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UK copyright laws

Started by April 15, 2002 11:49 AM
0 comments, last by Mr_Confused 22 years, 7 months ago
This isn''t a question it''s more of a piece of advice for people. In the UK, I''m not 100% sure about the USA, if you are the original creator/author of a piece of work you are entitled to place a copyright notice on the work. Registering it (® is an optional extra, recommended if your work is of commercial value. Trade marks and patents must be paid for. I got this information from the UK copyright service, so it''s 100% valid.
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I am sorry Mr_Confussed but you are, as your name suggests, just a little confussed The above information is NOT 100% correct.

You are correct that you are allowed to place a copyright notice on a product (as detailed below). However you are incorrect in stating that you can or should register a copyright or that you can make use of the ® symbol in relation to copyright.

Copyright exists automatically. There is no such thing as registering copyright. The ® symbol does not relate to copyright at all, but to the registration of a trade mark, which is a different thing all together. The following is a direct quote from the UK patent office web site which is the body that governs issues of UK copyright, trade marks and patents.

Before you go any further you need to know that there is no official register for copyright. It is an unregistered right (unlike patents, registered designs or trade marks). So, there is no official action to take, (no application to make, forms to fill in or fees to pay). Copyright comes into effect immediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created and "fixed" in some way, eg on paper, on film, via sound recording, as an electronic record on the internet, etc.

It is a good idea for you to mark your copyright work with the copyright symbol © followed by your name and the date, to warn others against copying it, but it is not legally necessary in the UK.


The web site can be found at http://www.patent.gov.uk/

As has been mentioned previously the owner of a copyright may need to prove that their work was created on a certain date. As there is no official way to register this it is best to lodge a notorised copy of the work with a lawyer so that the date of creation can be established if you need to.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

[edited by - obscure on April 20, 2002 8:07:51 PM]
Dan Marchant - Business Development Consultant
www.obscure.co.uk

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