What is Copyrighting? How to get Copyright?

Many people work very hard on various things that they feel provides them with satisfaction and fun. After spending hours and hours of effort in their work they finally come up with a product that can also help them financially. If you have created a product then you own it and no one can steal it. For making sure that your work is safe, you need a better understanding of the copyrighting legislations which can protect your work.

A 'copyright' is a form of intellectual property protection that grants to the owner of a work of authorship the legal right to determine how the work is used and to obtain the economic benefits from the work.

 The work should be in some tangible form such as a book, operating manual, magazine article, musical score, computer software games, architectural designs and many more. If something is not in a tangible form, such as speech that has never been recorded or saved on a computer disk, copyright law does not protects it. A work does not have to be of artistic form to qualify for copyright protection. As a result things such as operating manuals, advertising brochures, and training videos qualify for protection. The 1976 Copyright Act governs copyright law in the United States. Under this law, an original work is protected automatically from the time if it is created and put into a tangible form whether published or not.

The primary categories of material that can be copyrighted follows:

Literary Works: Anything written down is a literary work, including books, poetry, reference works, speeches, advertising copy, employee manuals, games and computer programs. Characters found in literary works are protect able if they possess a high degree of distinctiveness. A character that looks and acts like Garfield the cartoon cat would infringe on the copyright that protects Garfield.

Musical compositions: A musical composition, including any accompanying words that are in a fixed form (e.g. a musical score, a cassette tape, a CD, or an MP3 file) are protectable. The owner of the copyright is usually the composer and possibly a lyricist. There are also Derivative works, which are works that are new renditions of something that is already copyrighted, are also copyrightable. As a result of this provision, a musician who performs a unique rendition of a song written and copyrighted by Aerosmith or by Metallica can obtain a copyright on his or her effort. Of course Aerosmith or Metallica would have to consent to the infringement on its copyright of the original song before the new version could be used commercially.

Dramatic Works: A dramatic work is a theatrical performance, such as a play, comedy routine, newscast, movie, or television show. An dramatic work can be protected under a single copyright.

Pantomimes and Choreographic works: A pantomime is a performance that uses gestures and facial expressions rather than words to communicate a situation. Choreography is the arrangement of dance movements. Copyright laws in these areas protect ballets, dance movements and mime works.

Pictorial, graphic and sculptural works: This is a broad category that includes photographs, prints, art reproduction, cartoons, maps, globes, jewellery, fabrics, technical drawings, diagrams, posters, toys, sculptures, and charts.

The main exclusion is that copyright laws cannot protect ideas. For example an entrepreneur may have the idea to open a soccer themed restaurant. The idea itself is not eligible for copyright protection. However, if the person writes down his/her entire idea and its concept on paper than the written document is copyrightable.

Technically it is not necessary to provide a copyright symbol or register work with U.S or the country you belong to. The following steps can be taken to enhance the protection offered by the copyright legislations:

• First, copyright protection can be enhanced for anything written by just attaching the copyright symbol or ‘copyright bug’ as it is sometimes called. The letter ‘c’ inside a circle can be used to designate that something is copyrighted.

• Second, further protection can be obtained by registering a work with your country’s Copyright office. Filling a simple form and depositing one or more samples of the work with Copyright office completes the registration process. The need to supply a sample depends on the nature of the item involved.

• Thirdly a copyright attorney can be hired for consultation and he/she will make sure that you are getting maximum level of copyright protection.

• Publish your work and make it available for the public to view it.