Copyright Owners - How To Protect Your Work
Posted on April 19, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Daniel Woolsey is being sentenced for felony in California. He was caught selling pirated copies of Autodesk’s AutoCAD(R) software. Additional counts for selling other pirated software, including Adobe PhotoShop, were dropped as part of a plea bargain agreement. “This case should be a wake up call to copyright violators that they can face serious consequences. Autodesk will continue to work closely with law enforcement agencies . . . to protect our valuable intellectual property . . . .” said Sandy Boulton, director of Piracy Prevention at Autodesk.
Read More..>>Software Piracy, Fair Use Law, And Copyright Infringement
Posted on April 18, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
As the multi-billion dollar software industry continues to become more and more financially lucrative, some of the more unethical entrepreneurs in America are attempting to get in on the moneymaking action by distributing pirated software. Often carried out online, software piracy can cost the industry millions of dollars in lost revenue, and the offense can carry hefty punitive fines and prison sentences.
Read More..>>Buying A Website – Problems With Intellectual Property
Posted on April 18, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
There are many ways to make money online including buying another website that may be a competitor or compliment to yours. When doing so, you need to watch out for IP problems.
The creation of a web business tends to be a herky-jerky event. Things can go full blast for a few months, sit gathering dust for a year and then get rolling again. This can lead to a certain lack of organization in the business. In particular, it can lead to nightmares with intellectual property.
Read More..>>Copyright Is Dead! Long Live Copyright!
Posted on April 16, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Infringement. File sharing. Piracy. Counterfeiting. Plagiarism.
Whatever you call it, the theft of copyrighted material is just about impossible to control in our ever-expanding, ever-increasing digital age. In fact, there is a widely held belief that technology has made copyright impossible to enforce.
Take the entertainment industry, for example:
While all school children are taught the dangers of plagiarism of print materials when they write their first term papers, many of these same kids are some of the greatest offenders who believe that internet file sharing of their favorite music is their due simply for being fans of this or that rock or rap group.
Read More..>>Typefaces, Fonts And Characters - Intellectual Property Protection In The United Kingdom
Posted on April 12, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Mechanically produced fonts and the characters comprising fonts are protected under UK law as typefaces. The legal definition for typefaces incorporates letters, numerals and ornamental motifs. Fonts and typefaces created for PCs, Apple computers and Linux systems however are protected are artistic works.
Electronically Created Typefaces
What is not made clear in the Act, but follows from basic principles of copyright is that electronically created fonts are protected by copyright, provided they are original. The protection is an indirect means of protecting the individual characters.
Read More..>>You Own The Copyright
Posted on April 11, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Avoiding Stock Photo Servitude…
Will the new-on-the-scene large corporate market-driven stock photo houses treat photographers and their photos as commodities?
History tells us the answer could very well be yes. Take the example of the cartoon syndicates established in the 1920’s under the guidance of newspaper king, William Randolph Hearst. He first introduced the concept of cartoon syndicates.
It works like this. The cartoonist signs a contract that says that the syndicate will promote the cartoon if the artist will follow a certain cartoon theme and style, and keep to it. The contract also states that the syndicate will own the copyright to the cartoon. Not the cartoonist.
Read More..>>Intellectual Property: Community Trade Marks – Registration Refusal – Likelihood Of Confusion
Posted on April 11, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
In Alcon Inc v Of Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) [2005], a mark was refused registration because the public was likely to confuse the mark with another similar mark.
In 1998, Alcon filed an application for registration of the word mark TRAVATAN in respect of goods within Class 5, in particular ophthalmic pharmaceutical preparations.
In 1999, Biofarma SA filed an opposition against registration of TRAVATAN, arguing that there would be confusion with the word mark TRIVASTAN, registered in Italy in 1986. This earlier trade mark was also registered under Class 5 covering pharmaceutical, veterinary, hygiene products and others.
Read More..>>Myths About Copyright
Posted on April 10, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Beware of these myths about copyrighted materials:
If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it’s not copyrighted.
That use to be correct. However, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not.
If I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation.
Wrong again. It is a violation if you copy and give copyrighted works away. There are serious penalties and damages awarded if you hurt the commercial value of the property when giving it away.
Patent, Trademark And Copyright - The Differences
Posted on April 3, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
Patent, trademark, copyright - we hear these three terms very frequently. Many don’t know that there is a distinct difference between filing for a patent and filing for a trademark. Same with copyright.
Let us analyze the differences between a patent, trademark and a copyright.
Patent
When can you file for a patent? If you have a novel and un-obvious invention, or a novel and un-obvious improvement to an existing invention, you can file for a patent. A patent can be of different types. To see the different types of patents, see our previous article here: Different types of patents.
Read More..>>Copyright Transfer Or License - How You Can Share Your Copyright And Still Keep It
Posted on April 2, 2008 - Filed Under Legal and Law | Leave a Comment
You can transfer the copyright to an image, either by selling it or giving it away. If so, you give up all rights that you had in the image as if you never took the photograph. But the only way to give up a copyright to an image is in writing.
Even when copies of a photo are distributed, the photographer retains the copyrights to the image. If you give your client copies of the digital files, without more, you are not giving up your copyrights.
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