Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within five years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law.
The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights. However, the United States does not have such copyright relationships with every country. For a listing of countries and the nature of their copyright relations with the United States, see Circular 38a , International Copyright Relations of the United States.
As such, if you wish to protect your work internationally, you must research and make sure that you comply with the relevant legal requirements in the country ies in which you wish your work to be protected. Once you are the right owner of a work, you can provide authorization for others to use or exploit your work.
Naturally, it is always recommended to seek expert legal advice before negotiating a licensing agreement. If you wish to license your work to users such as broadcasters, publishers, or even entertainment establishments i. CMOs monitor uses of works on behalf of creators and publishers and are in charge of negotiating licenses and collecting remuneration. They are particularly common in the field of musical and literary works where there may be a large number of users of the same work and it would be difficult both for the owner of rights and the users to seek specific authorization for every single use and to monitor them.
Computer programs and other types of software are considered as literary works for copyright purposes. Therefore they receive automatic protection without the need for registration. In some countries, the process of voluntary registration for software may differ from that for other types of work. This is because, as a general rule, copyright protection is automatic and does not depend on registration. Although it may not affect copyright protection, some countries do require a deposit of samples of printed materials published in that country.
Contact your national IP office to find out more. Before taking any steps, you should carefully assess whether the reproduction is in fact an infringement of your copyright refer to the question on limitations and exceptions to copyright.
If you consider that there is an infringement of your right, you should try to identify the person responsible. If it is impossible or inappropriate to solve the problem by informal means, you can seek a legal remedy from a court or other authority. It is usually possible to bring a claim before a civil court for monetary compensation and also to prevent the continuation or repetition of the infringement.
Alternatively, if the unauthorized reproduction amounts to the criminal offence of copyright piracy, a complaint may be submitted to the police, public prosecutor or other competent authority in accordance with applicable local law.
In some cases, the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation, arbitration, expert determination, neutral evaluation, etc.
If the unauthorized reproduction of the work is being made available through the internet, it may be possible to notify the relevant internet service provider, asking it to prevent access to the infringing copy.
If you are a member of a Collective Management Organization CMO , it will often be enough to request it to take the appropriate steps.
If you are not, it is up to you to act in order to protect your rights. It is often advisable, in such a case, to instruct a lawyer to do so on your behalf.
Collective management organizations CMOs monitor uses of works on behalf of creators and are in charge of negotiating licenses and collecting remuneration. WIPO Lex provides easy access to intellectual property legislation from a wide range of countries and regions as well as to treaties on intellectual property. Many national or regional intellectual property offices also provide information concerning national or regional legislation on their websites.
View a list of links to national and regional intellectual property offices to find out more. The first owner of copyright to a work is generally the original creator or author of the work. There are, however, some exceptions to this rule. In other countries the economic rights are deemed to be automatically assigned or transferred to the employer. I found an error in my certificate. I also want to add some additional information to the certificate.
Can I do this? Where do I find the application for supplementary registration? Where can I learn more about supplementary registration? Can I see my copyright registration records? Will my registration records help provide contact information for someone interested in using my work? Can I remove information that I don't want publicized? How can I prevent personal information from being placed on the Copyright Office's website? Why is my copyright registration information now appearing on search engines such as Google?
What is preregistration? What works can be preregistered? What classes of works are eligible for preregistration? Is preregistration a substitute for registration?
Will I need to make a regular registration after my work is completed? When should I register my work if I have already preregistered it? How do I preregister? What is the effective date of my preregistration? How do I complete a preregistration application? You ask for a description in the preregistration application. What should it include? Will I receive a certificate for my preregistration?
What is the fee for preregistration? What methods of payment are accepted for preregistration? What does ACH payment mean? Do I receive a password from the Copyright Office to log into the eCO website to preregister my work?
Or do I create my own password? What are the password requirements that I should follow when I create my password? How do I change my password? What do I do if I forgot my password? Which form should I use?
I want to copyright my business name. Which form do I use? Which form do I use to register a computer software application I am creating?
Is there a form to submit to change the address on my applications? How can I know when my submission for registration is received by the Copyright Office? How long does the registration process take, and when will I receive my certificate? I've been getting solicitation letters from publishers. Is the Copyright Office selling my personal How long does a copyright last? Do I have to renew my copyright? How do I get permission to use somebody else's work?
How can I find out who owns a copyright? How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission? How much do I have to change in order to claim copyright in someone else's work? Somebody infringed my copyright.
What can I do? Could I be sued for using somebody else's work? The purpose of such notice is to avoid a situation where an infringer takes your work , but then claims that he or she was completely unaware that it was protected. How can you use such a notice to deter copyright infringement of your website? There are relatively strict technical requirements as to what a copyright notice must contain if it is to serve its purpose of preventing people from claiming in court that they were "innocent-infringers.
It is not required that these elements appear in any particular order in the notice, but most notices are written in the order set forth above. The purpose is to give unequivocal notice of the copyright protection, so that the would-be thief cannot claim as a defense that he or she did not know about the protection.
This will help make it clear to even the dullest minds that your work is copyrighted! So, in the case of websites which can be accessed all over the world and software that might be distributed outside the U. The copyright notice must also state the year the work was published. It has yet to be decided exactly when a website is "published" for copyright purposes, since many websites are updated daily.
You should assume that any website that can be accessed has been "published" as soon as it launches, and include a copyright notice on it to reflect the original date. However, if an update contains a substantial amount of new material, it is considered to be a separate work of authorship in its own right. The notice for such a derivative work should contain the date the new work was published. The notice need not contain the date or dates of the prior version or versions; however, it is common practice to include such dates in the copyright notice.
The name of the copyright owner must also be included in the notice.
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