A reader posted the following BLOG that needs correcting:
If you want to get something copyrighted in the United States, you must submit it for registration at the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, fill out an application, substantiate the material is legally yours, pay an application fee of $45 and then publish it and wait for the discovery period until you get it approved. It’s not a difficult process, but you can’t just claim it’s copyrighted. All the above has been explain to me by a person, who went through that process.
The biggest misconception most people have is that you must register something in order to copyright it. This could not be further from the truth. While registration is a great way to protect copyrighted material, it is not required. The letter of the law is, a piece or work is copyrighted the moment it is placed into a tangible form of expression. For example, if you go outside with your camera and take a picture, the moment that picture is taken, it is copyrighted. You and only you own the rights to the copyrighted picture.
While registrations are not required to copyright something, it is still advisable to do so for a few reasons. First, you cannot bring a copyright action in court without first registering your work. Second, if you register a work within five years after publication, it establishes a prima facie case in court of the validity of the copyright. Third, registration allows a copyright holder to ask for statutory damages – which can be up to $150,000 per infringement for willful copyright infringement.
UPDATED: November 17, 2010
There still appears to be some confusion as to whether a work is “copyrighted” even before it is registered. Some of this confusion appears to come from the concept of “common law” copyrights. While it is true that under the older 1909 Copyright Act (yes, that is a long time ago) there was a more widely used “common law” copyright scheme. Today, the idea is largely irrelevant. I should note, however, that the existence of a “common law” copyright that sits apart from a “copyright registration” shows that even under the old system the property right – the copyrights – exist regardless of the registration. The minutia of this is simply not important anymore in most cases. The reason is because the law was changed in 1989.
From the BLOG posts it seems that the following important legal points have been missed. Under the Berne Convention and under United States law all copyrightable works (including images) are copyrighted at the moment they are fixed into a tangible medium of expression. See, Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Sept. 9, 1886, as last revised at Paris, July 24, 1971; Article 5; signed by United States in 1988, effectuated 1989 (hereinafter “Berne Convention”); see also U.S.C. Const. Art. VI cl. 2 (“all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”).
In short, in 1989 the United States fully joined the Berne Convention. Congress even went so far as to change the U.S. copyright statutes to reflect the change. This is why the notice requirement “©”, for example is no longer required on copyrighted material (although it is still generally recommended). It is also why a copyright exists, in full force, the moment it is “fixed” or “created” regardless of whether it is registered. Registration does provide some incentives, as I have written about, but it is simply not a requirement.
In other words, the moment a photographer takes a picture or creates an image, they are copyrighted, regardless of registration or other formalities such as including any notice of copyright. Id. One is truly foolish to believe otherwise.
Timothy McCormack is a Seattle-based intellectual property attorney with over ten years of experience in copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and related business law issues.
May I post a link to your blog post in Blogger? I work with The Real Estate Book and think this piece will make a great and timely piece for my real estate advertisers. The blog Karen’s Corner is accessible from the website.
Thanks, Karen
I believe the reason to copyright a piece or work is to protect it from being used elsewhere. The copyright without registration only serves as a warning that the material is not to be used by someone else and I understant the point you make as to not having to register to be copyrighted. However, if one does not register the work or image, there can be no retaliation against anyone who uses it without permission?
What good is it to be copyrighted without registration?