by Janis Smyth of Jan’s Sushi Bar

I got an email recently asking some basic questions about blogging, when the subject of copyrights came up. It occurred to me that while I have a very basic understanding of copyright laws, many people do not and it’s an issue almost every blogger will have to face eventually, not only to ensure our material remains out of the hands of those who would use it without our permission, but also to make sure we don’t infringe on the rights of others.

Please keep in mind that this article serves only as a guideline – I am not an attorney by any means. (If you think you need legal counsel, contact a lawyer.) What I am, however, is a dynamite researcher who isn’t afraid to call the United States Copyright Office and pester the bejebus out of one of their poor customer service “specialists.” And, as with just about anything, there is good news and there is not-so-good news.

Good News Item #1
Anything you write and any photo you take is automatically copyrighted under the current U.S. Copyright Act. You don’t even have to publish it. The minute you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), or take a picture with your digital camera and save that sucker, it becomes your intellectual property and no one else can use it without your express permission, if those are the terms you dictate. You don’t even have to register it – once it becomes a tangible thing, it’s yours. Toot finee. What’s more, you are not required to register your material with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to publish a copyright statement on your blog, although you may want to consult with someone of the legal persuasion as to the correct verbiage.

Not-So-Good News Item #1
While your material is automatically copyrighted, if you wish to seek monetary damage for copyright infringement, you will have to have registered your material with the U.S. Copyright Office before the offense occurs. If your work is not previously registered with the government, you can retroactively register or even just sue under the existing Copyright Act, but the most that is likely to happen is the offender will be ordered to cease and desist from using your material. It is highly unlikely that you will be awarded any damages, or even that the offender would be ordered to pay your legal fees.

Good News Item #2
It’s fairly easy to register your work with the United States Copyright Office. Registration can be completed online; in fact, it is encouraged and you will receive a reduced rate if you choose to register your work online. There is an excellent Power Point presentation available on the site that will walk you through the process, and there are several payment options available.

Not-So-Good News Item #2
You cannot register your blog as a single entity with the United States Copyright Office. Sad, but true. If you want to register your blog, you have to submit every published post and/or photograph at the time of registration. The good news is that because the posts in your blog are held in a database, the copyright will continue for three months, but at the end of that three months you must register all content published within that period.

That last bit of information hurts a little, doesn’t it? Especially since bloggers are the group on the internet most vulnerable to plagiarism and copyright infringement. There are literally millions of us out there publishing recipes, photographs, poetry, advice, humor and stories in vast, uncountable quantities. This is compounded by the fact that if you want to register everything you publish on your blog, it will cost you quite a bit, in terms of both time and money, and even then you can’t be certain your material won’t be used without your permission. And how many of us have the financial resources to sue everyone – or even anyone – who claims our work as their own?

Then there’s the matter of what is subject to copyright and what isn’t. While your photographs and written material are automatically copyrighted, did you know that your blog and domain names are not? Names cannot be copyrighted – they are subject to trademark laws and must be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Domains cannot be copyrighted simply due to their nature: no two domains can have the same name – each is unique (domains are controlled by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit organization that has assumed the responsibility for domain name system management, and administers the assignation of domain names through accredited registrars). While this is encouraging, it also means that even though you own www.thisismyblogandnotyours.com, someone else can own www.this-is-my-blog-and-not-yours.com or www.this_is_my_blog_and_not_yours.com (or variations thereof).

Well, what about public domain? Public domain is less common than you might think; generally speaking, public domain constitutes any federal government document, any materials produced or published before 1923, or any materials published or produced prior to 1977 without a copyright notice. So, basically the older the material, the less likely it is you or anyone else will infringe on someone else’s rights. This also means that graphics found via Google Images, for example, are NOT automatically public domain, and you will still have to ask the owner’s permission to use them.

Another thing to take into consideration is that the Copyright Act does not protect your work from what is termed “fair use.” Essentially, fair use constitutes short quotations for the purpose of criticism, commentary or news reporting – someone can quote you or you can quote someone else (and you should always link to and give credit to the author you are quoting if at all possible) without infringing on their rights, but only small portions of the work in question; replication of large parts of anything, even when credit is given, can be illegal.

Speaking of names, whenever using a term or name that has been trademarked, you must note in your writing that it is trademarked, i.e. Microsoft Word^TM. However, under the fair use laws, this does not mean that someone cannot use a trademarked name or phrase for their own purposes as long as they are not attempting to deceive their audience that they speak on behalf of the trademarked entity or are related to it in any way, i.e. www.microsoftsucksass.com.

This may all seem disheartening and depressing, but all is not lost. We do have resources and recourse, mostly in the form of Creative Commons Licenses – the best thing to happen to bloggers since affiliate ads, and something I’ll go into in my next article, along with how to best deal with someone who has plagiarized your copyrighted material.

And as always, feel free to ask any questions you have – if I don’t know the answers, I’ll find ‘em.