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How To Get Sued For Violating Your OWN Copyright!
Posted 08-07-2008 at 01:34 AM by Thomas
Given that, in most countries, copyright is essentially created the moment information transfers from your brain onto paper without needing any kind of registration, what happens if Mr. Unscrupulous REGISTERS a work as his own creation with the copyright office that was actually created by Mr. Honest?
The copyright belongs to Mr. Honest but is registered to Mr. Unscrupulous.
Mr. Honest has no absolute proof that he created the work first but Mr. Unscrupulous had an official registration to legitimise his claim on Mr. Honest's work.
Mr. Honest can't prove anything.
Mr. Unscrupulous can prove he registered "his" work on such a date.
Mr. Unscrupulous then claims Mr. Honest is violating his copyright and has an official record to back up that claim.
Mr. Honest is screwed.
Mr. Unscrupulous nabs him for $150,000 for infringing his own copyright!
Although it's not required, copyright registration is very cheap and relatively simple to do. If you live in a country with no government-controlled copyright registration sysem, register it in one that does like the U.S. or Canada (U.S. is probably better since, afaik, Canada doesn't require a copy of the work to be submitted with the application.) Courts across the World will recognise a government-controlled registration system as legitimate and will accept it as proof (at least in the Western world at any rate).
Copyright registration costs only $30 ((RC) in the US and the form is one page and very simple to fill out.
Go to copyright.gov for the form and instructions.
The copyright belongs to Mr. Honest but is registered to Mr. Unscrupulous.
Mr. Honest has no absolute proof that he created the work first but Mr. Unscrupulous had an official registration to legitimise his claim on Mr. Honest's work.
Mr. Honest can't prove anything.
Mr. Unscrupulous can prove he registered "his" work on such a date.
Mr. Unscrupulous then claims Mr. Honest is violating his copyright and has an official record to back up that claim.
Mr. Honest is screwed.
Mr. Unscrupulous nabs him for $150,000 for infringing his own copyright!
Although it's not required, copyright registration is very cheap and relatively simple to do. If you live in a country with no government-controlled copyright registration sysem, register it in one that does like the U.S. or Canada (U.S. is probably better since, afaik, Canada doesn't require a copy of the work to be submitted with the application.) Courts across the World will recognise a government-controlled registration system as legitimate and will accept it as proof (at least in the Western world at any rate).
Copyright registration costs only $30 ((RC) in the US and the form is one page and very simple to fill out.
Go to copyright.gov for the form and instructions.
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