| Protect My Work or poor man's copyright?
With the worldwide use of the websites giving people access to everything
from photos to music to designs, it is not surprising that copyright
breaches are becoming more widespread. In response to these violations, some
lawyers have suggested a “simple” solution to protecting your
work and propose that posting yourself a copy of the work, also called the
'poor man's copyright', provides enough proof of the original author.
However, how does someone print and post a song or piece
of music, or the entire code for a web site? If stored
hard copies are an author’s only proof of ownership, what happens if
the documents are misplaced or damaged? Many designers, artists and writers
find themselves with many pieces of design work each month. Are they to be
posted and stored indefinitely? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
Copyright
law across the world, states that you must prove you are the original
author of a piece of work. Should anyone copy your intellectual property
you will have to prove in court that you are the original author and
the ideas of the work are original. The easiest way to do this is to
keep draft versions of the work. A court can then see the different development
stages of the work and be sure the work was original. The ‘poor
man's copyright’ system could prove to be difficult for a writer
who has to continuously post themselves draft versions of their book…and
then find somewhere to store them!
Beware of a UK web site,
that purports to being an official government agency or copyright registration
centre. There is no official government copyright office in the UK where
you can register your work.
 Copyright
protection for your computer files ?
You can protect any type of digital file with Protect My Work. Any file format
can be emailed or uploaded to our system. For example: .doc, .jpg .gif .bmp
.png .psd .xls, mp3, the list goes on. The only file that cannot be submitted
is an .exe.
Copright for music, songs, lyrics, design work, product
design ideas, illustrations, business
plans, music, photographs, poems, scripts, even whole websites
can be recorded if the files are emailed us.
 What will Protect My Work do if my work is copied?
If your work is used without permission and registered with us, we can
provide you with valuable evidence should your case go to court. Protect
My Work will provide you with an affidavit. An affidavit is a written,
sworn statement that is acknowledged and endorsed in front of a Notary
Public. An affidavit may be used in place of oral testimony in court.
Proof of authorship using the Internet helps avoid printing reams of paper
(environmentally friendly!) and is more time efficient. If we were to print
and post each design and intellectual property item to ourselves we would
be spending too much time, and energy on printing, purchasing stamps, stuffing
envelopes and then trying to find somewhere to store all these sealed envelopes!
The internet might be the perfect get away vehicle for a patent thief, but authors should in fact embrace the internet and use it to their advantage - not shy away from it.
Register today
and receive 5 free tokens. |
Privacy Policy 
home
