Copyrights and Registration
Author of this post: Jean Perwin | About Blog Authors »
You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions.
Hi Jean,
I am a freelance web and graphic designer. I do logos, photography, graphics, and web design. I have never protected any of my art pieces with a copyright, and I am not quite sure whether I need to or just should?
Do I have to register every single graphic I create? It seems like a very annoying and time consuming task.
Can I instead protect all my artwork by registering once and then submitting pictures of every piece? Or, is there some other process that will make the task easier and faster?
Thanks,
Susana E.Dear Susana,
You don’t need to register a copyrighted work to own a copyrighted work. Once you create it you own it, and it’s always protected. Registration is useful in that it provides you with a lot of legal ammunition and qualifies you for such things as statutory damages the reimbursement of attorney’s fees. However, as you point out, it often doesn’t make sense to register everything. I would recommend that you put copyright notices on all your pieces (© yourname 2007) but file registrations only for works that are widely distributed in a format that’s easy to copy. There are certain circumstances under which you can register collections of works together, but, for artwork, you typically have to file separate registrations.
Best,
Jean
November 26th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Great Post! Here is some more info about trademarking and copy writing
http://www.logoblog.org/wordpress/steps-to-register-trademark-logo/
March 14th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
You can always apply for a Poor Man’s Copyright. This is especially easy if your artwork is in digital format, because then you can save to disk, send to yourself via registered mail. As long as you don’t open the package, this qualifies as a legal copyright. I did this with my multimedia arts company logo.
Suzzy is right, though. There are certain benefits and rights that accrue to you when you have a copyright or trademark registered with the federal bureau that specifically handles this. It is difficult, for example, to sue someone for infringement, or damages, without that piece of paper from the patents office.
Miami Dade personal injury lawyer
March 14th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
The notion that mailing yourself a certified copy of your work qualifies as a legal copyright is simply wrong and a pernicious and potentially very harmful myth. Mailing yourself a copy of anything gives you NO legal protection whatever. You own a copyright from the moment you create your work. Registering your copyright with the Copyright Office, not the Patents (sic) Office, is the only valid way to own a registered copyright and the only way to have a “legal copyright”. There is no such thing as a “Poor Man’s Copyright” only an “Ignorant Man’s Myth.”
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 am
wow! great work. I have a question..Can someone copyright general terms like LIGHT etc etc. If one can, how can he stop other people using it. and is copyright is restricted to the country or you can copyright any thing in any country and it will automatically get copyrighted in other country.
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academic paper writing