"Copyright 20__, (copyright owner's name)
All Rights Reserved"
Copyrights
An expression of your idea ( a work of authorship by you) such as an article, an instruction book, a catalog sheet, some business forms, packaging for a product, a painting, a map, a photograph, a sculpture, or a pictorial design can be protected by copyright. Your rights are established when the "work of authorship" is "fixed" (made, completed, finished). Placing a notice of copyright on the work upon publication of the work must be situated in a conspicuous place on the work as to give reasonable notice of your claim of copyright and should read as follow:
| "© 20__, (copyright owner's name) All Rights Reserved" |
Registration is important since it enables you to sue for infringement and may enable you to obtain an award of statutory damages ($250 to $50,000) plus attorneys fees. Otherwise, where there is infringement prior to registration, you can only obtain an injunction, impoundment of infringing copies of the work, and your actual damages plus the infringer's profits. Note, in a situation where you give away the work, i.e., advertising, there may be no actual damages and only statutory damages are available and accordingly early registration of such work is important.
Since the copyright law now takes preemption over former common law copyright in an unpublished work, your copyright in an unpublished work must be registered before you can sue and so that you can collect the maximum damages available to you for infringement.
The term of the copyright is the life of the author (if identified), plus 50 years. Where a copyright is obtained by a company, under a work-for-hire situation, the term of the copyright is 75 years from publication or 100 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
Care should be taken in preparing the application since it is a legal document and you should be aware of the legal ramifications of any statement you make in the application.
If you have filed an application by yourself and objections are raised by the Copyright Examiner against your application, contact us and we will be happy to assist you in responding to the objections.
