Copyright Made Easy

How to copyright protection your creative work

Some people confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Although there may be some similarities among these kinds of intellectual property protection, they are different and serve different purposes.

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authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished.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. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

Copyright Lawsuits: Critical Issues Before Filing Copyright
Federa Rule 11(b) Considerations

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WIPO Copyright Committee Considers Many Proposals for 2008 Work Program
WIPO Copyright Committee: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back  ‘Broadcast Treaty Chair’ Remains, Limitations and Exceptions to Copyright Considered (15 March 2008)  The WIPO Copyright Committee (SCCR) met from 10-12 March 2008 in Geneva to debate the future work program for the committee after the Member States of the WIPO General Assembly told the committee last Fall [...

Copyright Law #1: Introduction to Copyright I
In this, the first episode of Copyright Law, we begin a high-level overview of what copyright is. Almost everyone is a copyright holder, with specific exclusive rights over their original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium...

Digital Copyright Slider
Thanks to The Wired Campus, I stumbled across this nifty digital copyright tool developed by the American Library Association’s Copyright Advisory Network (in the Office for Information Technology Policy)...

Copyright Law #2: Introduction to Copyright II
Copyright applies to a wide variety of works, even types of expression that are newly created (and not explicitly referenced in the copyright act)...

Cultural v. Commercial Uses
Cory Doctorow: "Copyright law should distinguish between commercial and cultural uses" (2008) Professor L. Ray Patterson: "The competitor uses the copyright; the consumer uses the work...

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