Suggested category: legal issues

[Rendrassa]

I don't mean in-depth things that should be consulted with a lawyer, but basic questions that have been asked in advice posts in the past on LJ: copyright, trademark, artist rights vs client rights that can be asked without explicit ToS discussion and more.

[HaruTotetsu]

Personally, I'm all for it.

I think that Artist Beware could actual hire a lawyer to write a few articles to help give artists and commissioners better information about what stance they are in legally, hopefully improving the online art communities to have a greater understanding of the laws that can affect them. Who knows maybe AB will one day be able to get a few fully qualified lawyers on staff to give people more specific helpful advice.

Making a "Legal issues" subcategory sounds like a good place to start.

[Xaila]

That just falls under advice for the most part, aside from ToS which is such a big thing in of itself it needs it's own block.

But sometimes legal advice isn't needed as much as morality advice.

 

But we can discuss it amongst the staff. 

And unless the lawyers are doing these articles pro-bono; that's a cost a volunteer run website can't hack.

[HaruTotetsu]

46 minutes ago, Xaila said:

That just falls under advice for the most part, aside from ToS which is such a big thing in of itself it needs it's own block.

But sometimes legal advice isn't needed as much as morality advice.

But we can discuss it amongst the staff. 

And unless the lawyers are doing these articles pro-bono; that's a cost a volunteer run website can't hack.

I'm sure it's possible some lawyers would be willing to do so voluntarily. There are many lawyers posting their advice online without expectation of financial compensation. I'd suggest that if time ever permits and the staff decide it's worth pursuing that they take some time to interact with some of these people, to see if they'd be willing to write an article or two.

[Ysera]

Some legal advice articles could be skirted with a little bit of research and possibly referencing the work of Boozy Badger/Boozy Barrister. He does kind of a legal "I'm giving you advice, but it's not advice from a lawyer and you can't take it to the bank" website. He's blunt, sometimes a bit offensive in language, and not to everyone's tastes, but he knows the law (and legal terminology).

Sometimes, though, people just need a place that's already done half of the legwork and can point them in the right direction because they really just don't know how to get started. So if getting a lawyer to help pro-bono is out, and paying one is also out, coming up with a list of resources to work with may be a good alternative.

[Rendrassa]

The reason I suggest a legal category for discussion is because a topic came up recently in a chat for me and it didn't really fit in their "advice of artists" or "advice for commissioners". It was a debate on copyrighting characters, not just the art, which I'd remembered several LJ members clearly explaining why it wasn't possible, but I was unable to easily find that info on LJ and figured I'd bring up the legal category not separated by artist and commissioner so that it can help fill a gap I currently saw in the new site.

[Mortymaxwell]

I feel like we could use a legal section after looking through the LJ archives.  There's a lot of posts on copyright and trademarking  and there was also a recent thread where someone was asking if it was legal to have her customers show their driver's license to her. In one of the bewares, a person is also bringing up Internet Crimes and Complaint fraud reports.

1. https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1034595.html#comments

2. https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/1027555.html