Sigh of Relief

Lately I've been arrogantly pondering about my future in animating and I thought about a few well-known animators from around the net.
I began to worry that if my creations were deemed worthy of much praise, somebody might decide to decompile them and replace my name with their own.

I have also been thinking about this subject in regards to my hobby of writing. No one wants to have their works of art stolen from them.

We don't need to fret anymore, though, because while I was browsing the web today, I came across this page.

I hope that nobody reading this blog is from a country that hasn't signed the Berne Convention.....

Well, the gist of the page is that anything you write, type, draw, animate, record, sculpt, etc. etc., is yours to do whatever you want with. You have the exclusive rights to all of your animations and drawings, even if you haven't registered your copyright with your country's Copyright Offices.

If any of your work is stolen and you find out about it, you can sue for monetary damages. The thing is, you need proof that you were the creator, or at least holder of the material in question before the accused individual took it into their posession.

This shouldn't be hard as long as you make sure you don't delete any file from your computer, and maybe make a safety backup CD with all your most cherished works on it.
I don't want to seem paranoid, but in case my computer contracts a virus, or someone hacks into it, I want to be sure everything I want to keep is safe.

I had a nice time boring the hell out of you,
-OGrilla