Scrapbooking is a fun and exciting way for people to express their thoughts, photos, memorabilia, journals and family history. Attending meets, swaps and crops can be a great way to share and learn with others who have similar interest.

However, when you open yourself up to these situations, you take the chance that someone just might decide to copy your work. Yes, you are there to share and learn, but not to let others “take” all of your hard earned ideas and exploit them for their own.

Some people immediately feel they should get their scrapbooks copyrighted. This is not necessary. One way to get around this is toagree to scraplifting.

“Scraplifting” is a term used loosely by some scrapbookers. It describes the process of seeing scrapbook layouts or ideas in magazines or on the Web and copying them for your own layout(s).

Most scrapbookers are happy to share their ideas with others because they realize that they too have received inspiration, motivation or ideas from others in the past.

Scraplifting can be the highest form of flattery when the person being copied views the “scraplifting” as an opportunity for someone else to have a creative experience with the help of another.

Other scrapbookers don’t see scraplifting the same way. They believe it to be unethical and call it CASEing (copy and stealing everything).

For those scrapbookers who believe scraplifting is okay, they say there are unofficial guidelines that should be followed.

Scraplifting is a complicated subject too. The general rule of thumb is: if you use 70% of another person’s scrapbook, it’s a scraplift, under that it’s an “inspired by you”.

If you do scraplift,you MUST credit the original artist in your comments, possibly even linking back to the original, but do not try to pass it off as your own, unaided work.

This of course also means that you need to keep some kind of track of who the original poster was. Some will ask the artist’s permission first before scraplifting.

In general, it is not necessary to copyright your work unless you are selling it. There are always going to be a select few individuals out there that don’t “follow the rules” of ethics.

However, those numbers are very slim and should not scare you into spending needlessly on copyrights and scare you away from something you enjoy so much.

A great place to view others ideas