Copyrighting

Hello fellow blenderheads,

I did some research about copyrights and learned that in fact the creator of a piece is automatically the copyright owner. The thing is, nowhere did it say directly if you can put a copyright sign on your work even if you haven’t registered the copyright.

I.e., I make something and don’t register the copyright. But I own it automatically. So can I put the © on it?

Thanks in advance to anybody who knows about this.

By the way, I’m in Canada if that makes any difference.

Thankfully I’m studying copyright as part of a law unit at college. The moment you create an original piece of work that is entirely yours, then you own the copyright to it. You do not have to use the © symbol or register, but you are free to do either if you so please. :smiley:

Cool! Thanks a lot! (What would I do without the forum?:stuck_out_tongue: )

Although PolygoneUK is right, but that is UK law. Canada could be slightly different or completely different.

Yeah, forgot to mention that I’m UK-based. However, my law tutor did explain that the basic concept of copyright entitlement is pretty much globally accepted:

i.e. “you make it, you own it” :yes:

so i atomaticly own the copyright for my nicname?, and my story, wazard land the bigining witch is were the name comes from
i cannot luse the name. becose i intend to publish the story wen i get it finished to a high enuf standerd.

yeah you can use the © symbol all you please. but theoretically its not legal without a year by it due to the period copyright can be held for (Disney never puts a year by theirs but they are counting on the amount of money they have to make it stand in court) this is because most of disneys stuff has long since expired.

You can’t copyright a nickname. My understanding is that short phrases and words would come under Trademarks.

it’s the name of the main carictor in my story. as wel as the ,hessiesthion’s the groop of peple that hessiess is the leader of, and ,hessiethion is the langwige that thay speck. or not rilly speck becose its transmited as thorts, and uses all five senses.

In the US, the year must follow the copyright symbol, and then the year must be immediately followed by the holder name, i.e. © 2007 Roger Wickes. You can prefix the symbol with the copyright word to be clearer. US and Canadian law all inherit from the law of torts so they are all very similar.

The real issue with copyright is damages and enforcement, and the cost of hiring a lawyer to defend your copyright. So keep at it Polygone, you’ll be a rich person someday. Also, the problem of derivative works comes into play. If you produce an image, and I just change the colors, i own that copyright to that image. (That’s why most copyrights are registered in black and white). You can feel free to sue me, but if you have not been damaged (i havent made any money off of it that you might have), you really just end up with a big lawyer bill.

Poly’s right for the US as well; I own the mark “Information at the Speed of Change”, but it is a trademark, not a copyright. A book author hold the sole right to copy the work, he has copy-rights. A slang thing or symbol (Nike swoosh) or mark used in trade is a trade-mark. www.USPTO.GOV allows you to search and find any USA marks.

is it the same in the uk?

Im based in the UK but i can tell you what i know about our laws…

Any intellectual property created by yourself, such as 3d work, music and a story, is automatically copyrighted to yourself as soon as it is placed on a permanent medium such as paper or a CD/DVD etc. …i think a picture would be fine also.
You can use the © on whatever you create, though you need a date because it will run out in 75 years.
I think in America is is the life time of the author plus 70 years

At which point it becomes public domain.
An example of this is Alice in Wonderland.

A name cannot be copyrighted but can be trademarked though the symbol you use depends on your situation.
Using the TM symbol is fine and shows that you have trademarked the name, but to use the R symbol you must pay to register the trademark with your correct government body.

If you are contracted to a 3rd party to do work, the right to that work becomes their property as they paid for you services.
This is unless you have a contract that states something different.

You can licence your work to another party if you wish.

Im sure there a Canadian government website with this info that is more specific to your case, give them a try.

This is not a definitive guide to copyright, use it at your own risk :wink:

Have Fun

You indeed automatically own a © on anything you produce which doesn’t violate any other copyrights but keep in mind that, if you want to prove the fact that you are indeed the original creator of your work, you had best had your copyright registrated. Laws may vary between countries, but not that much (at least in western countries).

@metalliandy: for music, it’s enough to have written down the score, you don’t need to record it (although as the copyright owner you have all rights to do so ;)).

how do you register a copuright/trademak, and how mutch dos it cost? i dont have alot of mony, i dont have a job, and wont until atlest anouther year wen i finish at the 6form. i wouldent be able to cope with a part time job and studing and my own projects.

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I’ll have to make some adjustments to that:

For one, it’s impossible to “register” a copyright in the UK, such a thing does noy exists. In the US, you can register your copyright, but this does little other than give you the right to monetary damages and aid your case in court as to proof of ownership. There is a “begger’s copyright” which involves sending your copyright work via mail, so the stamp /envolope is dated and left untampered, but i believe the US no longer accept this as a valid alternative to registering (since they cant profit from it).

Copyright, as with any law only ranges as far as the country you are in. Fortunatly for us, copyright it is repsected internationally with alot of countrys, but while we don’t have a need to display a (c) symbol, other countries require us to do so, if we wish it to be valid by their laws, which is perticularly important in this day of age with the internet and what not, allowing people from around the world to easily access our work. And by (c) symbol, this does inculde the line of text the accompany it too.

so my names i thort up are safe?

  1. At the copyright /trademark registration offices.
  2. Copyrights and trademarks are both IP, but they are differernt. They have differernt offices and most copyright-able pieces generally do not need a tradmark.
  3. Trademarks come in two flavours. ™ which is an unofficial trademark, which becomes valid once a “product” has been “out” for long enough that the public can associate that trademark to that perticular product. Generally, it’s two year minimum.

The other form is (R), which is the official registration route of trademarks, and doesn’t need one to wait 2 years for the trademark to become valid and risk hijacking from rival companies.

  1. Prices vary, learn to research for yourself. it take about 3 second to find the US copyright registration fees and about 1second to realise the UK has no way to register a copyright. Its automatic, you dont have to tell the government that you own something you make, its common sense, copyright is just a term to say, you own what you create, you own the rights to it, so other people cant take it from you and, well profit from it (which is what it all boils down to)

5? no one cares.Why are you even worry about copyright and trade mark when you’re still in school, jesus christ. Names of story characters are hardly something worth worrying about. A trade mark charcter (like woody from toy story) is a trademark because of the sucess of the film and the association to pixar? (or was it dream works?), it stop people from doing similar things and making woody look like “company sleazy” as the owners of woody, and it doesnt really stop them, rather, lets you sue them easily.

Very true

:wink:

if somone wore to use the name in there own film/story or whatever. and trade marked it would i still be able to use it in my story. without the name the hole story is wortless, its good but i need somone with a better vocabulery to rewrite it. i dont think in words so the hole story reeds badly. but my ideas are strong witch is why i think i may be able to do somthing wit it.

It depends…
mostly if you want to make money from it and what the other party trademark is.

You couldn’t use something like “spiderman” or nikes “just do it” but if its a word in common usage with no public brand affiliation, i see no reason why you couldn’t.

It all depends on whether the word has been generally accepted by the public with a particular brand.

here are a few examples:-

  1. most people know vacuum cleaners as “Hovers” or sticky tape as “sellotape”

  2. The black eyed peas own the TM for a band name, but not for the pulse.

  3. Coca Cola is a trademark but “coke” is not that is why Pepsi and a whole shed load of other company’s can use the name.

But on the other hand the Red can that Coca Cola use was once in dispute with Virgin and their coke brand.
Coca Cola stated that Virgin had to change their can design because it to closely resembled the design of their own.
This was a perfect situation for Coca Cola to say that because their design was so well known, people might mistake Virgin Coke for Coca Cola.

Also if two trademarks are the same but in no way can be confused with each other it can be disputed, either in court or by private agreement, to allow both to keep the names.

A classic case is Apple music(the Beatles) and Apple(computers etc.)
This argument was solved recently but has been going on for years.
Paul McCartney had an agreement with Apple Computers that they could use the Apple name only if they did not enter the music business (which in fact, as we all know they did.)
Apple recently won the case by stating that no one could confuse the two brands.

So all in all, it depends.
What is the Trademark you want to use?
You could always write to the Owner asking permission for use.

Once again i am not a lawyer, take this advice at your own risk.