have been down this road before, too many times, so I sent all the appropriate catalog pages, product pictures and supporting material showing our designs pre-dating theirs off to the appropriate person at HBBCS, who immediately turned it over to their head legal counsel, who immediately contacted me with only one question – did we have the copyright registration certificate? Which unfortunately we did not, we had let some of these designs go unregistered. I still believe I could hear him chuckle, and of course they immediately concluded there was no similarity and ended our correspondence. All we could do was let it go because the costs of pursuing it would far outweigh any recovery of royalties, and the HBBCS legal staff were of course fully aware that, without our Federal registration, they were not on the hook for damages and could ignore us.
So what do you think? Our products are the top two images, the (much uglier) HBBCS products are below.
Close enough for ya?
good post Jim. I register all my copyrights and have for years. I also tell other artists to do so as well. I even have it in my Licensing Agreement that I register my copyrights. It is so important. It is really your insurance against infringement and without it you are lost. I am surprised that more manufacturers don't insist upon it to protect them as well.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to the article mentioned at the beginning of the story.
ReplyDeleteGreat info. I am putting it to use immediately. Thanks!
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