 |
PREAMBLE
Sooner or later every artist will wittingly, or unwittingly, infringe someone's copyright. In some cases the result may be of small consequence, but in others it may turn out disastrous for the artist concerned should the copyright owner decide to go to court and sue.
An artist cannot plead ignorance of the copyright law as the onus is on us to know the law. If you shrug your shoulders and decide that copyright infringement is nothing to worry about, then think again. The penalties for copyright infringement can set you back financially, apart from you having to destroy all your infringing artwork and any products made therefrom. You may also have to give up all the profits made on the artwork and the products as well as pay a large fine and/or have a jail sentence on each and individual infringing artwork.
On top of this you may be required to pay the copyright owner's attorney's fees as well as your own. In the end a single infringement could cost you many thousands of rands.
You can save yourself lots of trouble and money and embarrassment by first checking the copyright status of your source material against the copyright Act before you begin.
In order for you to do this The Paint Basket has extracted all information relative to "artistic works" and "cinematograph films"(relative to The Paint Basket teaching videos), and other information from the Act pertaining to the artist, and is set out over the next few pages.
|
