Question about copyright

[adam]

Wow, you really have no knowlege of copyright. I can't get over how many errors you have in your posts. I really doubt you have ever used coopyright law professionally.

Only because you said this, I'm going to show you just how little you know, and how silly you look.

now you are going on about "all rights reserved. LOL. Your statement about "all rights reserved" encapsulates this. It is meaningless.

In the US you no longer have to give notice of copyright in order to claim it. Copyright subsists in your creation as soon as it takes its form. However, most other nations grant copyright protection solely on the basis of notice. Unless you stick that C logo on your work, publication in any given foreign country will provide you no copyright protection whatsoever, even if the work can be traced directly back to you.

Now what about the phrase, "All Rights Reserved?" This language is expressly required by a number of countries in order to claim your copyright. Without this language you have literally zero protection in your work. Not so meaningless now is it? In the US, the language means nothing. Globally, it means everything.

Going back to the issue of the copyright registration database. the reason why this no longer affords any protection and the reason why it is no longer used is that most countries have abandoned such registration.

Many countries do use national filing systems, but no most don't. Here's a list of those that do. http://www.wipo.int/news/en/links/addresses/cr/index.htm

At the risk of sounding dismissive, and maybe a little politically incorrect, most "major nations" do use a filing system.

Also remember that most of these nations have also signed the Berne Treaty which means that their filings are respected in all other countries who are also members. In actuality, every major nation either uses a national filing system itself or enforces the filing systems of other nations.

But as to your contention that a registration system is pointless, and affords no protection. You still have not addressed my earlier posts. How can a filing system not afford protection, if your copyright is literally unenforceable until you file it? What good is a copyright that you cannot enforce?

The US maintains it simpy to fund the copyright office.

The US maintains a registering system solely to fund the office that maintains the registering system? That makes sense.

if one just counts the numbers in the database, it comprised less then 1 tenth of one percent of copyright material.

Assuming your statistics are accurate, this simply means that less then 1 tenth of one percent of copyrighted material is likely to be infringed upon.

The fact that the registered works pales in comparison to the unregistered copyrighted works is not evidence of a flawed or useless filing system, it is simply the logical result of a system that allows a copyright to subsist as soon as any qualifying work is created. I can churn out 10,000 copyrighted items a week if I want. But unless I expect infringement to occur, I'm not going to bother filing. But if infringement does occur on any of those works, I am SOL because I didn't file. I am legally barred from filing suit until I register, and I am even then precluded from seeking anything but actual damages once I do file.

Simply put, US copyright law literally provides no protection whatsoever until you register with the Copyright Office. Obviously registering is more than important, it is mandatory to enforcing any US copyright.

[thayne]

I put "copyright © (year) myname. All Rights Reserved." on everything I do...

[adam]

As well you should. Copyright law in general does take subjective knowledge into consideration when awarding damages. If you've got notice on your work, whether you are registered or not, the infringer cannot claim they didn't know it was copyrighted. Even though you can seek damages either way, assuming you eventually do register, the subjective intent of the infringer can play a huge part.

Its even more important in foreign countries that require notice on the work itself. Those that grant statutory damages won't grant them prior to the point at which the infringer recieved notice of your copyright. If you've got 2002 on your work, you have primae facie evidence that they had notice of your copyright as of that date (assuming that's the location they got the work from.) If you didn't have the copyright notice including the date, you'd have to prove the point at which they were aware of the infringement. That's often impossible to do, and will preclude you from receiving statutory damages, which basically makes your suit worthless.