By Eric Hanscom, Attorney – Law Offices of Eric Hanscom
A copyright covers a form of artistic expression. A typical copyright could cover something like a book, a painting, a computer program, a fabric pattern, etc. Copyright protects the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works.
It gives you the exclusive right to reproduce the work and distribute it through copying or recording, and selling, renting, leasing, or lending it out your copyrighted work to others. A copyright also gives you the right to perform the work or display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
How long does your copyright last?
As of this year, your copyright will be good 70 years after you die. Copyright laws change frequently, as many famous works, such as Mickey Mouse, will become public domain without further extensions of copyright law, so my guess is that we will see future extensions of copyright law in the future (does Disney really want to give up its copyright on Mickey Mouse? My guess is "no").
What can the average business protect by copyright?
Advertising brochures, the content of your Internet site, your packaging and any articles you write about your products. For clothing manufacturers, you can protect your fabric patterns as a form of artistic expression.
Why bother getting a copyright?
Well, for one thing it is inexpensive relative to other forms of intellectual property. A copyright usually costs less than $500 from start to finish, and all you usually have to do is provide the patent attorney with two copies of whatever you want to copyright (as opposed to patents where you usually have to help out in discussing the invention, or a trademark where you have to decide which categories of goods to claim). There are no maintenance fees: once you get your copyright it is yours until 70 years after you die.
Finally, in copyright cases, you sometimes have a better chance of getting attorney's fees awarded to the winning side than in most other types of litigation. For clothing manufacturers, can they copyright a shirt or dress? You can copyright a pattern if you want to keep other people from copying it. If your clothing is of a truly unique design, you can also get a design patent on it. For extremely unique clothing that actually constitutes an invention, you can get a utility patent on it (for example, Calvin Klein has several utility patents on their underwear).
Eric Hanscom, Esq. is an attorney with the Law Offices of Eric Hanscom. Mr. Hanscom is contributing to "INPEX® Inventors Community" as an industry expert, but is not employed by or otherwise compensated by INPEX, InventHelp® or its affiliates. His participation at INPEX does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of InventHelp or its affiliate companies.
