Story Within Me...
You can move from being a writer to being an author!  I have a heart for writing and love to hear about others who also love sharing their thoughts through the written word. As a published author, I periodically get questions about my writing experience.

Just the other day a friend asked me about the copyright process for a literary work she had completed. Actually, every few months a writer asks me about the copyright process for their literary work. So, I decided to post some information to help you begin this process. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal counsel. I am merely sharing the process I went through to secure a copyright for my book manuscript when it was in it’s early stages.

The website you want to go to is : http://www.copyright.gov

This website is part of the U.S. Library of Congress, which provides copyrighting to the authors of "original works of authorship." (Literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other types of intellectual property.) Copyright protection is available for works that are both published and unpublished.

A copyright actually comes into existence at the time when your "work" is created in a fixed form - such as when a poem is written down on paper. However, it is good to take the additional step to register the work with the Library of Congress. By doing so, your literary work goes on record in the Library of Congress database and a copyright certificate is issued. Once you, as the author of the original work, have the certificate in your possession, if anyone tries to steal it or uses it illegally, without your authorization, you have a legal document to support your claim of authorship. This document will stand in a court of law.

Even though a "work" is copyrighted when it has become "fixed" in a concrete form; without the official U.S. registration of the "work" there is no "proof" that someone else did not create it. This then proves problematic if a situation arises that would necessitate having to prove the genuine author of an original "work."

So go to the website to register your "work." There you will find answers to many common copyright questions, as well as thorough descriptions of the process, laws and application fees.

I hope this post has been helpful in getting you moving towards getting your intellectual property copyrighted, so that you can begin to take your work to new heights!

http://www.copyright.gov

If you have any questions about writing and becoming an author, feel free to send contact me and I’ll do my best to answer them.

-Allen Paul Weaver III-

Tagged with: •

Filed under: Book Publishing • Writer Resources

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!