Apologies that my notes in the above image may be a little difficult to read. I noted the use of a trademark symbol in the twitter account and maybe need to research if that user has actually registered a Trademark (it makes no difference to my right to Fair Use of the image in the way appropriated above). However, suggesting a registered Trademark without paying the registration fee could be illegal in the UK. It’s maybe not a UK account and that’s only symbolic characters in use after all.
It’s unnecessary for creators of original artistic and literary material to register a trademark for trademark laws to apply to a known creator name – (although any commercial product of mass material production for retail or wholesale no longer counts as artistic or literary, I think, is how it works, so then any such product, however creative and artistic, becomes of design and technology and so does require Trademark registration as a means of protecting that brand). I haven’t checked recently to make sure my knowledge is up to date enough but it’s the sort of thing you notice or hear and there’d be uproar enough that I’d expect to hear about that sort of change, even if the world could fall in half and no-one might think to say so in passing, so you might never know.
Even hobbyist and amateur creators have the same fundamental rights as professionals of intellectual property protection as a creator of original work and trademark protection of their creative name(s) without need to register a trademark. It isn’t necessary to state ‘copyright’ on any web page or document for copyright to apply automatically. You should never assume that no copyright declaration means that this thing you’re looking at is not copyright protected.
You also cannot tell people they may not have Fair Use of the stuff you put on the internet – you can hope people are respectful and responsible about their own activity. Obviously, publishing or republishing someone else’s work is a different issue and boundaries sometimes blur. Appropriation can take place on and offline and most authentic creators are chuffed for some new original work attributing and extending their original version – it’s how art has always worked and when it’s appropriate(d) it becomes a compliment. Hopefully. It’s maybe why one of our earliest art school lessons was: “It isn’t precious. Remember that.”
Anyway, it’s the sort of thing that’s so out of your control there’s absolutely no point wasting your breath telling people they may not do what they obviously may.
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If you do not wish for Fair Use access to your stuff, why are you sharing it online? It is why there’s so little original content shared from artists and writers – because they hold most of it back and share only a very small selection and keep most work offline. You have to be able to go see stuff in the real world and sometimes even be allowed to take all the photos you wish and sometimes none at all – but that’s usually dodgy agents and promoters controlling the show and making it look like a shower instead of an art exhibition. We get used to that kind of cheapskate shoddy showmanshit in the real world but online?
Can you believe it when some kindle books tell you you can’t show this ebook to someone sitting next to you, or a family member, and you’d even be expected to buy a second one for your wife or husband to read your purchase? Would you read it and demand your money back and never buy from that author again?
How can people expect to exert such excessive control over individuals for the digital media they publish when they’ve already handed over shared intellectual property rights to the service provider of whatever platform’s facility is being used? Isn’t it incredibly rude some of the ways people tell you on their pages that you may or may not even print it out to wipe your backside with. (Of course you may here, if you choose – use it as bog roll, that is – whatever did you think I mean…) Or whatever… oh, and apologies for da-rude boy!
I wanted to use that quote but didn’t wish to embed this particular tweet so took the screengrab instead. Now, i could go looking for some others, but I’ll maybe just leave it with this – that rolling road reminds me of the top of a cello, or is it a double bass… nope, apparently it’s that andrex moment when all you’ve got is yellow pages cos someone’s taken the piss and nicked the whole twittering roll… anyway, that’s my scrolling down the tweetstream and netting a tiddler done for this task and i can throw this one back and roll away to the next thing on my essential to-do list and grab some zzzs…
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