[littl3chocobo]

actually in japan people have been banned from working because of art theft, a woman who was, at the time, not too well known made a manga called wild rock and a much larger, well-known, artist stole several pages from her, same angles same frames same fight scene the difference is the latter had a seminaked woman in her version. they went to court and the much more well known artist won the case, the artist who had her art stolen was banned from selling any more manga in the genre and any at all under that name. it was later found out that the thief also stole from other artists and even directly traced an image from a kalvin klein ad but it was too late and the damage was done

for 50 years, despite being the creator writer and occasional artist bill finger received 0 credit for 'batman' and only started getting it after his death while bob kane made a fortune from it and even made it into the kirby hall of fame, injustices like that are common occurrence at virtually every level




and no it never was, the berne conference signed paperwork in 1886 to protect the rights of creators(mainly books) and though it is true the us did not accept copyright law under that until 1989 it has had it's own, the bueno aries, that it established in 1910 that protected properties with a copyright or patent (the (c) and tm) and while that basically only covered those who could pay for the copyright it still protected them from being directly ripped off by others

though, personally having had my art stolen i don't find it flattering and i get upset when i see people making money and getting the sole credit for things they did not make/do