A question has been poking at me for about a year now on the subject of copywriting and trade-marking material. Ever since my anime/manga-style character; Gemini of my upcoming series “Gemini Mystica”, I have been wishing to legally protect her and her series through copyright, and/or Trademark for the character herself. I have performed many searches on my own, but unfortunately was only able to uncover self-promotional lawyers and web sites who claim to sell you the legal rights. Today, my dad informed me that I can ask everyone on this blog and see if I get a response as to the best way to copyright Gemini. So, for those people who had their characters or businesses copyrighted or anyone who has really good information, can you please give me some tips and/or the same way you may have copyrighted or trademarked your character? I also wish to know if there is any licensing or legal maters involving computer and internet sales. I plan to sell upcoming designs and art on my web site, but am hesitant to do so in fear of breaking any legal business regulation. Anyone is welcome to give me information. Thank you so very much! :)
Update:
www.legalzoom.com
~Gemini
I have theorized that I am a blog nut due to the fact that this is my second post within the same few hours. The first post was, however, just an introduction. What brought me here to begin with is the GWB Game Design Contest. Now, I am not entering on a stand-alone game, but to aid my father in the development of his game: “The Bloodletting”. My father, Scott Miller, has been into computer programming for years, and I was especially surprised when he informed me of his ability to create video game mechanics. I was excited when he told me about it and how he needs me to do the art for the cards in which the game is played. As an artist/web developer type, I am always scrounging for new material to place in my portfolio. So, I instantly agreed to it and am now running through ideas on which is the best way to properly express the soul of each card. I am not unfamiliar with cards such as these, as I have seen my boyfriend play “Magic: The Gathering” a number of times. To be honest, I find myself gazing in amazement at the pictures that purely express the cards more than playing the actual game. My personal goal is to create personality for The Bloodletting that is at least close to the amount of soul that the Magic cards seem to possess. As I progress in creating the pictures, I will continue to log all things new and also mull over what to say about my portfolio. I will not bother with placing a link to my portfolio yet, due to the fact that it’s still in it’s older format and I need a few days to finish up it’s flash version. It’s looking good though. Anyway, if you wish to view progress about “The Bloodletting”, please visit my Dad’s blog at http://geekswithblogs.net/appsguild
~Gemini
First of all, I never though of myself as one to start a blog. Blogs just seemed so outdated for my use, like a silly thing where teenagers vent their feelings of universal “blah” or a thing to go on about how many hours they spent at a mall picking out makeup. But today, I finally seen the intelligence I have ignored for so long in blog use and a reason of attraction to even the intellectuals. It’s also kind of fun to read a side of family members and friends that you don’t always see in person. Get into their head, it’s interesting…. Anyway, why would Gemini be suddenly interested in bloging? For research and development process recording of course! I am constantly finding new methods to create my flash sites/animations/etc. and new breakable limitations in which I spend hours trying to crack. Damn, thinking about this makes me always wonder “Why can’t I ever be this motivated when working for someone else?!” I mean, there was only one employer in my life that I actually did work hard for. Unfortunately, my efforts were still not good enough because of two factors: 1: The hiring and promotion of a new Supervisor; and 2: The bulk of my work (creative writing) was slowly decending into repetition of words, making me loose my touch after writing about the same products for nearly a year. All of the sudden, my stuff was not good enough anymore; not to mention that when more pressure was placed on this supervisor of mine, she became intolerant of everything and expected absolute perfection from this run-dry creative writer. My ability to design web pages and graphics was unable to save me since I was only assigned the web and graphics work when the primary workers were too busy to work on them. After loosing the only job I have ever truly respected, finding another professional design company proved to be more difficult than I have hoped. My resume’ was ignored by the design companies for so long that it has become a necessity for me to go back to the pathetic kinds of jobs in which I must compeate against the local teenagers for. I had hoped that I seen the last of these jobs when I left a movie theater position in 2004. Now it’s 2006 and have the feeling that I will have to start from the beginning…yet again. Sad really, but there are plenty enough Americans going through this kind of thing right now, so I have no real room for anything but statements because complaints are useless to their furthest extent. In conclusion: rather than make a blog of my personal complaints, I will most likely use this for personal statements and logging of my progress into finally reaching my true goal: self employment.
Later,
~Gemini