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How does it protect a small artist against a large corporation profiting off their work?

I don’t even have the means to start litigation, let alone see it through.

It only protects those who are already moneyed and/or famous enough to negatively impact a large corporation’s reputation - and even in those cases it’s mostly for the benefit of the lawyers and bureaucrats who make a living off it.

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If you register your work, which requires some effort, but is not prohibitively expensive or difficult, you can sue for statutory damages, which are substantial enough (up to $150k for willful infringement) that lawyers will work on contingency. There are many individual artists how have been successful here. The law actually has some real teeth that individuals can use to protect their work.

It would be nice if there was a preventative concept, where the role of the creator being a predator, seeking and suing, would be mostly reversed, so that others would instead ask for permission, and maybe get the rights to copies through a fair exchange of money, like a license. We could call this "copy rights".

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