Copyright

You are creatively active in your private or business life?

Copyright protects your interests as an art creator, enabling efficient action against infringements of so-called "intellectual property". Thus, you are entitled, as an author, to demand information and damages, as well as cease & desist rights, which aim at performance-related compensation for your art-creating activity.

Lawyer & journalist Olaf Kretzschmar will provide you with relevant information whether you are

• The creator of a copyrightable work, as well as
• Clarification about your rights as an author, such as, e.g., the sole publishing, reproduction, dissemination or exhibition rights in relation to your work.

For the purpose of an optimal commercial utilisation of your rights, lawyer & journalist Olaf Kretzschmar will prepare licence agreements for you, with which you permit other persons the use of your work in the relevant desired form for consideration, the so-called licence.

Prior to utilisation of the work created by you, however, there is the mandatory conservation of proof. Copyright in Germany is a right to an intellectual property which arises directly with the creation of a protectable work in the person of the creator without requiring entry in a register. Such a register, in contrast to the American family of law, does not even exist. This means for you that you have created an elusive intangible asset.

In case of a violation of your right, you will ultimately have to prove priority of date as author of the concrete infringed work. For this, various efficient possibilities are open to you, which your lawyer & journalist Olaf Kretzschmar on enquiry will gladly explain to you in detail:

• Legal opinion on your work as to protectability under copyright
• Conservation of proof
• Form of contract
• Enforcement of your copyrights in an infringer action

As a practising artist performing someone else's copyrighted work, you are entitled to additional rights besides reproduction and dissemination rights. If you are working as a photographer or filmmaker, producing your own sound storage media or airing radio broadcasts, you should be clear about the scope of your 'related rights'.

My service for art creators: I shall show you all the possibilities available for the protection of your work and shall, together with you, choose the protection strategy most (cost) effective for you.