So anything that is mine is copyrighted by me? I don't need to go to city hall or to copyright my stuff?
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Copyright Law
The Unites States Copyright Act, TITLE I7, SEC. 101, OCT. 19, 1976, 90 STAT, is a law enacted by congress in 1976 to protect original work. The Act protects creators, or owners of original work by preventing others to duplicate, distribute or alter their work. Only the person that holds the copyright may determine who can use their work. Berne Copyright Convention
Under a convention of the Law called the Berne Copyright Convention, all creative works are copywritten the moment they're in a tangible form.
Tangible form means almost anything other than in your head. Simply dreaming of the world's greatest Web site isn't enough to protect your ideas by Copyright. But once it's in a material form, it's protected. This means that, regardless of whether or not you see a Copyright noticed affixed to a newspaper, Web page, piece of fine art—it's most likely Copyright material, if it's original.
However, many people have never heard of the Berne Copyright Convention. And many people, for some strange reason, fail to respect that most Web site material is Copyright protected, unless they see an explicit Copyright notice (and even then some people don't care). It's to your advantage to place a formal Copyright notice somewhere on your Web site—or on every page. You may not prevent people from stealing your work, but it may deter some people, it makes some people stop and think about whether they really want to "borrow" your material, and it can help you out in case you decide to press charges against someone for Copyright infringement.
Formal Copyright Display
There are three standard ways to display a Copyright notice:
Display a C with a circle around it: ©, which is written © or ©
Write out the word "Copyright," followed by the date and the name of who owns the Copyright (the creator):
Copyright 1998 by DevX.com, Inc.
Write out "Copr.," followed by the name of whoever owns the Copyright and the date:
Copr. 1998 by DevX.com, Inc.
You can also register a trademark by writing:
® which is written in HTML as "® for Registered Trademark, or,
™ which is written as "™ .
What's Covered?
All original work in tangible form is covered by the Copyright Act. Tangible form means something that you can touch, or something material. Material could be a book, or a piece of paper, or a Web site or a sculpture. But it can't be your thoughts and ideas, no matter how great they may be.
In order to obtain Copyright for your material, the material must be original. Phone books, links, everyday symbols such as circles and squares are not copyrightable, because they lack originality. Facts are not original. However, the presentation of facts or links may be copywritten if they are presented in an original way. The Reference page on Copyright in this section contains links and facts about Copyright. The facts and links are not Copyrightable in and of themselves, but the way that they are presented is, because it's original, thought-out and it took us some time to compile the links. Therefore, if you copy the table on our Reference page, you are violating our Copyright. Don't worry, we'll explain this as we go on.
Original work does not have to be novel or creative—it simple refers to someone's original, tangible material. Copyright protects original material such as written content, original art, graphics, advertisers, architecture, sound, music, lyrics and recorded voice. It includes online material, such as material posted to the internet.
The copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce, modify, distribute, publicly display, and publicly perform the copyrighted work.
When someone who is not the owner of the Copyright uses copywritten material for his or her own purposes, without permission, they are guilty of Copyright infringement.
Under the law Copyright infringement is illegal. It can be both a civil and a criminal offense. (There is one exception, called Fair Use but we discuss this later).
How Long Is Material Covered by Copyright?
The Copyright Act protects:
Work created before 1978 for 75 years from the date of publication—providing that the Copyright is renewed.
Work created, but not published, before 1978 until December 31, 2002.
Works created from 1975 to the present for 50 years after the death of the author, if the author owns the Copyright; and for 75 years from the date of publication if an employer owns the Copyright. For some reason, many people fail to see work on the Web as Copyrighted material. But most of the material on the Web is copywritten. That includes the words, the pictures, illustrations, graphics, banner ads, and sounds. While it is common for people to snag pictures, text and entire original HTML source code from a Web page (for example, a cross-platform compatible mouseover script for sound that you created); it's illegal if it's copywritten material. Assume that a Web page is copywritten unless you know for sure that it isn't.
If it is your original work, you and only you have a legal right to its use. This is automatic. However, the problem you face is proving that it was your work and when it was done.
wrong...you need to publish or register whatever you want to be copyrighted. this way if anyone tries to copy your work, you can either sue them or get paid.
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