copyright question

Copyright © 2009 Bee Yourself Unique Creations. All rights reserved.
It says this at the bottom of every web page in my store (www.sylviastella.com) and that appears automatically with using nopCommerce. But what does it really mean? If, for example, I put little stories or anecdotes to go with my various products, can someone else use them and sell them in their name? Can someone copy my original designs and say they are their own? Can someone please explain just what this sort of copyright notice does and does not entail and what, if anything, extra we ought to or need to do to really/completely protect the contents of the website. Thanks!

http://www.uspto.gov/

Each design you make like your "pictures" must be marked trademarked.
Words can be signature marks.
Domains can be trademarked.

The process is somewhat simple:

You need $350 for EACH item trademarked. You must wait 6 months for someone else to object to your marks then its either granted or denied. If its similar or confusing it will be denied.

Trademarks must be "unique terms" for example Commerce can be defined as two parts:

The "Commerce" cannot be trademarked since it has been used years before by millions.

However when combined "NOP""Commerce" it is very specific term and can be trademarked but why, since they own the domain name already. However, If you forget to renew your domain name or if its stolen you will get it back 99.99% of the time...with money.

If you own a domain name first and before any trademarks you win everytime. Now the opposite is not true. Example: The flower company 1800Flowers didn't think the INTERNET was useful. They were a phone order company and someone else took there exact domain name, They sued and won the domain name back to them, but it costs MILLIONS to do so. You can thank our legal system for the high costs of litigation.

Just remember, if you find someone using your trademarks you have the legal right to sue them but you will lose big money in doing so in legal fees.  I know what the USPT office will say but I have vast experience in the courts. If you sue someone who "has no money for the lawyers" to collect you will be paying on an hourly basis or if your lucky..the lawyer will take 1/3 of what they collect......... 3 years down the road but they will go bankrupt anyway so your legal fees are gone.

Trademarks are valuable tools for Valuable property.
Most violators will stop with any notification from you otherwise you need to go to court.

Mike

Copyright is held by the Author of a 'work' and by their estate for 75 years after their death without registration, unless the work has had the copyright assigned to someone else or the work was carried out while employed, or as a 'paid for' comissioned work.

That is how I understand it, when someone buys a photo, drawing, sculpture they are buying the object or a license for the object, they are not buying the copyright or IP, when you purchase a vehicle you cannot pass this off as your own work.

Just Google for more information like This
US Copyright Laws Chapter 2

David.

Just to clear things there is a difference between Copyright for a single piece of work and Trademark for a range of works and a market identity which needs registration.

A trademark is a distinctive sign which is used to prevent confusion among products in the marketplace.

The OP asked about Copyright as the author of a written work and here designs, rather than tradmarks.

David :)

A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods.

A service mark is any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce, to identify and distinguish the services of one provider from services provided by others, and to indicate the source of the services.

A Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.  

I was under the quick impression that the poster wanted to know how to protect his products ["with my various products"] meaning.... (goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others). I have not gave it that much thought so you could be absolutely right too but based upon that particular interpretation  ... Maybe clarification of the term "products" would result in a different answer.

The proper venue is both trademark and copyright based upon this particular above referenced case.
Trademark for the products the poster is selling that are his own and Copyright for the literary part. So I could argue we are both correct.

In short, the Copyright is for the bottom of each webpage which is for "original works of Authorship" in which case make sense because you are talking about authorship and not hard products being sold for cash.
Please don't clarifiy this..


Hope this helps,

Mike

Can I tag a question onto the back of this one for someone to answer.

We own www.sikclothing.co.uk - we got an email yesterday saying "Copyright 2010 All rights reserved." and a link to www.everythingsik.com.

My question is - does he actually have any rights ie the brand SiK isnt trademarked from what i see - so can pursue what we need to and open the business or do we get the name changed.

Bearing in mind we have paid a lot of money for hosting, ssl, opened business bank accounts etc etc etc.

Could we get a trademark in there?

Ok, I spotted that he has put TM next to S.I.K, which is an unregistered trademark.

And his website displays.. S.I.K. © 2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, which would be be pictures and content of his website.

Do I have a legal right to Trademark SiK, to protect us? i know he is trying to tell us to shut down. But can we just trademark to protect ourselves with the R (registerd trademark symbol) - just to protect us, and leave him be (he is in the US we are in the UK, and not bothered about him selling his gangsta clothes and videos.

you can register your company name/brand as a trade mark - how this affects the other guy, who can say - he can choose to ignore your trademark, he could make a few changes (just using the . between the letters makes it different)

you should give your local trading standards a call, they are generally very helpful

- hayden

If you were in different businesses it wouldn't even matter if he had the name trademarked. The Beatles' Apple and Apple Computer only clashed, for example, when the latter moved into music.

As it is it sounds like you need legal advice or at the very least to have a chat with other business owners or one of the agencies that give out advice.

I went onto a place called the ukbusinessforums and asked my question there.

Put simply they said it shouldnt be a problem if he wasnt planning on coming into this country and just to email him back to this, also to say about the brands / image that we will be portraying to him.

Upshot is he replied with - apologies wasnt trying to scare you, just want you to know of our presence!

As a result we are going to go through the process of having an official registered trademark application going in.

Thank you for your respponse.