Do you need to register to be protected?
Copyright itself does not depend on official procedures. A created work is considered protected by copyright as soon as it exists. According to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, literary and artistic works are protected without any formalities in the countries party to that Convention. Thus, WIPO does not offer any kind of copyright registration system.
However, many countries have a national copyright office and some national laws allow for registration of works for the purposes of, for example, identifying and distinguishing titles of works. In certain countries, registration can also serve as prima facie evidence in a court of law with reference to disputes relating to copyright.”
How are copyright and related rights protected on the Internet?
Two treaties were concluded in 1996 at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. One, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), deals with protection for authors of literary and artistic works, such as writings and computer programs; original databases; musical works; audiovisual works; works of fine art and photographs. The other, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), protects certain “related rights” (that is, rights related to copyright): in the WPPT, these are rights of performers and producers of phonograms.
The purpose of the two treaties is to update and supplement the major existing WIPO treaties on copyright and related rights, primarily in order to respond to developments in technology and in the marketplace. Since the Berne and Rome Conventions were adopted or lastly revised more than a quarter century ago, new types of works, new markets, and new methods of use and dissemination have evolved. Among other things, both the WCT and the WPPT address the challenges posed by today’s digital technologies, in particular the dissemination of protected material over digital networks such as the Internet. For this reason, they have sometimes been referred to as the “Internet treaties.”
Both treaties require countries to provide a framework of basic rights, allowing creators to control and/or be compensated for the various ways in which their creations are used and enjoyed by others. Most importantly, the treaties ensure that the owners of those rights will continue to be adequately and effectively protected when their works are disseminated through new technologies and communications systems such as the Internet. The treaties thus clarify that existing rights continue to apply in the digital environment. They also create new online rights. To maintain a fair balance of interests between the owners of rights and the general public, the treaties further clarify that countries have reasonable flexibility in establishing exceptions or limitations to rights in the digital environment. Countries may, in appropriate circumstances, grant exceptions for uses deemed to be in the public interest, such as for non-profit educational and research purposes.
The treaties also require countries to provide not only the rights themselves, but also two types of technological adjuncts to the rights. These are intended to ensure that rightholders can effectively use technology to protect their rights and to license their works online. The first, known as the “anti-circumvention” provision, tackles the problem of “hacking”: it requires countries to provide adequate legal protection and effective remedies against the circumvention of technological measures (such as encryption) used by rightholders to protect their rights. The second type of technological adjuncts safeguards the reliability and integrity of the online marketplace by requiring countries to prohibit the deliberate alteration or deletion of electronic “rights management information”: that is, information which accompanies any protected material, and which identifies the work, its creators, performer, or owner, and the terms and conditions for its use.
The WCT entered into force on March 6, 2002. For the WPPT, the date of entry into force was May 20, 2002. A number of countries have implemented the provisions of the two treaties in their national legislation. The Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (CLEA) database of WIPO can be consulted to search copyright laws of a wide range of countries.
this is quoted from http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#rights
As i read it - you post it here and then its yours.
To be sure I know that a few engineers do the following:
Make a copy of the information, take a photo of each page of the document on top of a different page of the days newspaper, have several people sign to verify the date of the photographs.
Copy this document and put it in a safe, on your hard drive, give it to a solicitor and then you have full proof of the date you produced the work!
(however check with a lawyer to make sure your fine first - some access I believe on lin - and indeed google! and if your making something big you can't keep it to yourself forever!)
Intellectual copyright is a very good thing!
- Ben
