Copyrighting Basics and Forms
Copyrighting forms, publications and resources
If you are the author, you can copyright books, poems, directories, catalogs, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, single pages and publications such as newspapers, magazines, reviews, newsletters and bulletins. Also, scripts,, lectures, sermons, maps, monologs and cartoons. In essence, you can copyright almost anything that you write or draw, provided you comply with the following procedures.
PRODUCE COPIES WITH COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Produce the work in copies by printing or other means of reproduction. It is essential that all copies bear a copyrighting notice in the required form and position. As a general rule, the copyright notice should consist of three elements.
- The word "copyright", the abbreviation "copy", or the symbol "c" printed within a circle. Use of the symbol may have advantages in securing copyright in countries that are members of the Universal Copyright Convention.
- The name of the copyright owner (or owners).
- The year date of publication. This is ordinarily the year in which copies are first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed by the copyright owner or under his authority.
COPYRIGHTING YOUR WEBSITE
You're going to love to this...because it's exactly what you wanted to hear when it comes to copyrighting: YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY FOR COPYRIGHTING ON YOUR WEBSITE.
That's right. Can you image if the Office of Copyrighting received applications for the several billion websites on the Internet? The truth is that there is something called implied copyrighting, which protects the owner from having the work stolen, while also giving the reader the right to view the stie.
Implied Copyrighting
An implied copyright license is a license created by law in the absence of an actual agreement between the parties. Implied licenses arise when the conduct of the parties indicates that some license is to be extended between the copyright owner and the licensee, but the parties themselves did not bother to create a license. This differs from an express license in that the parties never actually agree on the specific terms of the license.
The purpose of an implied license is to allow the licensee (the party who licenses the work from the copyright owner) some right to use the copyrighted work, but only to the extent that the copyright owner would have allowed had the parties negotiated an agreement. Generally, the custom and practice of the community are used to determine the scope of the implied license.
A commonly discussed scenario where implied licenses are destined to play a major role is on the World Wide Web. When a Web page is viewed in a Web browser, the page is downloaded through the Internet and placed on the user's screen. It is clear that a copy of the Web page is being made by the user. It is also clear that the Web page is protected against unauthorized copying by copyright law.
But it would not make sense to allow the author of a Web page to sue a user who viewed her page, since the author intended that the page be viewed by others when she placed it on the World Wide Web. Rather, attorneys argue, courts should find that the Web page author has given end users an implied license to download and view the Web page. The extent of this implied license is unclear, and may someday be defined by the courts.
Copyright Forms and Publications
You can visit the Office of Copyrighting directly at www.copyright.gov. The links below are to specific forms for copyrighting your works. Please note that the only reason you would copyright your website is if it contains photos, literature, or music you wish to copyright.
- Form TX for copyrighting literary works
- Form PA for copyrighting performing arts (scripts/plays/etc)
- Form SR for copyrighting sound recordings
- Form VA for copyrighting visual arts (photos, paintings, etc)
- Form SE for copyrighting serials (newspapers, articles, etc)
More forms and publications for copyrighting your work can be found at the Office of Copyrighting.