Protecting work/Identity

[SensualJade]

Hi I’m looking for a site that requires a one time payment to copyright my work and my streamate name in case my videos ever get out. I know people will record me, I just want to minimize the chances..and also has your family ever found out? I know this is a risky job, but what are the chances? How many years did it take for your loved ones to discover what you were doing? Feel free to share personal experience stories!

 

[Victoria Lotus]

Your content is protected automatically in the US through the DMCA. You will find content if you search for yourself and can issue takedown requests yourself, which can be made regardless of official copyright or trademark papers because you are the creator and can verify that during a takedown request. An attorney would be the best person to talk to for information like copyright and trademark (more for your name) but again, it is not required when there are several services out there who will do takedowns for free or for monthly fees like C4S takedown form (free) or BranditScans paid service. I’ve used Brandit Scan and they were very thorough but international copyright infringement is the wild wild west and a lot of pirates know this. They at least got a lot of content delisted from google search. Still, over 13K video uploads could not be take down entirely. It is not just a risk, but a reality of this job.

As for family, the ones close to me know or eventually found out by my choice to tell them or by accident through slip of tongue and wrong email account sending something. The fallout was really bad and everything I thought it would be including a year of not talking to me, spreading rumors and being toxic in general happened. However I will say this: I am not living in the shadows as much and we have been able to move on from the shock phase. There was growth for everyone involved and it was a painful process for part of my family. Other family members were not happy but still accepted me as a human being. It just depended on the person and their true colors and heart. These are things we cannot predict or control unfortunately. I feel more confident now that they know and accept me than hiding and never knowing for sure.

Now as for friends and people who come in and out of my life in different capacities than family, I am NOT open at all. I’ve only told one person who was not family about my online work and it was a mistake looking back. I would love nothing more than a group of colleagues who I can openly share the craziness of this occupational choice with but unfortunately that is like looking for a unicorn. Crazy as it sounds my social circles are like opposites and there is very little overlap in belief system or acceptance of sex let alone sex work.

 

[blayze_noir]

This is interesting. First, you would actually have to trademark your name. (see tldr below). As for the streams and videos: there are lots of sites out there that will file copyright forms for you, but most are geared towards music, film and music videos. If you treat your broadcast and any videos you sell like films, then any one of those sites should work to register the videos for you. But, you must have the recorded work to submit, so you would need to record your streams and submit and register them as individual works.

:tldr:

In the US and most countries, copyright ownership by the creator is inferred when the work is in tangible form. You don't have to register, but registration offers added protections and recommended in case of lawsuits or counter-claims of ownership of your work. To be be absolutely covered under US law, you would have to record your stream and register and upload a copy with the Copyright Office. If you follow copyright infringement cases (mostly in songwriting) the burden of proof has been on the creator to prove that they actually created the copyrighted work.

A lot of these sites sharing recordings of shows fall out of US law, operate in countries with shady copyright laws like Russia and China, and with enough heat will just shut down and move everything to a new site. So, registration and DMCA claims might really not do much with the shadier sites. The "legit" sites like PornHub are very much worried about copyright and will

The DMCA does a bunch to true up copyright law internationally, but, there are still flaws and holes in it.

As for your name, names and titles cannot be copyrighted. Business names, however, can be trademarked. Unlike copyright, in the US first use does not always guarantee that you will be granted ownership of the trademark in your name. You need to be using the name nationwide (meaning at least across 2 state lines), and no one else is using it nationwide. This is why you can see so many unrelated businesses with the same name in different states, but only one Hot Topic, Macy's, etc. There is a band called Suede in the UK that formed in the early 80s. They had been releasing albums and touring throughout Europe for years. Then a band in the US formed in the later 80s with the same name and only performed in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona. Suede from the US were granted ownership of the trademark because they used it first in the US. So, if "SensualJade" was being used for e-commerce by someone to sell whatever sensual product, you might not get the trademark.

This is not a substitute for professional legal advice. I am passing along my experience registering and protecting my works and my former employer's works as a songwriter, video producer, software creator, and former employee of one of the largest international cable networks.