In
Part I of this
article dealing with copyright, you were provided some ideas to stimulate your
thinking about this topic in relation to your web publishing activity.
This part will provide you with some
practical steps which you can
apply now, and also provide a few links to other sources of more in-depth
information about copyrights and trademarks, if you want to pursue it.
- Even though copyright is automatic and you do not have to register your
work, you may find that it makes your material a bit more sophisticated to
add a copyright notice to it.
- Even thought there is no Universal or International copyright and
copyright is not the same in all countries it usually does no harm to
publish your claim to it.
- If you notice someone in a different country who is possibly abusing what
you consider to be your rights, you might want to
consider seeking a
friendly solution rather than attempting a heavy handed threat of legal
action.
- You may find that it will further enhance your image if you make modest
use of trademarks by inventing a phrase or word that you apply in a unique
way to your business.
- An example is the term Think'n'Do ™ which I use to describe an article
which is designed to provoke thought and then then offer practical steps
to apply the ideas discussed.
- Just as putting on a simple, small piece of jewelry may have an ellegant
effect while plastering yourself with glitter might make you appear gawdy,
you want to be conservative in your use of trademarks.
- If you are contracting to have something written for you, you will want to
specify that you are paying for all rights.
- If you are a writer, you may want to attempt to provide your services for
a one-time use, or for specific uses instead of selling all rights.
- You can use the symbol ™ to suggest that you intend to register a
trademark and never "get around" to doing it.
As long as you don't
encounter any conflicts, you may want to take this approach and not bother
with the time and expense involved with registration until you discover
that there is sufficient interest to justify further time and cost.
Of course, you are running a risk that someone else might be able to get
control of the trademark, but if you are the first to use it and can prove
it, that may be a key point in conserving your rights.
- You will want to have a legitimate claim and use of a trademark to adequately defend your ownership of it.
Just registering a trademark
because you hope to sell it to someone else at a profit may not be enough
to allow you to keep it.
- As we noted in Part I you can claim anything you want but getting it may
be difficult.
- One application of this that seems worthwhile to me is to
claim that you have a "Worldwide Copyright", if you think you might have
problems in certain countries.
Of course claiming something that doesn't
exist will not get it for you but it
may discourage someone from copying
your material. It's a bluff you don't intend to stand up to, but sometimes
your posture can get you through some situations which would cause others
to have problems.
- The term copyright or the symbol
© can be used before or after the claim
is registered. It is customary and recommended to add
the year the work
was first published to establish the time frame the copyright covers.
- Example: ©2004 Affiliate-Master.com is a public declaration that something was published in the year 2004 and Affiliate-Master.com claims the copyright.
Would you like to comment on this article? You can add your comments to the end of this blog entry
To explore this topic more:
Copyright and Related Rights from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Copyright From Wikipedia
Copyleft From Wikipedia
Copynorms From Wikipedia
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