Caught someone claiming my work as theirs. What now?

[Joebobber]

So update



I finally had a chance to call him this evening. I explained to him I certainly didn't mind him selling my stuff and that he needed to give me credit. He is an 18 year old high school senior and was just trying to raise money for college. He said he would change it tomorrow and he was Sorry. HOPEFULLY tomorrow it is done and over.I would add more but Im on my cell and the text thing is jumping around all over.

 

[jttheclockman]

Very good. It pays to pick the phone up. Probably can work a deal where you both make some $$

 

[jeporter02]

You probably don't want to try to pursue some kind of legal action in this case - I'm going to make an educated guess that you'll spend a lot more than you'd ever recover, and I'm also guessing that you haven't taken steps to implement legal protections on your own production that might give rise to a claim (I'd guess that nearly everyone, myself included, have not bothered to do this - it's hardly worth it for most of us hobbyists). Have you signed any kind of contract with him? That won't necessarily help you, but if so, you'll want to make sure you aren't breaching your part of the contract if you walk away and refuse to make more calls for him.
I also wouldn't bother trying to work something out to continue doing business with this guy under some other arrangement. He's lying to his customers. There is a 100% chance that he will not be honest with you in the future in his business dealings. You might write and ask him to accurately describe the source for his products, but don't expect much. I would chalk this up to a lesson learned and move on. Your calls look beautiful. In the long run, only one of you has a reason to worry, and it isn't the guy that can make the duck calls.

 

[Joebobber]

He just changed it so I'm ok. From what I read the law says that anything you as an artist makes you automatically have copyright protection on that. Just because you sell something you made doesn't mean you sold your copyright protection. It should seem counterintuitive. He is just a kid trying to make money for college. No I don't necessarily trust him to do the right thing, he was very sorry after I talked to him. He is taking some initiative but just went about it the wrong way. I'm suprised his parents didn't say something but perhaps they didn't know, which is an entirely different conversation about some people these days. I went ahead and finished the call I made for him. I have learned alot from this, and it is such a crappy feeling. I hope if anyone else has to go through this it turns out as well for them.