My post on copyright issues yesterday was admittedly woefully inadequate, so I was happy to receive some more input on the subject from Susan Kirkland, author of Start & Run A Creative Services Business:

There are laws to protect creatives from being victimized. Your work is protected from theft or change during the course of your lifetime plus a hundred years under the artist's copyright protection. If you create a painting, sell it and discover it's been altered by an over-enthusiastic interior designer (read frustrated artist) without your permission, you can rescue your painting and sue for damages and restoration. Artists are also offered some protection under the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 which applies to all original works of authorship. So rest easy that what you create is yours alone (except under certain circumstances involving "work for hire" or other unfortunate opportunities afforded creatives to waive their creative rights). It's best to avoid dealing with the unscrupulous; there's too much bloodshed and it¹s not worth the grief.

And I would add, an artist's copyright is a group of rights covering usage, reproduction, et. al, and can be transferred if the artist chooses to do so, separately. Any rights not specifically transferred remain the property of the creator.Selling limited usage for a fee is one of basic fairness; selling all the rights is too hard to estimate since the final future value is impossible to determine. Fees should be based on the usage alone and ownership is never completely transferred.

The only exception to this is Fair Use. Fair use allows quoting a portion of a work as long as the original artist/author is given credit and sourced. More extensive quotes are allowed only with permission and as long as it doesn't compete with or injure the market for the original work. Fair use is more strictly regulated in Canada than in the US and written permission or license must be arranged.