This article is the first in a series I am writing concerning copyright laws and what we, as artists, can do to protect ourselves and our work from art thieves. Granted, in this day and age, it has become harder to protect our work. We are not always aware of it being stolen and illegally posted. Consider it luck, if a friend or another Deviant stumbles upon it and informs us so that we may do something about it.

Art theft is not only a major concern among the artists here on DA, it is also a major problem. We have taken steps from adding the copyright symbol along with our name in the artist's comment box, to adding it to the images themselves, to putting watermarks the size of the image on the images; and still the thieves continue to steal art without a second thought to consequences.

What's worse, is the websites that permit this art to be posted even after they are made aware that the art is in fact stolen. Some sites do co-operate and remove both the work and the user who posted the work, to those sites I say "Thank you."

We need to get the message across to the sites who require a lengthy process to have the stolen works removed, that we will not put up with them hosting stolen art. In any form. A prime example, a dear friend and wonderful artist, had a piece stolen and posted on a site. She posted a journal entry about it and quite a few of her friends and watchers did as most of us do: went to the site and left comments regarding the stolen work. Of course the person responsible for stealing it responded with language similar to that of one not accustomed to dealing with civilized people and managed to do nothing but show her true colors as a very rude individual, who obviously sees nothing wrong with stealing art.

Artists, no matter what medium they use, put a lot of work into their art and a bit of themselves go into each and every creation. So, in my opinion, having a piece of work stolen would be similar to having a piece of my soul cut away, and for someone to show disdain and say that it is perfectly alright for this to happen just irritates me to no end.

Enough of that. The purpose of this series of articles is to provide every artist with a basic knowledge of the copyright laws, not just U.S Copyright laws, but those covering as many countries as I can find laws governing; as well as to provide a basic understanding of the law period.

I've read to many journal entries where people have come across art stolen from DA and this series of articles is meant to help anyone who may have questions. Though these articles are in no way a substitute for legal advice, I simply want to point artists in the correct direction. If I don't have the answers, I will provide them with information on where they may be able to get the answers they are seeking.

I will leave you with this one solid bit of information for today: As soon as work is completed in tangible form, it is Copyrighted whether or not the artist has filed for a copyright making it a matter of public record.