Comment by Lisa O'Neill on February 17, 2009 at 10:46pm

Thank you for starting this!!! This is a VERY sore point with me and I want to warn people about buying copied products. I know of companies on eBay etc. who are selling copies of our products. SO BE WARNED! Please buy original designs from authorised sellers if not directly from the designer/manufacturer themselves.

Comment by Stephanie Flynn on March 7, 2009 at 2:44pm

I typed in one of the titles of one of my designs into ebay.com once.. and got a shock! somebody had stolen my design and was selling it on ebay!! same colours.. everything.. nothing had been changed. I had to fight with her to get it pulled down as she claimed it was hers.. she even stole my marketing text to sell the design! ebay pulled it down finally but 12 months later she was selling it again under a different user name! again had to do the same thing.. ebay suspended her.. but again 12 months later found her selling it again!!! again pulled down.. haven't noticed her selling it lately but it was so upsetting.. you think 'what's the point!'.

Comment by Celtic Networks on March 7, 2009 at 2:54pm

Perhaps adding that you are a member of this group and providing a link to this page will help detour future infringement of your works. It's good to keep at it. I know it's frustrating. I've had a similar issue. In the end what we had to do was compare the designs and found out that each design was drawn by the artist. They didn't match and were over 40% different even though you couldn't tell by looking at it, so we both had to let it go.

There is one way that really, really helps. Put a watermark on your stuff. Make it so that it don't really affect the design, just enough to cause the pirate a lot of work if they want to reproduce your works. I have a program I paid for that will do a batch of images all at once. I think perhaps it's time to provide this as a service to fellow artists.

Comment by Mike Domeck on March 7, 2009 at 5:03pm

One of the TOP culprits of the misuese of images is Google and Yahoo. If you go to their "image directories" you will find 100's of thousads of images. If you backtrack those images you will see that almost everyone of them came from a page showing the work was copyrighted.

I know because I have had 100's of images ripped off from me on my Celtic site and several other Niche sites I own.

Mike Domeck
Celtic Culture.com

Comment by Nimue on March 7, 2009 at 9:39pm

Great idea, Shane! Even though I'm not an artist, OK, except for the occasional poem, this is a great idea for us Celts! Charlie might like to see this, too! (Weir)
My poetry so far is on a public domain web site, & isn't Celt in nature...at least, not yet!
You just keep coming up with these wonderful ideas...yeah!!!
Talk to you probably tomorrow night....online as usual!
peace be the journey,
sonas ort,
Gena

Comment by Stephanie Flynn on March 8, 2009 at 1:34am

I think one of the hardest topics to cover is International Copyright.. with the internet being so global.. it's a big problem as copyright is different in each country.. okay you could claim intellectual copyright but that's kinda flimsy and unless you're prepared to take it to court in that country (and state) then it's hard to follow through.

I had a problem similar to you Shane.. a had a design of one of the Celtic birds from the book of kells within one of my designs.. I could reference the page etc.. of the book of kells where the inspiration for it was taken. Another artist claimed I stole her work and when we compaired them they were slightly different but we had used the same source.. she wante to sue me etc etc and was very very agressive so I pulled the design down as didn't want the constant hassle.. but she was in another country so doubt she could have done much.. but honestly it wasn't worth the stress (shame though as it was a design I was proud of and books of kells is not copyrighted as far as i'm aware?). either way I let it slide.. and she was happy with that (this particular artist was known for making her living sueing other folk re the design issue etc.. and pretty much made her living like that). but the two things I'd be interested in would be:
a) International copyright (what can/can't you do to protect your work, what holds up internationally)
b) ancient images and texts.. what is copyright.. I mean the Book of Kells is owned by Dublin Uni right? do they own the rights? knotwork, images etc.. similar or the same taken from these ancient sources.. what's copyrighted?

Comment by Unique BillieJean on March 11, 2009 at 5:20am

Celtic Copyright Protectors is a perfect addition to Celtic Friends Network Shane, thank you!

Great proposal Joe, I shall meet you at CFN Site Contributors. I am mainly just an interested and observant sole in regards; mediator or evaluator. I will assume I've opted in for offering my donation item, even though I have not decided what it will be. I'm definitely for the original Celtic Friends Network motive I've observed; about a not blocking any incentive possible for other members who may still opt to consider joining such any/all groups. Because any group within the entire network will not survive long via operate as a gang hence, the group organization itself a crew of developers will not tend to act boss in any major voting sense of the word (except for group members who really should decide what item may be up for grabs of course) and per example: To sense a whole community voting session about who be voted in throughout the entire network as a whole for "Member of the Year Award". Better yet, consider this important idea as a per ticketed number basic machine random pick lotto which (suggestively) may exist as first topic and honorable incentive values, be it known. Indeed, Celtic Friends Network habitually values the entire mass members so, I suspect a first understanding to incorporate would be to always include, create and consistently address incentive based desires for active and on going consideration in that people on the whole, whom are likely of join a group from within (virtually any group that gets established in this fine and overall entire network) shall not experience any act of deliberation to happen about being left out especially in a voting sense of the word fair. We all try to remember that a majority of members may still, opt to the Round Table any group to vote it obsolete or not, or just serve warning for whatever reason; and, that's likely the way it will stay therefore, community oriented regardless the various groups. Brilliant idea Joe, Shane's made it possible, right away as usual!

Comment by Nikki Stevens on August 3, 2009 at 1:30am

I am sorry some of you had some of your work copied and stolen.you really should watermark all your work. If you don't know how to do that just email me I can show you how.

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