Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
No, a Word file would not be enough. In the US, if you ever need to sue for copyright infringement, you MUST have your copyright registered through the Copyright Office. While your copyright does in fact exist the moment you set a copyright-able work down in tangible form, you cannot legally defend it in US courts unless you register it first.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/fa...al.html#mywork
ApK |
A very good point, but is there any requirement to register it prior to the infringement? Unless you're planning on challenging every infringement legally, I always thought it was of questionable value?
ref:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopp...pyright-myths/
So by my reading of that, if someone rips off your work and prints a million copies before you know and you tell them to withdraw them and they don't then you can register your work to take legal action, but you can't sue them for what happened before registration... So you can't get damages for what they did.
However you can take action against them for anything that happens after that, including failing to reasonably recall books or for sales that occur after the date when you do register it. It doesn't appear to legitimise the plagiarism. It only seems to limit what actions you can take prior to registration. Though keep in mind that not all countries allow registration.
Registration should be viewed as "additional rights" though I would be interested to hear a legal opinion on this.
Also, it would be a very brave publisher to deliberately print infringing material or to rely on this to avoid a recall. The real worst case I see is that someone might publish the material on the Internet free of charge for everyone, but from what I've seen, that is going to happen anyway, no matter what controls and rights you have.
Regards
David