Today’s guest post is by copyright lawyer Brad Frazer. He has written two other posts for this site: Trademark Is Not a Verb and Is It Fair Use? 7 Questions to Ask Before Using Copyrighted Material.
“I copyrighted my book by putting © on the bottom of the first page.”
“This picture is on the Internet, so I can just ‘right-click’ and use it on my website.”
“I copyrighted this DVD by mailing it to myself.”
“We don’t have any copyrights because we never registered anything with the government.”
Have you ever said any of these things? If so, you are in good company—most people have. But they are all incorrect.
Should a writer copyright an unpublished work before submitting it to an agent or publisher? If a writer does not formally copyright their unpublished work and finds someone copying it or giving away free copies, how are they disadvantaged, if at all? How does a writer copyright her work?
Important information about copyrighting your written work - give it a read... https://janefriedman.com/copyright-is-not-a-verb/