Protecting your intellectual property

Posted October 30, 2009 by Editor in Resources | No comments yet

The Importance of Protecting your Intellectual Property

If you are authoring anything at all right now… be it a screenplay, some original music, a piece of software, or anything else that falls under abstract principles, it is your intellectual property.

To define intellectual property in basic terms: If it is not say, a design for an actual, tangible, concrete thing like an invention, but it is the work of the imagination or the mind, then it is intellectual property.

If you hope to eventually put that intellectual property out into the world, be it through submitting that work to publishers, publishing it yourself, or just putting it on the internet for free, then you should probably do something to protect your ownership of that property.

In general, most publishing houses, for example, will not go around stealing manuscripts that aren’t copyright protected. The legal battles that would ensue just aren’t really worth it, for even the most unscrupulous publisher. It’s cheaper to buy the publishing rights fair and square than it is to rip someone off and defend yourself in court and possibly pay a lot of money in fines.

However, it does happen. If a publisher does not directly steal a manuscript, there have been occasions where a publisher will read a manuscript, and hire a ghost writer to write a different version of the story, without ever informing or paying the original author, from whose story the idea actually sprang.

The right way to go about protecting your work is to find a notary public. A notary public is someone who has given the power, but the courts, to be an official, legal witness to things like contract signings, wills, deeds, and, yes, intellectual property ownership.

Notary publics will usually charge a modest fee to look at your work and authenticate it as an original work, by you. There are notary publics all over the place, really, so between that and the low fees, there’s really no excuse not to go this route.

Your other option is to go for the “poor man’s copyright”, also known as the “by-mail copyright”. Doing this, the artist or author will put a copy of their work in an envelope and mail it directly to their own mailing address.

The way this process works is that, when the envelope goes through the US Mail system, it will be postmarked with a specific date. That date will usually hold up in court as evidence that you did, indeed, have a copy of this material well before somebody else claimed it to have been their own work. As long as you’ve left the envelope sealed, this should be sufficient proof.

However, it doesn’t always work like that. Indeed, it’s certainly possible for a skilled con-man to doctor an envelope to look as if it has never been opened, when in fact, he’s just opened an old envelope, stuffed a doctored copy of someone else’s work inside, and then resealed it.

Sometimes by-mail copyrighting will work, and sometimes it won’t. It depends on the judge, it’s really as simple as that.

In the US, by-mail copyright is usually recognized, but it’s not really recommended. In the UK, there are no mentions of by-mail copyright anywhere in the official literature regarding registering a copyright, except where it is recommended strongly against.

An actual, notary public authorized copyright is definitely preferred, but there are a few contexts where it might not be a realistic option. You could use the poor man’s copyright as a sort of emergency placeholder for a real, authentic, registered copyright in such events where a notary public cannot be reached, but you are already a bit worried that somebody is looking to steal your intellectual property. Or, you might be a little short on cash this week, and don’t want to put off sending your book out to publishers any longer.

Whatever the case, if you do resort to the poor man’s copyright, don’t rely on it for too long. Back it up with a notary public registered copyright as soon as possible. If you have a good, marketable, entertaining, or just plain funny book, comic, movie, or whatever on your hands, you have something that people want, something that could potentially earn you a comfortable living, if you play your cards right. Consider it an asset. Just as you would insure your home, a copyright is like insurance for intellectual property.

US intellectual property laws

Posted October 30, 2009 by Editor in Resources | No comments yet

How are US Intellectual Property Laws Unique?

It’s probably fair to say that throughout most of the civilized world, copyright laws are kind of built on the same skeleton, more or less. The author or owner of a given work has certain exclusive rights with regards to publishing, distribution, copying, and making derivative versions of that work. However, the copyright laws, from country to country, and in some countries, from state to state, province to province, or jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the laws can vary in subtle ways.

These little subtleties might not seem like a huge deal, and to be completely honest, ninety percent of the time, you can skate right on by them and not worry about it. However, these little details can also put you in some pretty hot water ten percent of the time. As we all know, the field of law, and especially law regarding intellectual property, is largely dependent on tiny little oversights and so on. We live in an era where a filing error can result in a property worth millions being handed to the wrong person. If you have any interest in distribution, publishing, creating original work, or heck, even photographing famous tourist attractions, you should be familiar with the little bits and pieces of copyright law that may be unique to the area where you are doing any of these things.

If you are on a trip to the US for the first time, here’s something you should know about photography within the United States; In the US, thanks to certain laws governing personal privacy, you need to get a release form from everyone appearing in film or photography taken in a public place before you can legally publish that footage or photograph, even on a personal website. In lieu of a written, signed release form, the publisher or distributor is required to blur out the face of anyone who has not signed such a form, so as to protect their identity.

It seems like a silly step, and, certainly it’s usually not the kind of thing anyone would bother to press charges against you for, and it’s not the kind of thing that will matter if nobody winds up pressing charges, but it’s something to keep in mind, nonetheless.

Another major difference between the US and the rest of the world, regarding copyright and intellectual property law, would be the Fair Use Doctrine. The founding principle upon which the United States was founded is personal freedom. Thanks to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, a vital American right is the ability to say literally anything you want (well, short of say, threatening to kill someone, etcetera). By way of the Fair Use Doctrine, this first right amendment extends not only to criticism of politicians, laws, and public figures, but also to criticism of art, literature, and entertainment. Fair Use covers any and all parody which targets the character of an original work, and Fair Use also protects any use of a work for educational purposes.

Note that Fair Use isn’t really a bullet-proof shield if you’re not actually using a work for parody or education. So you can’t, say, remake a movie without authorization from the original author, and then throw in a couple of jokes and call it a parody. The humor and criticism within the movie have to actually be targeting the essence of the original work. Likewise, you can’t screen a movie, charge admission, and call it education. You have to actually include the film in some sort of a lesson plan, you have to actually be offering an educational experience.

Other major countries have their own unique copyright laws, as well. Again, most of these differences are actually pretty small in the long run, but if you don’t watch yourself, one little oversight can have a ripple effect, and what counts as parody in one country might wind up counting as copyright infringement in another. What is public domain in one country might be legally owned by someone in another country. Wherever you are, if you plan on publishing, creating, distributing, or copying anything, it’s a good idea to know what, exactly, you can get away with in that country as opposed to other countries.

UK intellectual property laws

Posted October 30, 2009 by Editor in Resources | No comments yet

How do UK Intellectual Property Laws Differ from US Laws?

In many areas, the United States and the United Kingdom are pretty similar when it comes to intellectual property laws, copyrights, the public domain, and so on. However, there are some small differences here and there. “Small differences” sounds like they may be negligible, but we all know that, when it comes to the law or anything you can be sued over, a “small difference” may amount to a “huge fine”!

One notable difference is in regards to public photography. In the United States, there are certain laws in place protecting people’s privacy, and while these laws can certainly do a lot of good, they can also cause hassles for anyone taking photographs in public. For example, in the US, if you take a photograph of say, the Statue of Liberty, and there are a whole bunch of people walking between your camera and the statue when you take the photo, you need to get a release form from every person that appears in the photograph, or you need to blur their faces out in the event that you hope to publish the photograph, even on a personal website.

Another weird little difference; The King James version of the Holy Bible is public domain throughout the world, including the United Kingdom. However, in the UK, any publishing of the King James Bible must be approved and authorized by the Crown or its agents before it can reach print. This is actually not a copyright issue so much as it is based on “royal prerogative”.

A vital difference would be the duration of a copyright. In the United States, if a film producer holds the copyright of a movie, then they hold that copyright for a different amount of time than if the film were owned by the director. If a music company owns a copyright, they own it for a different amount of time than say, a self published musician would own his own music.

The UK also has such a thing as Moral Rights. Introduced into British law thanks to the 1988 act, these rights come from the tradition of the civil law system, rather than the common law system. This act allows for authors of literary work, theatre, music, art, and film to be identified as the author of their own work, regardless of copyright holder (which is notable, since any work made in the employ of say, a producer, is copyright owned by the producer). The act also allows the artists to object to any derogatory treatment of the work, as well as the right to object to false attribution, as in a music producer giving song writing credit to the singer rather than the actual song writer.

Also worth mentioning would be that, in the United States, there is the Fair Use Doctrine. Fair Use is a doctrine based on the first amendment right to free speech, and it covers any appropriation of intellectual property to the ends of parody and criticism, or education.

As you probably know, using a movie or a book or what have you for parody or education in the United Kingdom isn’t exactly illegal, either. Certainly, the country that birthed The Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen” isn’t one to place outright bans on parody, however, the defense that a UK parody artist puts forth might not be as bullet-proof as the defense put forth by a US parody artist, arguing that his work falls under Fair Use. That’s not to say that you can’t do parody in the UK, just that it may be harder to defend yourself against charges of copyright infringement should you, say, lift scenes directly from an existing movie without really changing anything, or appropriate actual sound, footage, photography or other media from another work for the purpose of parody. Parody is certainly legal in the UK, but certain forms of parody, when they might also be considered copyright infringement or unauthorized use of intellectual property, are oftentimes left to the court’s discretion.

It may also be worth noting that certain parties in the UK are leaning towards legalizing things like CD ripping, wherein you would copy the data from a CD to your computer for backup. In the US, this is too often associated with pirating of software, and, certainly, in both countries, the water is kind of cloudy on this issue, with it being okay in some circumstance, but not okay in others.

So there aren’t a whole lot of major differences between the US and the UK when it comes to intellectual property law, but there are a few that you should probably keep up to date on the copyright laws in any country where you hope to create, publish, duplicate, or photograph something.