Ensuring That You Own Your Content's Copyright

You have been a prolific writer for your business for a long time and, of course, just like all other writers, you use sources to back up the facts that you write in your content. Of course, there is no reason for you to assume anything other than the fact that you own the copyright of all of the content that you are writing.
Sometimes the line is obscured
If you own the copyright on specific content (including graphics, videos, etc), that means that you can do anything that you wish with that content. After all, it belongs to you. On the other hand, if someone else owns the copyright on the content, you are severely limited from doing what you want with that content. That means that you can't recycle the content and use it over and over again, you can allow other people to post the content on their websites (for increased exposure and a wider reach), and you can't touch the images (making them smaller, larger, wider, narrower). Your hands are tied in that case. However, you may not always understand when it is appropriate (legally and ethically) to alter the content in any way and when you really need to be hands off.
You probably have an accurate sense that you can't just find a graphic image online, copy it, and embed it in your content. That is just common sense. If you use any portion of someone else's content (words), you probably realize that you must give the author credit for what he or she has written. However, the copyright goes far beyond that. It is extremely important for you to understand the basics of copyright and how that applies to you and to your business. If you don't pay attention to what you are allowed and not allowed to do, you may get yourself into trouble (legally and financially speaking). There are some concepts that will benefit you if you at least have a working knowledge of them. Hopefully, they will not actually apply to you at any time but being aware is very important for you.

• Have a licensing agreement, including an invoice: That is an invoice from the person who owns the copyright. If you plan to use material of which someone else owns the copyright, you will probably need to pay that person (or that entity) some money. There may be rare occasions in which the person or entity will not charge you money but you need to have a written agreement between you so that you don't get into trouble.


• Lawsuit as a result of copyright infringement: This is a lawsuit that occurs in a federal court. The person or entity doing the suing is the owner of the copyright. The lawsuit will make demands, such as your eliminating all of the copyrighted material from wherever you have posted it online. You will also (most likely) be expected to pay some amount of money (damages) and there is also the potential that you will be asked to pay the lawyers' fees.


• Cease-and-desist communication: This is a communication (usually in the form of a letter) from the person who owns the copyright telling you that you must delete their content from wherever you have posted it.


• Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice: This is a notice that refers to the act on behalf of the copyright owner. It is sent to your web hosting service. It will insist that your web hosting service disables any access to wherever the copyrighted content appears.

The disturbing thing about this situation is that, depending on the whim of the copyright owner, you may end up paying in any number of ways. It might be minor but it might be major as well. You may be notified of the copyright violation in stages. If you respond immediately after you receive the first notice, you may get lucky and after doing whatever is demanded of you, that will be the end of it, as long as you never do it again. However, if you continue, the consequences will probably get more and more severe. You will need to tread lightly in this situation and do whatever you need to do quickly if you want to escape relatively unscathed.
Educate yourself about your rights
When you first write a piece of content, you need to make sure that you take all measures to ensure that you never run into these types of problems that are described above. If you don't happen to be the one creating the content, you need to make sure that you get the other person to assign copyright ownership to you. It is critical that you have it in writing. The best thing to do is to have a written contract between you and the other person. Hopefully, in that case, there will be no question about anything. If you want the creator to be able to benefit from the content, it is safest to put that into the contract as well. The sorts of things that you will want to put into the contract are: exactly what is being created, how revisions are handled, deadlines and consequences if those deadlines are not met, the payment schedule, who will own the copyright, and who will be responsible for the consequences if the copyright is violated. If you have a long-term relationship with that person, you will probably find that you will need to revise your contract over time.
Conclusion
Copyright ownership may not have been something that you thought about very often (or at all); however, you need to have it in mind all of the time and be cognizant of doing the right thing. If you don't, the consequences will probably not be pleasant. You need to protect your reputation and your bank account at all times. Copyright laws are very complicated and you may not even realize that you are violating any of those laws. However, you need to be aware of what you are doing and make sure that you don't continue to violate any copyright laws. Interestingly, there are a few situations in which you don't need to get permission from the copyright owner of the content. You should do the research and determine when those rules apply, which will ease the burden a little bit. Undoubtedly, you were not aware that you were doing anything wrong. However, once you are aware, you need to make sure that you do everything by the book.

Carolyn T. Cohn is the Chief Editor of CompuKol Communications. Mrs. Cohn has a wealth of experience in managing people and projects. She has run several editorial departments for various companies. Mrs. Cohn has 25 years of editorial experience and her expertise covers a wide range of media, such as online editing, editing books, journal articles, abstracts, and promotional and educational materials. Throughout her career, Mrs. Cohn has established and maintained strong relationships with professionals from a wide range of companies. The principle that governs her work is that all words need to be edited.

How To Avoid Copyright Infringement

Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secrets are all ways in which people can protect their intellectual property. However, there are key differences in each of the protective instruments in regard to what exactly they're protecting.
One of the most common tools used in cases of intellectual property is Copyright. According to the Government's Copyright office, it protects, "original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture." It however does not protect "... facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation." In laymen's terms, you would mostly see a "C" inside of a circle (representing Copyright) in a book, on a CD, on video games, and even play scripts.
This form of intellectual property law is designed to safeguard the creator. Consumers like you could be at risk of copyright infringement without even knowing it. For this reason it's good to read up on how to play by the rules when it comes to using work with the © stamp. It's important to note that even if a piece of work does not declare the copyright symbol, it may still be protected under the law. Legalzoom describes the idea behind copyright by writing, "the author or creator owns the rights to the work and can decide if and how others use his or her creation." It's especially unlawful if you were to use someone's copyrighted work for profit or commercial purposes. Legalzoom also lists a few examples of copyright infringement that might seem harmless to consumers, but are actually illegal.

• Downloading movies and music without proper payment for use
• Recording movies in the theater
• Using others' photographs for a blog without permission
• Copying software without giving proper credit
• Creating videos with unlicensed music clips
• Copying books, blogs or podcasts without permission
• Anything where you are copying someone else's original work without an agreement

If you've ever scrolled through YouTube, you've probably come across an amateur singer performing a cover piece of a well-known song. If that amateur artist did not get permission from the original songwriter, it's technically copyright infringement. Will a big time celebrity file lawsuit on a singer's video with 10 views? Probably not, but he or she technically could. Big companies sometimes employ software that can troll the Internet for the main purpose of seeking out copyright infringement cases, so taking the risk isn't a good idea.In order to avoid copyright infringement altogether you should be weary about how you're using an artistic expression that you didn't create. Regardless if you see the copyright symbol or not, you should always assume the owner would take legal action against you if you were to use their work freely without permission or credit.
Some artists or writers are actually more than willing to share their work with the world, but read up on this first. These types of agreements come in the form of licenses, which allow consumers to use the work with specific regulations and stipulations attached.
If you're using the piece of work for educational purposes, there's no need to lay awake at night worrying about that picture you used in your slide show last week. There's an exception called "fair use", which allows for what would normally be infringement is the use was for a non-commercial rationale.

Advantages of Copyright Registration

When running a business, you need to be cautious and make certain every small interest of your organization is blanketed. When you manufacture a product or float a design and even think of a suggestion for the betterment of what you are promoting, it is vital for you to copyright it. Without a correct copyright in the situation, any person can use your recommendations or replicate your designs. It will power the gains away and in addition, take the exclusivity out of your corporation. So that you could avoid this kind of factor from taking place, make certain you get a copyright registration accomplished. There are various advantages of copyright registration, read on to grasp extra.
What is Copyright?
Copyright is a legally correct and extra particularly a kind of intellectual property defense. It protects your work once it has been made tangible, that is given a bodily form, towards plagiarism. For example, a narrative written on paper will also be copyrighted however now not a narrative notion.
How Does a Copyright Help You?
In simple words, a copyright ensures that no person else makes use of your work without your prior consent. And if any individual makes use of it without your permission, you could take them to court.
Here is what you as a copyright proprietor can do:
• Reproduce the work
• Create more materials (spinoff work) founded on the common
• Distribute your work via sale, rent and even transfer of possession
• show the work (for instance if it's an art piece) which you can also switch these above distinguished rights to anybody else via a contract.
Advantages of copyright registration
Let us take a look at the top benefits that you get when you undergo a copyright registration:
• Legal evidence: This is the most important and most big benefit of getting a copyright registration done. With a copyright in location, your work is legally denoted to be yours. This continues it nontoxic. And if anyone infringes or tries to replicate your design, proposal or product, which you can cite the registered copyright in a legal argument. This will likely automatically and rapidly tip the scales in your prefer. And not using a copyright, you may find it complicated to contest such a problem. Nevertheless, with a copyright registered before, such problems will also be sorted quite simply.
• Public notice: Next, we have yet another huge knowledge of copyright registration. Whilst you copyright your work, it is documented in your title. Now not simplest does this preserve your work, it also offers you the possession and spreads your name extra freely in the public area. This gives you a face and credibility to your design or suggestion. It additionally prevents others from taking ownership and wrongfully claiming they invented or manufactured that specified physique of work. Nobody can declare to have not known about your ownership and used the work as their own. This can go a long way in protecting your fame for your subject of work, which in flip can translate into fiscal as well as honorary gains.
• Seeking damages: No longer most effective is plagiarism a chance to the economic well-being of your small business, additionally; it is a treat to your repute and standing. So, if due to any unfortunate occasion you do emerge as in a copyright infringement tangle, that you could search damages from the perpetrators. However, this may most effective happen if the copyright is safely registered to your name. Without that, you won't have a base to construct your case upon. So, take inventory of any future mishap that can occur and register your copyright with none additional prolong.

• Early registration: You'll have a few years on your hand to register the copyright, nevertheless, it makes sense so that you can take the potential of an early registration. This is essential since if you happen to procrastinate, anyone else may swoop in and register something an identity of their identity. After which you are going to have no proper over your long-established design, suggestion or product, although you are the rightful proprietor of it. It is extremely simple to carry out a copyright registration in your identity. The method will also be completed online in a short span of time. So, do not look ahead to an eventuality to strike, on the grounds that then it is usually too late to return and repair the potentialities of your service provider.

• Helps you stand out in the crowd: At every step of life, there is a massive competitor. You may also find your self-lost in a crowd of rivals when you a business of your own. Nonetheless, a copyright registration may just are available handy at this type of time. By way of copyrighting even a small object, you're going to make it inaccessible to your competitors. This will make you stand out from the crowd and give an instantaneous push to your earnings. Don't forget this very useful advantage of copyright registration while you start you possess business.

Getting your copyright registered is an obviously principal factor to do. This small project of copyright registration opens up an entire lot of benefits to you. From preserving your ideas dependable to bring in additional financial gains, which you could certainly get lots out of it. When you've got nonetheless now not gotten your copyrights registered, do so right away!

Protect Your Work With Copyrights

Copyright protection is to be had for original works of authorship which are constant in a tangible shape, whether published or unpublished. The categories of works that may be protected by copyright legal guidelines encompass artwork, literary works, stay performances, pictures, movies, and software program.
It's crucial to take into account that copyright regulation covers the "form of cloth expression," not the real principles, thoughts, strategies, or statistics in a specific work. This is the cause at the back of why a work has to be constant in a tangible shape to be able to accumulate copyright protection. A couple examples of works being steady in a tangible form embody testimonies written on paper and unique artwork on canvas.
What exactly is a copyright? Literary works, musicals, artwork, sculptures and other creative works are generally concern to copyright protection. A copyright protects the shape of expression, as opposed to the subject depending on the expression. There must be some element of creativity and originality inside the paintings.
What can I do with my copyright? The proprietor of a copyright has exclusive rights to reproduce copyrighted works, put together spinoff works, distribute copies, carry out publicly and/or display such works.
How can I protect myself? The judicial regulation allows the safety of "authentic works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression... ". Now you may ask, what makes something an "original design"? "Original" is a manner that the creator adopted without the exact reproduction of someone else's work and that there are at least a few minimal degrees of creativity.
There virtually need not now be any formal registration which will "protect" your work. So, why do people genuinely register for a copyright? Formal registration is required to enforce your copyright. This is the manner with which you will have a registration with the copyright office which will visit court docket to enforce your copyrights. It is needed to stop someone from infringing your work.
Furthermore, a proper copyright registration allows you to sign in the copyrighted work, which can be in a position to forestall infringing works.
I want to copy somebody else's stuff. Can I? It's excellent to be authentic. However, there are some restricted times wherein you can use someone else's paintings, and that is in which the Fair Use Doctrine comes into play. This is a complex and fact-based evaluation. Generally speaking, if you are criticizing a chunk of labor, commenting, news reporting, teaching, or growing a parody, then you'll be capable of using the elements of a copyrighted work. Safest guess: get permission from the copyright owner to use a piece of their work. And recollect, simply giving attribution to the original author is not sufficient to keep away from claims of copyright infringement.