{"id":9443,"date":"2012-03-06T12:04:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T19:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=9443"},"modified":"2021-09-03T09:01:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T15:01:54","slug":"circle-c-or-circle-r-the-difference-between-copyrights-and-trademarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/circle-c-or-circle-r-the-difference-between-copyrights-and-trademarks\/","title":{"rendered":"Circle-C or Circle-R? The difference between Copyrights and Trademarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>by Nicholas Wells<\/p>\n

Trademarks and copyrights are two very different types of intellectual property rights. You may need both, but first you\u2019ll need to understand the difference between them.<\/p>\n

The short answer is that a trademark is a \u201cbrand\u201d and a copyright protects a creative work. But that\u2019s not very precise, so let\u2019s dig deeper.<\/p>\n

A copyright is a legal right that gives the creator of a work an exclusive right to control how that work is used. Copyright only covers the tangible expression of an idea, but not the idea itself (that\u2019s what patents are for). So if you create an original work, such as a sculpture, an oil painting, a computer graphic image, a poem, a magazine article, a novel, a screenplay, a musical composition, a musical performance (with caveats), or even a computer program (more caveats), then your work is protected by copyright. That protection begins as soon as you create the work and lasts until 70 years after you die, in most cases. (But see my article in January\u2019s 15 Bytes about registering your copyrights.)<\/p>\n

You can license or transfer (assign) all or part of the copyright in your work. For example, you can grant someone a right to make certain types of reproductions of your work, or to perform your work only in certain geographic areas.<\/p>\n

Copyright is mentioned in the U.S. constitution. Its purpose is two-fold. Copyright encourages those with creative abilities to create works because they have a legal right to control how those works are used. Having those works created will benefit society. Eventually, copyright expires and the public gets unfettered use of the creative work.<\/p>\n

The U.S. is a member of several treaties that result in your copyrighted work being automatically protected in almost every country in the world.<\/p>\n

A copyrighted work is normally indicated with a Circle-C symbol. The standard format is \u00a9 [year of creation] [name of the creator or copyright owner].<\/p>\n

Changing gears now, a trademark is a word, symbol, or design (and sometimes other things) that is used to identify the\u00a0source<\/i>\u00a0of goods or services that are being sold. A trademark is all about commerce. It\u2019s the \u201cbrand\u201d that you want people to associate with your goods or services.<\/p>\n

Trademarks can be registered with the state government (which is of limited value, but appropriate for some local businesses), or with the federal government (which is harder, but provides significant legal benefits). You can claim anything as a trademark by placing a TM symbol next to it, but that doesn\u2019t have much legal impact.<\/p>\n

If you apply to register a federal trademark for your particular goods or services, your application will be \u201cexamined\u201d to make sure it doesn\u2019t conflict with anyone else\u2019s trademark. You don\u2019t register a trademark in the abstract\u2014you must define the goods and services that you will sell using the trademark. Once your trademark is registered, no one else can register a confusingly similar trademark. You show that your trademark is registered using a Circle-R symbol. You get exclusive use of your trademark in the U.S. If you want your trademark to be protected in other countries, you\u2019ll have to register your trademark there as well. (It does get expensive.)<\/p>\n

Some things can\u2019t be trademarked. For example, words that just describe what you\u2019re selling generally can\u2019t be trademarked because those words need to be available for others to use in describing what they are selling.<\/p>\n

A trademark can last forever, but you\u2019ll need to file forms regularly with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to show that you\u2019re still using your trademark.
\nThe U.S. Copyright Office is online at\u00a0www.copyright.gov<\/a>; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is online at\u00a0www.uspto.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re creating art, film, music, or written works, you are creating copyrighted materials. That\u2019s automatic. The exact scope of your copyright and how you can use it depends on what you\u2019ve created, what you based your work on, and what you plan to do with it.<\/p>\n

Unless you want those who purchase your products or services to associate them with a particular word or design, you probably don\u2019t need a trademark. Most artists, musicians, and authors prefer that their name be associated with their work. In that case, you don\u2019t need to trademark your name (though it is done in some quarters, such as by Italian clothing designers). But if you are selling your works under a creative name (such as a collection of landscape paintings sold under the name \u201cApple Crate Art\u201d), then you may want to protect that name as a trademark. If you operate a gallery or a website that uses a particular name or design that you want people to associate with that gallery or website, then you\u2019ve got a trademark that you should protect.<\/p>\n

Importantly, titles (of books or artwork) cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. They are considered too short to have the needed \u201coriginality\u201d for a copyright. And titles are not considered to function as trademarks. You can, however, copyright a design that incorporates a title. And you can trademark the name of a series of works (artwork, books, or otherwise), because in that case the name identifies more than a single work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Nicholas Wells Trademarks and copyrights are two very different types of intellectual property rights. You may need both, but first you\u2019ll need to understand the difference between them. The short answer is that a trademark is a \u201cbrand\u201d and a copyright protects a creative work. But that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,14],"tags":[903],"class_list":["post-9443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hints_n_tips","category-visual_arts","tag-by-nicholas-wells"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/060slideshow-e1331065090967.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 05:27:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9443"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59662,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions\/59662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}