BLOG AWARDS AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Hello again, and I forgot to say happy "April Fool's" day on my post earlier!!!  I hope you're not getting fooled too much today.  Anyway I wanted to come back and post some blog awards before I forgot.  I would like to thank:

Brenda for the Liebster Award:

Wanda, Scrapcrazyyy, Besthobbyeva, and Rhonda for the Versatile Blogger Award:

And finally, Sandy for the Best Friend Blogger Award:

I think it's a blessing that you all thought to pass these wonderful awards on to me, and I appreciate each of them.  Thank you all so very much, and I hope that all my wonderful blogging family becomes acquainted with and visit you, if they don't already do so.

Because I've gotten this many awards...lol, I do believe there should be enough to share and pass on to just about everybody, so here'sto all of you!  Please grab an award and post it to your blogs from "yours truly"!

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IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN INFORMATION AND/OR OBTAINING COPYRIGHTS ON YOUR ORIGINAL PROJECT FILES/PATTERNS:

I wanted to take a moment and share with you information on something I used to always do and have decided to do again.  I used to submit all my original craft patterns and files for copyright to the Libary of Congress, and I've decided to resume this practice and send all those I hadn't.  I'd stopped submitting them a while ago  as I no longer do sales/business as I used to, and because when you post an original project to Blogger there is "suppose" to be an automatic copyright on your originals as soon as they post; which I've found out is not at all reliable if someone is making money on your files/patterns.  Realizing not everyone is as respectful of each other as we are and that others could very well be making money off our hard work, in an attempt to avoid  the misuse of exclusive sales of my patterns and files without my permission -- on those files/patterns I so diligently worked on to create, I decided to put all my originals on government record again.  Although, I have been still using what they call the "poor man's" copyright where you mail your design to yourself so that it can be postmarked by U.S.P.S. , this method has limitations and then only if the package remains sealed/unopened. 

I wanted to share this information if you are interested in doing the same thing.  Unfortunately, and be aware, you cannot copyright ideas, so altered files/patterns can be copyrighted by others if they make changes to your originals making them their own; however, there are specifications that apply to altered patterns/files in order for them to be applicable for copyright as someone elses original -- although these rules are not quite clear when reading them. 

Copyrights are only issued on your own original design files and/or patterns.  Legal action can only be incurred if  your  files/patterns are copied exactly, without your permission, once they are copyrighted.

If you are interested you can find more information at http://www.copyright.gov/; you'll also be able to complete copyright forms there, if you wish to do so.

As an example of a sealed copyright certificate, I have provided below an old pdf. copy of one of my copyright Certificates of Registration, however, I have omitted my copyrighted information as it is not directly specific to a particular craft file/pattern on this blog and so the information on it is not relevant here.  I am only providing this as as a sample -- although copyrights are public information. When your copyright is approved and returned there will be a seal on the left top of the page and all the copyright information will be in the barcode at the right top of the page (sorry it came out so blurry, if you have a difficult time seeing it, let me know and I will try to provide a clearer copy): 

Depending on how you file your form(s)  the cost is either $35 or $50.  If you decide to do this it is best to file your project patterns/files as a collection, otherwise, the cost will apply to each individual one.  Also, you may want to do as I do and mail yourself a "poor man's" copyright along with a copy of your completed form until your copyright certificate is received.

You'll want to read up on copyrighting very thoroughly to make certain it's something you want to do.  There are specifics on copyrighting creative works!

If anyone is interested, I hope this is useful information.