What is Copyright?

 

 

A client in the UK called a US copyright office wanting to purchase a copyright contract; or so they thought.

 

Client: “Hi, I have an idea for a dating app I want to copyright, would you be able to help me do this?”
Office: “We can show you the process and send you the links to the copyright website and prepare everything for you but you will have to do it yourself because it’s your name on the copyright. We don’t do the application ourselves.”
Client: “Ok I forgot to mention I am UK based is that ok?”
Office: “You will be copyrighting your work and not patenting, just to be clear.
Client: What’s the difference?”
Office: “It’s a bit tricky with apps, to patent, but you can always copyright your work.”
Client: “I presume you just send me a template and tell me to send it off when I am ready.”

(This is where a copyright expert will know what to do and ask the right questions to the client. If you must call a lawyer’s office, do make sure they specialize in copyright law. I’m not a practicing lawyer but I know enough of IP and how the terms confuses people.)

CL: “Actually it’s not as simple as that. You’ll be copyrighting yourself. Is the idea in your mind or do you have the software ready or plans on paper because you’ll have to send it in a tangible format to protect your work.”

Client: “Yeah, sorry not very good with this sort of stuff just an idea at the moment. Will probably want some help with development etc.”

Most people think they can copyright an idea floating around in their mind. Not really. It turns out that this guy had a brilliant idea and he immediately wanted to copyright it by calling an American copyright office.

 

As such I wrote this little piece below to clear up all the confusion about the terms used when referring to intellectual property. It’s simplified and concise and the terms are taken directly from the USCPO and CIPO. Hope this helps.

 

1. What is a copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing.
Trigger words for Copyright – original work, in fixed tangible form.

Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

The author of the work solely has the right to do any of the following or to let others do any of the following: make copies of the work, distribute copies of the work, perform the work publicly (for plays, film, dances or music), display the work publicly (for artwork, or stills from audiovisual works, or any material used on the Internet or television), and make “derivative works” (modifications, adaptations or other new uses of a work, or translating the work to another media), author of the book, photographer of the photograph, composer of a piece of music.
The Law that governs copyright is the Berne Convention.
This is the symbol for copyright – ©
Name © 2015

 

2. What is a patent?

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor.
Invention, in US a patent is given to the inventor who can transfer it to an entity later on.

Trigger word – invention

In the language of the statute, any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,” subject to the conditions and requirements of the law.
Patent Pending means a patent application has been filed and it might be issued.

 

3. What is a trademark?

A trademark is a symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product such as

Trigger word – symbol

A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Trademark would refer to goods, such as the Chrysler logo.

Notice the ® – meaning Registered Trademark.

A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms “trademark” and “mark” are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.

Servicemark would refer to services such as WalMarts.

In Canada it would be CIPO
In the States it would be the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

 

4. What is a Public domain?

Public domain works are not restricted by copyright and do not require a license or fee to use. Public domain status allows the user unrestricted access and unlimited creativity!

 

There are three main categories of public domain works:
a) Works that automatically enter the public domain upon creation, because they are not copyrightable:
Titles, names, short phrases and slogans, familiar symbols, numbers
Ideas and facts. Processes and systems. Government works and documents.

b) Works that have been assigned to the public domain by their creator such as photographs.

c)  Works that have entered the public domain because the copyright on them has expired.

 

5. What is Fair use?

A fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, news, research, education or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.

In Canada the term used is “fair  dealing” which would sound more restricted but no one really cares or follows them because. I have seen teachers liberally making copies of pages from books and sometimes even copying entire books and distributing them to the students. And this happens all the time.

 

6. What is creative commons?
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. In this case it would be free distribution of a copyrighted work using legal tools such as licensing.

 

7. Poor man’s copyright.
Have you heard of the poor man’s copyright? Seal your work in an envelope and mail it to yourself. It’s a myth, don’t do it. In Canada it’s widely believed that copyright protection is automatic, even so, it’s outdated and I would strongly urge “authors” to register their work. I would send that envelope to the copyright office, fees and all.

 

8. What is licensing?
Licensing is the process of leasing a legally protected intellectual property. The licensor receives remunerations form the licensee – the person who will use the protected copyright, trademark, logo or design.

 

9. What is a model release form?
If you take a photograph of a model/person or if you buy stock pictures from a model, get the photographer or the model to release the permission to publish to you so that you are not named in a lawsuit later on. If you are going to use your model BFF’s photos for the cover of your book please ask her to sign over the rights to the pictures on a model release form.

 

10. What is royalty?
Royalty is a legally binding payment made to the owner of a copyright, trademark or other intellectual property. I love receiving royalties.

 

Protect your work and respect the hard work of others. Don’t copy, don’t steal and ask the copyright owner for permission if you want to use their work for any reason at all. It’s always good to have the permission in writing.

 

WikiHow has a great write-up on How to avoid copyright infringement in ten steps. This is a great read for the layperson.

http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Copyright-Infringement

Canadian Office
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/Home

US Office

http://copyright.gov/
http://www.uspto.gov/

 

I’m going to leave you with this story. It bothered me so much because I’m an advocate for copyright. Feel free to leave your comments.

 

Caller: “I have a downloadable e-book that is 30 different DIY home projects. These projects were curated from the Internet, so I don’t legally own them.” (So, you should not have curated them in the first place. You can’t steal content from the Internet.)

“I want to create a copyright / disclaimer in my downloadable pdf. with the wording that needs to be said so it protects me and gives credit to the original owners. Can you help write a copyright contract for me? ”

(Let me get this straight, you are taking someone else’s ideas but you want to protect yourself from copyright infringement?)

Office: Yes we can.
A few questions:
“Who are the parties involved?
Are you going to write the disclaimer in the e-book itself?
Do you have permission from the owners to reproduce all the DIYs?”

Client: “What do you mean by parties? I curated the content from the Internet.
The disclaimer will be in the first pages.
No, I do not have permission but I will provide a link and give attribution. ” (Why didn’t you ask for permission?)

Office: “It’s always good to get permission from the original owners before you proceed with the e-book because if you are going to be selling this e-book then the owners may want some proceeds from the sales and they may not want their DIY’s to be in the e-book altogether.”
(I have a blog myself and I would hate it if someone took my ideas and made it into an e-book to make money.)
“If you are going to be distributing the e-book for free than you can go ahead and write the disclaimer but you should get the permission first.”

Caller: “I am giving away the book for free. I am not charging any money from it. It’s just a giveaway.”

(We’ve no way of knowing this for sure and who said you can give someone’s work away for free.)

Caller: “Also would it be safer if I host the content on the blog and provide a password for access instead of making it downloadable? Just wondering?”

Office: “With the free e-book or the blog as long as you have permission from the owners to reproduce their links you should be ok. Most will say yes because they get exposure but you’ll never know until you ask.
Credit their work so that you won’t have to worry about copyright infringements in the future. Get it in writing.”

Read on, the story gets even better…

Caller: “Unfortunately I don’t know the contact info. for all 30 people. I hired a person to write the e-book. I would rather give all credits appropriately. What’s the best, safest thing to do without getting their permission? Does it matter whether it’s in a downloadable format or on a blog?”

(There’s a name for this – derivative work leading to copyright infringement)

Office: “You have the links for the book so contact the people and just ask them for permission. Even before you post the links on websites or blogs always ask for permission first.” That was the end of that.

The audacity?

 

 

I hope he gets slapped with DMCA takedown notice from all 30 people. And speaking about DMCA Ken Liu has an excellent write-up below. I have permission from Writer Beware, Ken. Thank you for an excellent article.

http://www.sfwa.org/2013/03/the-dmca-takedown-notice-demystified/

 

Do not infringe upon someone else’s copyright.