What Does Copyright Protect?
By DianeGot a great question from Chris Marlow about copyright. (Important notes: You can only copyright your particular expression of your ideas, not the ideas themselves. You can’t copyright titles, oddly enough, but you can possibly trademark them.)
Chris mentioned that her students add “all rights reserved” to their copyright notices. Is that necessary, or redundant?
Well, both.
Any time you create a work, it is automatically protected under copyright law. Here’s a relevant paragraph:
“Under U. S. law, copyright protection subsists from the time the work is fixed in any tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Copyright registration is not mandatory, but it has important benefits.” (Here’s a link to great information about copyright from the US Copyright Office.)
Because your work is copyrighted when it’s created, you don’t absolutely have to even post the copyright notice.
The main reason, in my opinion, to put the © and a date is to remind people that this is copyrighted material. You don’t need to add “All rights reserved” UNLESS it concerns valuable content that someone might want to copy to, say, create an information product with YOUR material. So if you’re a copywriter like Chris’s students, it looks like of strange to add that to your own website, or to sales copy.
However, on a blog, say if you’re giving away content to show that you know what you’re talking about, it makes sense to add “All rights reserved” with the copyright notice. See www.rayedwards.com for an example. In fact, in such cases, it’s a slight hint that the info there IS valuable.
So–for straight sales copy, no. For valuable content, yes. And nowadays, I think content IS what sells, so the lines can blur.
For information products, such as Special Reports and ebooks, minicourses like my Author Success Plan, etc., you definitely want to include “all rights reserved.” It’s not legally necessary, but it’s a reminder to other people that this is in fact copyrighted material and they do not have a right to copy it or distribute it.
I clearly spell out in the front pages my Author Success Plan, etc. what people can and cannot do with my material–whether they can pass it on or not, that they may not reproduce it, sell it, etc.
Many people seem to think that if something in on the Internet, it’s automatically free content that they can copy and redistribute at will. This is not the case, and posting copyright symbol, date, and “all rights reserved” is a reminder to readers that this is YOUR content.
To me, the more often more of us remind people of that, the better.
2 Comments
January 30th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Hi -
I am not sure if you can answer my question, but I am trying since you are
familiar with the publishing industry.
Regarding copyright, if an author copyrights their work and then edits it further,
would it need to be registered/updated? If so, what year should they print on their
copyright page? The earlier year to be safe, the most recent year to be up-to-date,
or both?
Any information will be appreciated!
Thank you for your time and your help,
Lisa
January 30th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Lisa,
Good questions!
Yes, your original copyright protects any updates or new editions. Simply put both dates in the copyright notice (e.g., 2008, 2010) and you’re done! Unless you consider it a brand-new work, changes will fall under the original copyright. If it’s a new work, you would get a new ISBN number and treat it as a whole new entity. That decision would be made according to how extensive the revision is, marketing considerations (it’s sometimes best to treat it as a brand-new product, to build excitement–but in that case, it should truly be revised enough to warrant calling it a new work).