Are you confused about how you attain copyright on your work? Is your understanding foggy about when your IP rights come into effect? And just what does registering your copyright achieve? Does that create copyright?
In this article, duly noted® team member Julian Boote blows away the fog, and clarifies duly noted®’s place in helping you with your copyright ownership.
There is a common misconception about how people’s intellectual property becomes copyrighted and – tangled within that confusion – just what our service at duly noted® provides. Can I be frank with you? I’ve lost count of the number of times clients have contacted us, asking how he or she can “get my work copyrighted”, as if that’s the service we provide. Perhaps they’ve heard by word of mouth that registration is what they need to do to be copyrighted, and they come to us, perfectly ignorant of the rights they already have. One of the first things we do is put them right.
Please understand I’m not condemning anyone who comes to us with that impression. Heck, the first commandment of creativity is hardly “Thou shalt know thy IP rights off-bat and instantly”. Who does? I didn’t when I started out. Our focus is going to be on creating our work, not thrashing out the finer points of ensuring our copyright ownership of it.
Fortunately for us, the law has helpfully taken that outlook into account – saving us all some bother in the process.
As if by magic, the copyright appeared…
You see, under the UK’s Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988, copyright protection is automatic and immediate, and is assigned to the creator of a work as long as the creator puts it down in a tangible form, and the work is original. Now works protected by copyright are defined the following way:
“(a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works,
(b) sound recordings, films or broadcasts, and
(c) the typographical arrangement of published editions.”
While this covers a lot of material, it’s worth knowing this doesn’t cover ideas. Copyright covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.
Copyright registration does what?
You might be asking yourself right now if copyright is automatic and immediate under law, then what purpose does a registration serve?
Let me tell you what registration doesn’t do. Registration of your copyrighted work does not create copyright. In fact, in the UK there is no formal requirement to register work in order to create copyright. As I said, the law does that for you.
So what use is a copyright registration? Well, certain countries do have a formal, government-run registration process. In the United States of America for example, US citizens are required to register their work with the US Copyright Office – run by the United States Library of Congress – in order to facilitate proof of copyright ownership. Even here though this registration does not bring copyright into existence; it’s automatic upon creation under US law there too. The purpose of this registration is to enable the copyright holder to file for statutory damages in the US courts in the event of infringement, as well as provide prima facie evidence for their case. If you’re not UK or US based, you can check with your own country’s government on its copyright law and whether a formal registration is required, at the UNESCO Collection of National Copyright Laws website.
What does duly noted® do?
Now you know how copyright comes into effect, and you know what use a copyright registration can be, so how does duly noted® fit into all this? Well, we act like the US Copyright Office, but for the UK and international arena.
While not a formal government-run service like the US Copyright Office, like the USCO we do offer an independent third party registration service for owners of copyrighted works. Were you to get involved in a copyright dispute, lawyers for the infringing party will likely attempt to discredit any evidence you submit, claiming that you may have simply altered your work after the fact in order to make a claim of infringement against their client. It is vital then you can establish just when your work was created. And the secure, on-line nature of the duly noted® registration process does just that; any file you upload to us you cannot alter. Thereafter, should you then make a claim of copyright breach (that someone is copying/using your work without permission/payment), the information we give – that on the date your work was registered with us it was in your possession and in a certain state, backed up by the original uploaded file itself – will be just that evidence you need to help you fight your corner. Third party registration is about providing unbiased, verifiable evidence, and that’s what duly noted® does.
Unlike the USCO however, a registration with us takes just minutes.
Sorry USCO – couldn’t resist saying that!
© 2006 Julian Boote All rights reserved.
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This article by the author is intended only as an introduction to copyright. It should not be treated as a definitive guide, nor should it be considered to cover every area of concern, nor should it be regarded as legal advice, or the opinions of duly noted® Ltd.
