How to Register a Copyright for Construction and Repair

Introduction

To Register a Copyright you first need to know what a Copyright is.

What is Copyright?

The legal authority a person has over an intellectual property is referred to as copyright. The right to copy is the simplest definition of copyright. The only people who have the sole right to reproduce a work are the original authors of that work and anybody to whom they grant permission.

For a predetermined period of time after which the copyrighted object enters the public domain, copyright law grants authors of original work the exclusive right to use and reproduce that material again.

Copyright Ownership

Copyright ownership is restricted by the area of the jurisdiction in which it was given (for example, a copyright awarded by the United States is only valid inside that nation), as well as by some particular exceptions. Much of worldwide copyright law was brought into relative agreement with the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1886, with various later amendments over the decades. The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, often known as the WIPO Copyright Treaty or WCT, was enacted in 1996 to encompass information technology and the internet, which the Berne Convention did not explicitly address.

Learn About Copyright

If you have created a construction and repair work, it may be eligible for copyright protection. To qualify for copyright registration, however, your work must meet five criteria:

• The work must be tangible. This means that the work must be reduced to a material object from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
• The work must be tangible. This means that the work must be reduced to a material object from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Tangible means existing in physical form as opposed to conceptual form, and includes any type of material object. For example, your computer screen is tangible and so is your written manuscript sitting on your desk. The copyright protection attaches to the physical object because laws protect things that exist in reality—not ideas alone.

Originality of Work

The work must be original. It does not have to be the first of its kind, but it must originate with the author who is claiming copyright in the work. In other words, you can’t just copy someone else’s idea or use material that was already published by someone else and then claim that it is your own creation. The Copyright Office will look at whether a substantial amount of copying occurred and whether there are similarities between two works that indicate one copied from another.

If you borrow ideas from another source as part of your creative process, make sure you cite them appropriately so no one thinks they were copied verbatim into your book or article without permission

The Work Must Be an Expression Fixed in a Tangible Form

A work is an “expression fixed in a tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated.” The tangible form can be anything that has a physical embodiment—that is, something you can touch. The U.S. Copyright Office defines this as “a material object from which the work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.”

The Copyright Act provides specific examples of what constitutes a phonorecord: disks, tapes, film negatives and photographs; audio-visual works encoded on tape or disc in digital form; computer programs that are recorded on tapes or discs; and any other medium now known or later devised (17 U.S.C.).

The Work Must Meet Other Tests of Validity

Copyright protection attaches if the work is:

• original
• fixed in a tangible medium of expression, and
• capable of being perceived.

Conclusion

When you register a copyright for a Construction and Repair, you can ensure that your work is protected from infringement and theft. This will also help you to enforce your righ