Forum Moderators: not2easy
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Anything posted on the web is copyrighted in the US, according to the DMCA, whether or not a copyright notice is displayed. It's a good idea to put a copyright notice on each page, or at least on your home page, though.
Jim
Copyright 2003 Your company name or site name. All rights reserved.
The unicode >> © << in the html code of the page will make the copright symbol (a "c" with a circle around it).
<edit> legal people out there, does this work? </edit>
You don't need to put a copyright message, but it is recommended practice as there are numerous benefits.
Registration is not required, but it may help in infringement actions, as you can prove when the work was created (as an infringer can always counterclaim that you stole their work).
As a side note, digital signatures have legal weight in some jurisdictions. At the end of the day, it's simply a matter of proof in court of evidence that you are the owner of the work, and someone infringed it. This means that notarisation or related services based on digital signatures may be an acceptable way to establish that a work was created at a particular time. For instance, you create a zip file of the work, you create a digital signature of that zip file, then you register the digital signature (or a printable version of it) somewhere.
Matthew.
Why not just mail the CD to yourself by registered post in a tamper proof/evident envelope. Thats pretty good evidence, isn't it? And you won't have to pay anyone...<edit> legal people out there, does this work? </edit>
I'm not a lawyer, but as a graphic designer, I'm pretty familiar with basic copyright law in the US. What you're describing is known as a poorman's copyright and it is not reliable in court. The main reason being that you could just mail an empty unsealed envelope to yourself and put your CD in much later.
In the US, the copyright registration fee is only $30 and with it, you could be entitled to up to $150,000 in statutory damages in a case of willful infringement. You would also be entitled to attorney's fees. Even though you own the copyright to a qualifying work at the moment it is fixed in tangible form, without registration at the Copyright Office, you would only be eligible for proven damages--no statutory damages or attorney's fees.
The best resource I know of is [uspto.gov...]That's the US Patent and Trademark office and it has nothing to do with copyright. Trademark and copyright are completely separate entities. Trademarks are administered by the Patent and Trademark Office which is part of the Commerce Department (executive branch of government). Copyrights are administered by the Copyright Office which is part of the Library of Congress (legislative branch).
What you're looking for is [loc.gov...]
That's the copyright section of the Library of Congress website and it has loads of information as well as downloadable forms and publications.
