Copyright Protection: 2 Intriguing Objects Eligible for Copyrights

Posted by kimzaqi on Sunday, April 22, 2012


Legalcopyright182 -- A federal protection granted to the author of a resourceful work -- is often understood in contexts like books, movies, images, and paintings. It's clear to most of the people that, below traditional circumstances, you cannot copy someone's novel and publish it as your own, post somebody else's photo or painting on your own blog while not the author's permission, or produce an unauthorized sequel to someone's movie.

But did you recognize copyrights aren't restricted to words, pictures, music, and video?

For a piece to be eligible for copyright protection, it should be the expression of a concept (not merely the thought itself, for ideas aren't copyrightable), and it should be thought of to own distinctive authorship (it can't be a particular duplication of one thing else). Here are two intriguing forms of work that do fall into these parameters and are, in fact, eligible for copyright protection.

1. Vessel Hull Design

Dating solely as so much back as 1998, the Vessel Hull style Protection Act provides protection for -- you guessed it -- original ship hull styles.

While copyright registration for many of the additional acquainted forms of works (music, text, movies) need a duplicate of the work itself to be submitted along side the applying, the hull of a ship is understandably troublesome to deliver to the US Copyright workplace. For prohibitively massive works like this, the Copyright workplace needs "identifying material" consisting of images and measurements.

2. Architectural Works

It looks odd to imagine a copyright on a building, however works of design will currently be copyrighted by submitting the blueprints to the US Copyright workplace, as a result of a series of modifications to copyright law throughout the centuries.

Works are design were introduced into copyright law nearly as a fluke: the primary copyright law specified that solely books, maps, and charts might be protected; subsequent version broadened the to incorporate "writings" by an "author"; subsequent version allowed for "drawings... of a scientific or technical nature"; solely subsequent version afterward specifically mentioned architectural drawings -- however even therefore, the buildings themselves weren't explicitly mentioned, solely the drawings or blueprints themselves.

In 1989, when the United Stated joined the Berne Convention (an international set of copyright agreements), they were needed to adopt the principles and standards of the convention -- and among these needs was that copyright would extend to the architectural works themselves, and not solely the blueprints.
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Copyright Law Applies to T-Shirt Designing

Posted by kimzaqi on Wednesday, February 22, 2012


Copyright Law Applies to T-Shirt Designing-When you hire an artist to create a design for you, you own the product designed once the art work is complete but not the copyright to the design- it still remains the artist's property as it is his creativity. An authority must be granted by the artist in writing to claim that the copyright has been transferred as well. The payment you make is for his creativity and effort but this does not mean that the design becomes your property. This does not have to be a long, fancy process, simply something in black and white that states the artist has either transferred the copyright to his design or he shares it with you. If you hire the artist as a contractor, you do not own copyrights until there is an agreement but if the designer is your employee, you automatically own copyrights to his design as an employer.

A copyright is the protection provided to an original, tangible form of work in literature, art, drama, music, architecture, design or research work. It authorizes the owner to claim an infringement in case his work is reproduced, altered, published or broadcasted without his consent. A copyright exists when an idea is put down as an expression on paper or a computer file. It is not necessary to register this copyright except if a lawsuit has to be filed against plagiarism. A registered copy with the United States Copyright Office claims authority of the owner with the date and place of the creation of this work with official stamps. A legal registration provides a public record which makes it easier to prove copyright ownership. This process is much cheaper than the trademark registration and costs around $30.

The symbol © is also not essential except that it makes it clear that the owner has a registered copyright. Anyone still willing to use your design or composition must obtain the permission of the owner or face consequences at the court.

Anyone who violates the copyrights of an owner is liable of being summoned to the court for infringing the copyright. If the owner already has a registered product, the infringer will pay not only the damages to the sales and loss on profit but also the attorney fee. But if the copyright is not registered, the defendant only pays the damages to sales and loss on profit to the claimant.
The hardest part is finding people who violate your rights especially in the T-shirt industry. As it is a very big industry and many people on small and large scales are engaged in T-shirt printing, it is difficult to know if your design is being copied. Many of these manufacturers have no trademarks and no registrations. That is what makes it hard to track them.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6809113
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Can You Copyright a Fight Song or a School Motto?

Posted by kimzaqi


Can You Copyright a Fight Song or a School Motto?-The other day, I was having a conversation about copyright law, you see I am an online article author, and I produced a number of e-books, and before my stint as a writer, I was quite concerned with protecting our company operations manual from getting in the hands of competitors. I've been mildly successful at all of those things above, and therefore have quite a bit of both positive and negative experiences when it comes to copyright law.

Now then, during our conversation we got on the subject of copywriting quotes, mottos, poems, and even school fight songs which are often used at football, basketball, and other athletic competitions. Obviously, if you have a good fight song, let's say you are a university or college, someone might hijack that, and use it in their high school in some little town somewhere in the United States. Now then, as a big university you probably don't care if a high school uses it at their football game.

Nevertheless, it is your brand and your school fight song, and you do need to protect it. A very short quotation or school motto could be trademarked. However, it's difficult to trademark something you haven't used in interstate commerce. Nevertheless, if you are University and you travel to other states for athletic competitions that would suffice, therefore you could trademark it. If you do, you have more teeth legally if someone uses it without your permission.

Of course, if your school motto is several sentences long, and your fight song has several verses, then obviously a trademark is completely the wrong venue, and you will not be able to secure that from the USPTO. Therefore, can a copyright suffice? In other words, if you put a little "c" at the bottom which alerts everyone that you claim copyright, and they can't use it without your permission, and of course you would grant them the permission ever - therefore it's safe right?

Hardly, someone might still try to take it - they may even use it on their blog, or modify the words to make your school look bad. In that case they are violating your copyright in many regards, but you still have to defend that. They might claim that they added significant new value by changing the words and trashing your school fight song, therefore it's okay? Well, legally they might have a good defense in that case under the "fair use" principle - however that doesn't make you or your school very happy.

And if you think that won't or can't happen, think again, it happens all the time. The problem with trademarks, patents, copyrights, and other things of this nature is even if you claim the copyright, have a registered trademark, or have actually filed a patent for something, that's where the fun starts, from then on out you still have to defend it. That costs money, it takes time, and the Internet is rampant with the hijacking of copyrighted material. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. In the meantime good luck.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6946965
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DMCA Is Definately Your Online Defense Shield

Posted by kimzaqi


Copyright is one of the most significant non tangible assets of an organization. Organizations consider copyrighting their entities as an essential legal obligation. This act infers that the organization values the social and ethical rules followed globally. Copyrights protection gives exclusive rights to an organization over its original works. An intellectual property of an organization, copyright gives the power to an organization to handle crucial decisions like accreditation, duplication rights and financial benefits.

The law, of nature suggests that every positive action faces a negative force which opposes its action. Therefore, even Copyrights cannot escape the crimes violating their legal shell. From the time, the concept of copyrighting emerged; copyright infringement came as a counter act, polluting its lawful structure. Criminals started crossing the legal limits by using plagiarism, duplication and many other methods as tools of copyright infringement. In such chaos, the global community realized that they should take necessary actions to prevent the copyright fields from illegal action. This was when acts against copyright infringement came into the frontiers. These documents present rules and regulations that one should follow to stand his copyright legality. These acts are bible for internet attorneys and saviors for all the victims of copyright infringement. People over the internet acknowledge it as Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a copyright law that applies the two treaties of World Intellectual Property Organization. Brought into effect in 1998, it has compiled five titles along with several other measures against copyright infringement and other illegal actions about intellectual properties. It announces all the acts as illegal which also includes controls access over copyrighted works. This act clarifies several legal ambiguities about copyrights and raises penalties for the criminals convicted of the violation. Being a truly comprehensive and cardinal document, this act gives every detail of copyright delicacy, the protection it needs. It outlaws the activities like generation, distribution and duplication of copyrighted entities. It also outlaws illegal access to any controls over copyright protected material. One of the ice breaking innovations of this act is that it gives exemption from direct and indirect internet service providers. Hence, it provides a secure shelter to all those organization, for whom, copyright infringement can become a serious catastrophe.

Each of the five titles talks about copyright legality. Title I refers to copy prevention laws and technical prevention measures. Title II informs about creation of a safe harbor for Online Service Providers, and urges them to remove any infringed material immediately after its identification. Title II gives an outlook over the obligations on the repairing computers where as Title IV entails a list of miscellaneous provisions. Title V generates copyright protection for boat hull designs. In addition to these titles, it incorporates several anti circumvention exemptions.

In today's contemporary world, infringement is a malpractice which is becoming a common instance. This act provides with a holistic guideline against copyright crime and acts as a shield to all those entities that are under the threat of copyright infringement. Hence, DMCA is a revolutionary and significant copyright act.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6933636
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