If you were an artist you wouldn’t leave your paintings out in the open subject to harsh environmental conditions would you? Likewise, as a writer you want to protect your writing from the harsh realities of copyright infringement. Thanks to the Internet it is now possible for someone to steal and reuse your carefully constructed words with just a lick of a mouse. By registering a copyright for your work from their creation, you are ensuring you have proof of ownership should questions arise or problems occur.

Patents, trademarks and copyrights are all considered intellectual property. What is the difference between the three? Patents protect certain types of inventions. Trademarks protect slogans, words and logos that distinguish your products from the others. A copyright, which we will concentrate on, protects books, articles, magazines, songs and serial publications. Technically, as soon as a work is created in a tangible form is it copywritten provided it is eligible for copyright protection.

Be sure to use the (c) and the copyright owner’s name and date of publication on all work. This isn’t required, but it is a precaution. However, if someone should ever violate your copyright and steal your work, an official copyright will hold up better in court. Works registered in the US, Canada, England, Western Europe and Russia are basically governed by the same copyright laws no matter which country you register in.