With our word-processors, page-layout, and image-manipulation software, we're all digital authors today.  But are we original authors?  That's the question I pose to you today.

 

How to protect works of the mind from theft, unauthorized use, and misuse is an ever-growing issue, especially with the spread of the Internet.  If you've spent precious time (and brainpower) creating a new piece of art, an engineering design, or just a real funny cartoon, I'm sure the last thing you want to do is give away the fruits of your labor without the compensation that's due you.

 

Cartoonist Gary Larson was never overly bothered by his fans' enthusiasm.  He was pleased that copies of his The Far Side hang on millions of desks, bulletin boards, and refrigerators around the world.  However, when Larson found digitally-pirated copies of his cartoons on fans' Web sites, he was compelled to ask his admirers to stop.  "On the one hand," Larson wrote in an open letter in late 1996, "I confess to find it quite flattering that some of my fans have created Web sites displaying and/or distributing my work on the Internet.  And, on the other, I'm struggling to find the words that convincingly but sensitively persuade these Far Side enthusiasts to 'cease and desist' before they have to read these words from some lawyer."

 

Oh, for the days of good old-fashioned theft, where a thief was a second-story man in dark clothing, clinging to the fire escape to quietly pick the lock and steal your cat!  Now, we have CyberTheft where the trick is to steal the digital image without the owner knowing it has been stolen and reproduced by the thousands.  Are we becoming a nation of digital art thieves?  Not intentionally, according to Dick Weisgrau, executive director of the American Society of Media Photographers.  "The fact is, most of the people will not go out and invest in the equipment and the training to steal with it.  They will use it to create."

 

He and others believe that most infringements arise not out of maliciousness, but more from plain ignorance of what is and isn't legal in the arena of reproduction.  For example, while art and design schools often feature courses on copyright law, students are sometimes encouraged to "borrow" from other artists as part of their projects.  And many artists don't have any formal training at all, and thus have little exposure to these legalities.  If infringement seems like a slippery problem, who owns which electronic images is even more so.  That's partly because creators and publishers have always butted heads over ownership rights and other contract issues for hundreds of years.

 

Let's talk first briefly about protecting your own works.  The most basic form of intellectual property (IP) protection is the copyright.  Copyrights cover unique, original, creative, and expressive works of any sort, from songs, to books, to articles, to Web pages.  As the name implies, the copyright owner holds the rights to copy the work or assign that right to others.  The law states that the owner holds an "implicit" copyright immediately upon the creation of a work.  But this law covers only the look of this work, not its function.  Thus, if someone creates a sculpture exactly like yours without ever seeing yours, there is no copyright infringement.  And if you create a device that looks like a gold hourglass that turns water into wine, your copyright covers the look, not the function or process.

 

There are two types of copyright: registered and unregistered.  For a $20 fee and a few minutes filling out a form, you will have the inalienable right to sue the pants off anyone who misuses your copyright.  Even though you have an automatic copyright on a work you create, it's a good idea to include the standard copyright notice in the format "Copyright XYZ © 1998.  All Rights Reserved."  Be sure to use the actual character, rather than a "c" with parentheses!  On the Web, spell it out, as the end-user's browser may not show the correct character.  Registered copyrights remain in force for the life of the person who created the work plus 50 years; corporations have a longer period.  A good place to keep your copyright for digital graphics is in a digital watermark, such as the services offered by Digimarc Corp. <http://www.digimarc.com>.

 

Trademarks are more specific IP protection, and can consist of graphics, such as in a company or product logo and/or text.  Trademarks are used to uniquely identify its owner as well as a product, and their purpose is to build a strong and protected identity.  Disney has trademarked Mickey Mouse, NBC has its peacock, and McDonalds is known worldwide by its golden arches.  But textual trademarks are the most common, and they are usually phrases, marketing slogans, or product names.  By necessity, they are usually short, and apply to a specific industry.

 

As with copyrights, you can have a common-law trademark just by putting to use.  You simply put a Ô symbol next to the item you want to trademark.  Registering a trademark costs more than a copyright, $245, and you must provide samples of the trademark in use.  You must also list the trademark as belonging to a specific class of products, and you need to document when the trademark was first sent across state lines (on advertising, a product, etc.).  Trademarks must be renewed every 10 years to remain active.  There are a number of other requirements for trademark registration, all of which should be referred by you, like all other advice in this column, to your favorite lawyer.

 

Patents are even more complicated, and I'm not going to even try to cover them here.