The Artist's Toolbox: Copyright, Creative Commons and Trademarks

Tips and Tools: The Artist's Toolbox

(Image Source: pinksuperstore.com)

Copyright, Creative Commons, Trademark, Oh My!

Last week, after I finished participating in a panel discussion at SooVAC called the After School Specials, I had an artist come up to me and ask about copyright. She wanted to know how I protected my work and if she should watermark her images. Copyrights, trademarks, and other ways to protect intellectual property can get pretty confusing. Much like Dorothy trying to make her way back to Kansas, it is easy to get lost along the way! So here is a breakdown on ways to protect your work, with a few bits of advice and tips about how I do it.

©: Copyright

Keyboard shortcut: Copyright
For Mac: Option + G
Non-Mac: Alt+0169

Copyright protects works of authorship; this includes literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works: poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, architecture and your art. Copyright is great because gives you exclusive rights as the creator. It’s the government providing official documentation that you have created and own the artwork. If you take a peek into my blog’s archives you will find my post about copyright called, Using Protection: Five Steps to Copyrighting Your Art . I did a step by step breakdown on how I learned and successfully registered my artwork. Now, do I recommend copyrighting all of your works of art? No.

There are certain situations where you need to copyright your work but more often than not there are ways to protect yourself without needing to register every work which on average costs $35 if you register online. If you are working with other people who wish to use your image for printing, publishing or other uses its best to copyright. You still allow them access to use your copyright image but only for certain printed or published materials (which should be previously decided upon). I once dealt with this situation where the creator wanted to take my image and print posters, postcards, fliers and more with my image which I did not initially agree to. If you have a hunch someone will take your work and run, either back out or protect yourself with a copyright. Learn to write contracts to make sure the project and terms are agreed upon. Make sure you have registration number to the copyright of your work in the contract too.

While there are definitely grey areas where you will have to make the decision yourself whether or not to copyright, consider the consequences that could occur if you don’t copyright your art and images in these situations. Many photographers will watermark their work either across the entire image or small in the corner. For the most part, this is distracting when done on art (As shown on my work, “Ok, Who Invited the Bomb Pop?”). 

(c) Kate Renee 2011

Instead of plastering you name and a copyright symbol on every image you have, consider adjusting the image to help prevent online image theft. Resize the image to 72 pixels per inch. This means that if someone steals your image and tried to print or publish it, the size of the image will create a poor copy. Basically it’s hard to reproduce this image in a high enough quality to make some money off of it.

But did you know, you already own the copyright to your work whether or not you register it with the government. So go ahead and stick that © on if that makes you feel better. If you want to start the registration process or learn more about copyrights head on over to http://www.copyright.gov/.

The creative commons right allows people to use your images as long as they have your permission. Creative Commons license allows your artwork to be shared; people are allowed to use your images for free and without threat of copyright infringement. How does this benefit you? You get free publicity and promotion when people use your images but you are in control. If they fail to ask you permission, they are incorrectly using your work. However creative commons allows you to determine the size, quality and amount of your work to be available for others to use. It is also free to protect your work this way. When I took a workshop with Creative Capital back in 2010 we talked about these same issues. Creative Commons licenses can determine various modes of attribution, derivatives and distribution that you allow.

You can find out more information about having a creative commons license here: http://creativecommons.org/. There is a great interactive way to decide which creative commons symbols to stick on your website and printed materials. It also gives you’re the html code to stick into your website! You can also download their logos here: http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads. I also included the variety of Creative Common licenses you can choose from to allow or discourage specific uses of your artwork. Pretty awesome for being free!

™: Trademark

Keyboard shortcut: Trademark Symbol 
For Mac: Option + 2
Non-Mac: Alt+0153

According to (USPTO) United States Patent and Trademark Office, a trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. This does not protect your artwork. Trademarks are a bit more business or logo orientated. It protects brand names and logos for sold goods and services. Interested in trademarking something? Most people have to hire an attorney to assist them through the application process. Lot more complicated than getting a creative commons or copyright.

If you are watermarking or adding © or creative commons symbols to your artwork, avoid using the registration symbol ®. The registration symbol is related to trademarks. The registration symbol ® may only be used once you have completed registration for your trademark.

Still confused? Here is an example: If you invented a new type of kiln, a patent protects the invention of the kiln. The trademark would protect the brand name of your kiln. You would apply then for a copyright for the commercial you produce to market your new kiln. As an artist, if you made a new drawing, you could decide to protect it either on your own with changing the file size to a low DPI or watermarking it. You could also register it through the government for a copyright or use the creative commons license to allow people to properly use your images.

KATE RENEE

Kate Renee lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kate graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in fine arts, art history, and a minor in design, and has worked with various galleries and museums in the Twin Cities including the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Larson Art Gallery, American Swedish Institute and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She designed currently manages the Solo Exhibition Program at Altered Esthetics.

Kate is building a national and international reputation with exhibitions throughout the United States. In 2011, Kate began a six week residency at Prairie Center for the Arts in Peoria, IL, where she focused on building a new body of work. Currently, she is a workshop teacher at Bloomington Theatre and Art Center where she teaches arts business workshops. She also is a marketing assistant for Local Artist Interviews.

You can see Kate’s work on her website www.katerenee.com or follow her artist development blog www.thesuctioncup.com.

Meet the LAI Featured Artists

Have you clicked over to the LAI Featured Member/Artist page?

LAI has a portfolio page set up for the artists who have generously supported LAI with a monetary contribution to website through the Springboard for the Arts Fiscal Sponsorship program.  Featured members also get to update their interviews to promote new exhibits and add more photos to their image gallery.

LAI is about 25% funded toward the goal of a website redesign to increase its functionality.  If you are a fan of the site you can make a tax-deductible contribution through GiveMN.org.

If you are an artist with an interview profile already on Local-Artist-Interviews, you can become a Featured Member at the link above.  More info here.

Artists Should Be On Twitter

Twitter

If you are an artist, you are probably not on Twitter.  I've been looking, daily seeking you out to follow you and learn about what you are doing.  You're not there.


Arts Organizations are on Twitter.  The Walker Art Center (@walkerartcenter) is on Twitter.  The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (@artsmia) is on Twitter.  Even the Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program (MAEP) within the MIA is on Twitter (@arts_maep).  All the community art centers like the Bloomington Theater and Art Center are on Twitter (@BloomingtonTAC), too.  But most artists are not.


Let me state as strongly as I can that if you are an artist, you need to be on Twitter.  And I'm (@localartistint) going to help you get started.


First, you'll need to know some terminology:

• Account name / Twitter Profile / Twitter Handle = The name you have chosen for your account and is shown like, "@accountname".
• Tweet = The 140 character message you share on Twitter.
• Follow = What you do so someone else's Tweets show up on your Twitter feed.
• Mention = When you want a specific person to see your tweet, you include their account name in your tweet and it will show up in the "Mentions" section of their account.  It may look like, "The current @jehrapatrick show at @soovac is amazing."  Now Jehra Patrick, artist, and SooVac Gallery will see that you have mentioned them, and everyone who follows both of them will also see your tweet.
• Lists = Categories that you create to organize the accounts that you follow into useful ways - Artists, Art Orgs, Comedians, Political, etc.
• Twitpic = Images uploaded to your Twitter page.
• Hashtags = "#"+whatever topic you want stay aware of.  It may look like "#SXSW" when you want to see only tweets about the South By Southwest music festival.

...that's a good start.

First, pick a Twitter Name.  It should be as short as possible.  I wish I chose a shorter one. Since you only have a 140 characters in a tweet, the shorter the better, when retweeting.  I recommend names that directly describe you instead of something cryptic.  If you are lucky enough to have @yourname available, take it!

Update your profile.  Describe yourself so others can know if they want to follow you.  ALWAYS INCLUDE YOUR WEBSITE. Even if it is just your Facebook page or your MN Artists profile, have some sort of website link in your profile to help people find you when they want to learn more about you.


Add a profile picture.  If you do not add a profile picture, you will have a generic image of an Egg as your identifier.  This is considered an amateur move and people will not "Follow" you.  Your profile pic has a brand-like effect.  People will begin to recognize you by your profile pic and pay attention.  I think the best example from the people I follow is @albertbrooks, the actor/comedian.  When I am scrolling through my Twitter Feed, I always stop when I see his orange profile pic with the sunglasses on them.  Use an image of your face, your art, your logo, but you need to have a picture.

Check out the other account settings.  Most importantly, choose when you want to be notified by email of various Twitter activity.  I used to have an email update every time someone mentioned me on Twitter. It clogged up my gmail inbox with information I could easily see whenever I logged on to Twitter.  To each his own, though.

Start Following People.  Start with me (@localartistint) Check the Follow box and then click on Following and Followers on the left side of the page.  Scroll through the lists and see if you want to follow any of the same people.  I've collected a bunch of artists and arts organizations to help me stay up on the arts in Minnesota.  Do this with other arts organizations, too.  Maybe SooVac Gallery (@soovac) in Minneapolis.  If you are an artist in Minnesota, you may be interested in following the people they follow.

Eventually you are going to be following too many people to keep track of.  in your Twitter feed you will see tweets from artists, organizations, products or stores you like, comedians, actors, politicians, family, and friends.  Pretty much everyone but your mom.  Your mom is not on Twitter.

To help you sort through this mess, you will need to create lists.  I suggest that before you start following people that you Create Lists for categories of people you plan to follow.  At the least, I recommend one for Family, Friends, Artists, and Misc.  When you Follow someone, click the little box that looks like a chess pawn which opens a drop-down box where you select "Add or remove from lists."  Your list categories pop up and you check the appropriate box.  So, when you just want to read your "Political" tweets, you can chose your "Political" list from your Twitter page and weed out all of the miscellaneous tweets that you wish to ignore.

Follow people back.  It is considered common courtesy to follow someone back when they follow you.  You don't need to read their tweets if you don't want to, but it is all part of the networking that takes place on Twitter.  The first person who followed me was Yoko Ono (@yokoono).  My guess is that it was not because she is interested in me, but because I followed her first.


Tweet something.  You can tweet anything.  Just like on Facebook, you will see tons of people tweeting about their meals or the weather.  You do not need to be one of those people.  Personally, I have 4 types of tweet that I like to make:


 Ex:

• Promote things for Local Artist Interviews:  "Read a new interview with  Kate Johnson @katereneesart (link to interview)"
• Share things that I have seen: "New @arts_maep show is fantastic (link to the exhibit page on their website)
• Sharing articles and images: "Check out the article on the rise of street art in rural areas (link to article)
• Retweet:  When you follow someone, they are going to tweet things you want other people to know about as well.  When you hover your cursor over a particular tweet, you will see the option to Retweet.  I love a good retweet.  They help me learn about new people and resources to follow.

Ex:

And there you go.  You will never wait in line the same way again!

Justin Terlecki - Painter/Printmaker

"Balcony" acrylic on canvas  27" x 31"

Justin Terlecki

Name: Justin Terlecki
City/State: St. Paul, MN
Email: justinterlecki@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.grovelandgallery.com/artistdetail.php?aID=TerJ
MNartist.org profile: http: // MNartists.org/Terlecki

Facebook page: http: //facebook.com/justin.terlecki

Bio~ 

I studied painting and printmaking at Youngstown State University, located in Northeast Ohio, and completed my BFA in 1997.  Since 1998, I have been living in the Twin Cities. 

My home and studio space is in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul.  I also work at Wet Paint art supply store on Grand Avenue.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I work mainly from personal experiences and memory. Using these experiences as inspiration, I create detailed narratives. I am intrigued by how our thought process and time alters our memories. During the past five years, travel has also played an important role in my work. In 2010, I created a series of prints, inspired by recent travels to India and Spain. This work was funded by the Jerome Fellowship for Emerging Printmakers through Highpoint Center for Printmaking.  In my paintings and prints, I strive to portray the subtle nuances of communication, human relationships, and connection. Currently, I am focused on childhood memories and the concept of loss. 

"Lake Erie" acrylic on canvas 33"x42"

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?

Art is an expression of existence. What it delivers to the viewer is an opportunity to view their own world in a new, unique way. Art, whether it be film, dance, or visual, provides an escape from daily life. In my own work, I really enjoy individual interpretations. Personally, I don't feel it necessary for the viewer to understand my intentions for creating a specific piece.  My only goal is to create work that engages and connects with the viewer. I love the process of painting and creating and to share my energy with the viewer is very satisfying. 

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

I think the best advice is that you need to work hard. An art professor of mine once told me that if you work long enough, eventually people will pay attention. 

"Cathedral of Seville, Corpus Christi"  lithography & screenprint  28" x 33" 

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.

I live in an artists' cooperative in St. Paul. The benefit of this is that the spaces are large enough to have a painting studio. My painting studio is actually in my bedroom. My easel is always set up, as well as my paints and drawing supplies. Before I begin a piece, I usually do preliminary sketches to lay out the composition. I always have the idea first before starting a work, and never approach the canvas blindly. The excitement is the process and the problem solving along the way.  The goal is to unify the piece and there are always surprises and difficulties.  I think the challenges of creating, and the intense focus during the process is what keeps me going. 

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Eleanor McGough http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=96594

Carolyn Swiszcz   http://www.carolynswiszcz.com/

Rod Massey  http://www.rodmassey.com/index.html

James Boyd Brent  http://www.jamesboydbrent.com/?page_id=22

Barbara Kreft   http://www.circagallery.org/html/kreft_barbara_1.html

Gregory Graham   http://gregorygrahamart.com/gregorygrahamart.com/Home.html

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

Highpoint Center for Printmaking  http://www.highpointprintmaking.org/home/

Minneapolis Institute of the Arts   http://www.artsmia.org/

Walker Art Center   http://www.walkerart.org/

Groveland Gallery   http://www.grovelandgallery.com/

The Museum of Russian Art  http://tmora.org/

"101810 Lake Erie" watercolor  18" x 24"

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

Mnartists.org    http://www.mnartists.org/home.do

Local Artists Interviews   http://www.local-artist-interviews.com/

Art Hounds  http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/art-hounds/

Art 21   http://www.pbs.org/art21/

Res Artis    http://www.resartis.org/en/

"Biking in the Rain, S.C." acrylic on canvas  32" x 34"

What can we expect to see from you in the future?
Currently, I am in a group show entitled "New Year, New Artists" at Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis. This show, featuring four new paintings, runs until February 25th, 2012.

Groveland Gallery

I am also working on book illustrations for "The Book of Bartholomew" by Mark Granlund and in March, I  will also be hosting a demonstration on creating Pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter Egg dyeing. This event is open to the public and will be held  at Wet Paint art supply store.  

Welcome to the New Year

  Happy New Year, from Local Artist Interviews.  I wish to thank everyone who has contributed interviews for all of their hard work to make this site a success.  For most people it takes a couple hours of writing, and who knows how much time promoting their interviews once it is posted.  Your contribution work is much appreciated.

The aspect of LAI that I am most excited about is the growing archive of artist information.  At this time 125 talented artists have shared some very in-depth information about themselves and their art, so this is a great tool to research artists in Minnesota.  Below is just a small sample of interviews I have enjoyed reading this year.  --Remember, Local Artist Interviews is a resource open to all MN 2d-3d artists.  

Please consider contributing an interview profile to the site in 2012.

  Marnie Erpsestad

 Joe Aschebrock

 Stephanie Glaros

  Robyn Hendrix

Erin Sayer

   Asia Ward

  Tim White

  Megan Bell Honigman

   Brian Hart

Lance Ward

  Kim Matthews

Happy 1st Anniversary, Local Artist Interviews!

Margaret Wall-Romana

August 2010 saw the launch of www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com. It began with a reposted interview with Emma Berg from City Pages. Basically is was practice to see how an interview would look online.

Posting the weekly interviews on Local Artist Interviews has been a rewarding experience for me and I hope for you as well, whether you were interviewed, ran the gallery where an artist was featured, or were just a fan of local art.

In February, LAI held a "contest" where artists would submit an interview profile using the standard LAI questions, and a panel of jurors would review the interviews for content and rate them. Margaret Wall-Romana and Alison Hiltner were standout interviews from the contest. For contest prizes, LAI asked organizations like the Walker, SooVac, NEMAA, NAC, Bloomington Theater and Art Center, and many others to provide at least 2 memberships to their organizations. Two or more memberships were requested because one membership from each place would go to the Grand Prize winner. Nearly 50 total organization memberships were given away, with 13 going to contest winner, Margaret Wall-Romana for her extremely informative interview.

In the past year I got to learn more about a number of artists I was unfamiliar with and became a better person having experienced their work.

Check out these guys. They are just some of my favorites:

Alex Kuno

James Dankert

Berry Holz

Hannah Rogak

Alison Hiltner

Jennifer Davis

Alyssa Wendorf

Some artists have had more artistic success than others, and some have more talent than others, but the goal of this website has been to increase the exposure of Minnesota artists regardless of their level of success. If you have a show to promote, I would like to help you promote it with an interview. Check out the questions and submission process and send me your interview.

If you want to work out an arrangement like I have with Altered Esthetics where I feature an artist from each of their shows, I would like to talk to you too.

One of the results of having this website is that with the 75 or so interviews online, there are links to over 400 Minnesota Artist websites. If you want to learn about visual artists in Minnesota, Local Artist Interviews is a good place to start.

I would love to hear your feedback and your experience with LAI. I'm looking forward to many more years of working together with Minnesota artists and galleries.

I would really appreciate it if ya'll could spread the word about the site, maybe even check out the Facebook page.