Copywrite ... Copyright; What's Up With That?

Since not everyone is familiar with the meaning of “copyright” and the laws behind it, John is about to get more than he bargained for! Starting with the basics – and for my friends out there who wrestle with spelling – this column is about copywriting ... the art of writing words. What John is asking about – copyright – is the law that protects those words.

Copyright gives authors or artists the legal right to exclude others from using their works. These works include words, software, photographs, music and sound, dance, architecture and even pantomime, as long as they are recorded in some fashion – on paper, tape, film, disc and, if I understand correctly, even saved to a hard drive. Copyright law applies to unpublished as well as published works.

Whether you realize it or not, if you’re living in the US or Canada or any other free-world country, you have the right to protect any original material you’ve ever written – from your earliest days in school to your most current family holiday bulletins. Of course you’d have to be able to prove that you wrote it – and that’s where copyright law comes in to play.

Here in the United States, copyright law goes back hundreds of years. As you can well imagine, the laws get pretty confusing. For purposes of this column, we’ll keep the focus on the Internet and how that directly impacts the material you publish and/or use online. Copyright law, in theory, protects the material that you have created from being copied or distributed without your consent.

Years back, as a direct mail copywriter, I learned that you do not have to register with the US Copyright Office to have a valid copyright. In other words, I could add a copyright marking to this column right now and that would be quite legal: Copyright (c) Phyllis Schwartz 2005. However it is also the case that, if I formally registered the copyright, my column would be better protected.

While neither copyright marking nor formal registration are required by law, the bottom line is that they do provide you with additional recourse in the event somebody tries to “help themselves” to your work. It does cost money to register a copyright so, unless you feel a strong need for protection, it may be something you want to think twice about.

By the way, the copyright marking as it appears two paragraphs above was written “by the book.” You start with the word “Copyright” followed by the copyright symbol (letter c in a circle), the year of creation and name of the owner. Example: Copyright (c) 2005 John Sheriff. :-) Once you create a copyright, It will be valid for your lifetime plus 50 years. Since the date in the copyright marking represents the year of creation, you do not have to change the date from year to year. Anytime you see a series of dates in a copyright marking, it means that the work has been modified.

Just as you don’t want people to come along and take your work without permission, be mindful that it’s a two way street. Unfortunately, there will always be some people who disregard all rules and think that anything that appears on their computer screen is there for the taking. The fact is that, unless it is material in the public domain – published by the Government or items with expired copyrights – you may be violating somebody else’s copyright.

There are many more fine points to the subject of copyrights. If you want to register a copyright or find out more about the law, here’s are some websites you can visit:

Phyllis Schwartz is a longtime copywriter with a career background in Direct Mail and Promotional Advertising. Whether you need a sales letter for your home page, keyword optimized web content, articles, emails or direct mail copy, Phyllis is the one to call.For a full menu of copywriting services go to BetterCopywriting.com.

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