Copyright

What is copyright?

Copyright is a form of intellectual property (often referred to as "IP"). Other forms of intellectual property include trade marks, designs, and patents. These categories refer to different kinds of ideas which may not exist in a physical form that can be owned as property in the traditional sense, but may nonetheless have value to the people who created them. These forms of intellectual property can be owned in the same way that physical property is owned, but – as with physical property – they can be subject to dispute and proper documentation is required to prove ownership.

The different types of intellectual property

Copyright: copyright protects creative output such as books, poems, pictures, drawings, music, films, etc. Any work which can be recorded in some way can be protected by copyright, as long as it is original and of sufficient length. Copyright does not cover short phrases or names.

Trade marks: trade marks cover words and/or images which distinguish the goods or services of one trader from another. Unlike copyright, trade marks can cover names and short phrases.

Designs: designs cover the overall visual appearance of a product, such as its shape, etc.

Patents: patents protect the technical or functional aspects of designs or inventions.{/slide}

Legal protection

The specifics of the legal protection surrounding these various forms of intellectual property will vary from nation to nation, but there are also generally international conventions to which a lot if not most of the nations of the world subscribe. The information provided below outlines the common situation in many countries but you should be aware that this may not reflect the exact situation in every territory.

The two types of intellectual property most relevant to writers are copyright and trade marks. If an author has written a novel, a short story, a poem, a script, or any other piece of writing then the contents themselves can be protected by copyright. The title, however, cannot be protected by copyright as it is a name. An author may therefore feel that they wish to consider protecting the title of their work by registering it as a trade mark, if they feel that it is particularly important and/or more valuable in itself than the cost of registering a trade mark.{/slide}

How to register

If an author wants to register the copyright for their work, or register the title of their work as a trade mark, there are generally registration fees to be paid. Despite the fact that copyright covers long works that could be hundreds of thousands of words long, while trade marks cover single words and short phrases, the cost for registering a trade mark is likely to be many times higher than that for registering a work for copyright protection. This is because trade marks must be unique and are checked against existing trade marks for potential conflicts. While works to be registered for copyright must also not infringe existing works, it is not practical to check the huge volume of new works to be registered for copyright against the even larger volume of all previously copyrighted works. Copyright registration therefore tends to simply archive the work in question as proof of the date at which the person registering the work was in possession of it.

In the case of both copyright and trade marks the law generally provides some protection even without any kind of registration, but registration provides the owner of the intellectual property with greater and more enforceable protection. In the case of copyright, the creator of a work usually automatically owns the copyright as soon as the work is recorded in some way (i.e. by writing it down or recording it electronically, etc.), however these rights can be difficult to prove if disputed, and therefore many countries (such as the United States) also offer an internal country-specific means of registering works. Some countries, like the United Kingdom, do not offer any such means of registration, however an international registration is available through the Intellectual Property Rights Office's Copyright Registration Service, and can be used regardless of any country-specific provisions. This can help protect copyright in all of the nations which are signatories of the Berne Convention (click here for a full list).{/slide}

Trademarks

In the case of trade marks, the symbol "™" can be applied to any mark which is being used as a trade mark, however greater protection is provided if this mark is registered, in which case the symbol "®" can be applied to the mark. It is often illegal to apply the "®" symbol to a trade mark which has not been registered. There are also options for international registrations of trade marks, which are administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, however applications cannot be made to the WIPO directly – applications must be made through the relevant office of the applicant's country.

While every effort is made to ensure that the information on this site is correct and accurate, please remember that it refers to general principals rather than specific laws of specific countries, and you should not rely on it for legal purposes. Always check with a qualified lawyer to confirm the situation in your own country.

Scams

Writers warned of increasing number of scams

The Intellectual Property Rights Office has estimated that thousands of writers every year are unwittingly handing their work over to con-men posing as literary agents, book publishers, and competition organizers. Amazingly, the vast majority appear to be doing so without taking out any copyright protection for their work, leaving the material in which they have invested so much of their time and effort at the mercy of crooks and fraudsters.

That writers are willing to treat their work so flippantly will be surprising to many. A successful book can be worth millions or even tens of millions of dollars to its author – and even short stories sometimes form the basis of movies that can gross millions at the box office.

For an author, creating a good piece of writing can be like filling out a winning lottery ticket, but while most people would expect to clutch such a ticket tightly to their chest, many writers seem happy to share their work with as many agents, publishers, and competitions as they can find addresses for. This clearly isn't because they doubt the value of their work – to go to the lengths of completing it and submitting it for publication they must believe it is capable of being a success and making money – but whereas no inventor would share the plans for their invention without first taking out a patent, and no company would invest money promoting a brand without first taking out trade mark protection, many writers seem content to risk losing their work to a con-artist, rather than take the simple step of registering it for copyright protection.

Registration Service

This is particularly surprising following the launch in 2006 of the Copyright Registration Service website, which makes the whole process of registering works for copyright protection far quicker and easier than using paper forms and postage. Creative works can be uploaded online and registration can be complete within minutes (writers who would like to register their work should click here).

The reason that many writers fail to protect their work properly is perhaps because they assume that in order to become a literary agent or run a publishing business a person must obtain some kind of license or register with some kind of official body. This isn't the case, however. Anyone can call themselves a literary agent, set up a publishing business, or run a writing competition, regardless of their qualifications or their history. They could have no experience whatsoever of writing or publishing, and could even have a criminal record.{/slide}

Internet is full of so-called "publishers"

The internet is full of supposed agencies and publishers, who prey upon vulnerable writers and often advertise extensively on Google and other search engines. Their primary motivation is usually to extort money from writers, rather than steal their work, but sending a potentially valuable work of literature to unscrupulous characters without even protecting its copyright can hardly be advisable. If your work has the potential to be the next Harry Potter and one of these crooks recognizes that, then it seems unlikely that they would pass on the opportunity to claim it as their own.

What's worse is that, if one of these con-artists did take your work and publish it under their name, there's probably very little you could do about it if you hadn't registered your work before sending it to them. The work would be assumed to be theirs, unless you could prove otherwise – and doing so would be very difficult. Dates on computer files can easily be forged (no particular computer knowledge is required, you simply need to manually alter the time and date on your computer), so these carry no weight; and any friends or family you had shown the work to would not be judged to be impartial in court (particularly if you stood to benefit financially from the case – a benefit which they might share in). The only reliable way to prove your case would be the independent verification offered by copyright registration – and if you hadn't taken out copyright protection before sending the work, you could find yourself in serious difficulties.{/slide}

Register before handing out for publishing

It is therefore advisable for all writers to take out copyright protection for their work as soon as it is finished, and on all accounts before sending it or showing it to anyone. The chances of an author's work actually being stolen are very slim – but the better the work is, the more likely it is to happen. And if it does happen, the losses would dwarf the cost of registration.

Copyright protection is therefore like any sensible insurance policy against unlikely but devastating events: for a minimal cost of less that US$12 a year (less than GBP£7 a year) writers can gain protection for their work and peace of mind for themselves, knowing that if their work does gross millions of dollars, that money will be in the pockets of its rightful owner, not an opportunistic con-artist.

Ultimately, if an author believes their work has value and could make money, they should take the same precautions that anyone with an invention or a valuable logo would, and protect it. And the good news for writers? The registration fees for protecting copyright are only a fraction of what it costs to register patents or trade marks.{/slide}