Protecting Your Own Work
In general, a person owns his/her work if they are the creator of that work. (There are some exceptions to this ownership issue, for example, see below.) Since 1989, a published work does have to include a copyright notice in order to receive protection under copyright laws. However, including a copyright notice with your work makes it easier to win a copyright infringement case if your copyright has been challenged. The U.S. Copyright Office provides even more incentives for you to register your work http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr (See below)
Among these advantages are the following:
• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U. S. origin.
• If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, request Publication No. 563 "How to Protect Your Intellectual Property Right," from: U.S. Customs Service, P.O. Box 7404 , Washington , D.C. 20044 . See the U.S. Customs Service Website at www.customs.gov for online publications.
Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired.
So, it is in your best interest to register your work with the U.S. Copyright office <http://www.copyright.gov/register/>. Registration fees are only $30 for the typical registration of a work.
At minimum, faculty and students should include a copyright notice with their protected works. This should contain:
• the word "copyright"
• a "c" in a circle (©)
• the date of publication, and
• the name of either the author or the owner of all the copyright rights in the published work.
Copyrights are generally owned by the people who create the works of expression, with some important exceptions. Stanford University 's web site at <http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-c.html#4> provides the following information:
· If a work is created by an employee in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright.
· If the work is created by an independent contractor and the independent contractor signs a written agreement stating that the work shall be "made for hire," the commissioning person or organization owns the copyright only if the work is (1) a part of a larger literary work, such as an article in a magazine or a poem or story in an anthology; (2) part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, such as a screenplay; (3) a translation; (4) a supplementary work such as an afterword , an introduction, chart, editorial note, bibliography, appendix or index; (5) a compilation; (6) an instructional text; (7) a test or answer material for a test; or (8) an atlas. Works that don't fall within one of these eight categories constitute works made for hire only if created by an employee within the scope of his or her employment.
· If the creator has sold the entire copyright, the purchasing business or person becomes the copyright owner.
Some Rights for copyright holders under the Copyright Act of 1976:
• reproduction right -- the right to make copies of a protected work
• distribution right -- the right to sell or otherwise distribute copies to the public
• right to create adaptations (called derivative works) -- the right to prepare new works based on the protected work, and
• performance and display rights -- the rights to perform a protected work (such as a stageplay ) or to display a work in public.
This bundle of rights allows a copyright owner to be flexible when deciding how to realize commercial gain from the underlying work; the owner may sell or license any of the rights.
The following website has very good information about "Releases " and Permissions: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter12/index.html
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter7/index.html