May I Have Your Permission, Please?

After my posting about copyright legends, I was asked, “…but is my work protected by copyright if I do not use the copyright legend?” My answer is both yes and no.

Basically, copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights over a certain period of time, and these rights are governed by intellectual property laws. As I am not a lawyer, and there are so many ins-and-outs of copyright law, I’m not going to go into details.

After the United States adopted the Berne Convention Treaty rule in 1989, use of the copyright legend was not required for copyright protection. Copyright goes into effect as soon as your material takes a tangible form of expression. In an ideal world, you would not need to use a copyright notice, or legend.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. Without use of the copyright notice (or its equivalent for non-written materials), you do not have legal proof of ownership. Even with the copyright notice, ownership can be disputed. Your best protection is using the copyright notice (legend) and registering your work with the United States Copyright Office.

There are some excellent books and web sites that go into this in much greater detail. I have found these books to be invaluable references:

Copyright Plain and Simple by Cheryl Besenjak ISBN 1-56414-512-3

The Writer’s Legal Guide by Crawford and Lyons ISBN 0-927629-13-5

The Writer’s Legal Guide: An Author’s Guild Desk Reference by Crawford and Murray ISBN 1-58115-230-2

The Permissions Group Inc. http://www.permissionsgroup.com/ritres.html has a wonderful list of links to web sites with additional information about copyright.

Intellectual property lawyer Ivan Hoffman’s site at http://www.ivanhoffman.com has many useful articles for writers, publishers, recording artists, songwriters, and Web site designers plus information about trademarks, electronic rights, and ethics.

And of course for copyright forms, you can go directly to the U.S. Copyright Office at http://www.copyright.gov/

© 2009 Anne Wallingford