If you are the author, you can copyright books, poems, directories, catalogs, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, single pages and publications such as newspapers, magazines, reviews, newsletters and bulletins. Also, scripts,, lectures, sermons, maps, monologs and cartoons.

In essence, you can copyright almost anything that you write or draw, provided you comply with the following procedures.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a law to protect authors from having his work copied by others with out his or her permission.

How to protect your work?

1.Produce copies with copyright notice:

Produce the work in copies by printing or other means of reproduction. It is essential that all copies bear a copyright notice in the required form and position. As a general rule, the copyright notice should consist of three elements.

a. The word "copyright", the abbreviation "copy", or the symbol "c" printed within a circle. Use of the symbol may have advantages in securing copyright in countries that are members of the Universal Copyright Convention.

b. The name of the copyright owner (or owners).

c. The year date of publication. This is ordinarily the year in which copies are first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed by the copyright owner or under his authority. These elements should appear together on the copies.

EXAMPLE: Copyright 1988 John Doe

For a publication printed in book form, the copyright notice should appear on the title page or the page immediately following. The "page immediately following" is normally the reverse side of the page bearing the title.

2.Publish your work:

Next thing will be publishing your work.Anything of publications like printed material, electronic, CDs etc.,Type of publication is your convenience and budget.

3.Register your claim in the copyright office:

Promptly after publication, you should send the following material to the Copyright Office.

a.Application for Registration. (For books, booklets, pamphlets, reports, etc., use form A).

b.Two copies of the edition of the work as published.

c.Registration fee of $10. Do not send cash. Payment must be in the form of a money order, check, or bank draft, payable to the "Registry of Copyrights" send everything to: Registry of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington DC 20540.

For further information concerning copyright laws, write to the Registry of Copyrights (address above) for two free booklets - General Information on Copyright, Circular 1, and - Copyright Law of the United States of America, Circular 91.

You have to contact your local authorities in your country.Though your work is protected internationally, the application procedures differ from country to country.Better to call a lawyer and ask how to proceed.

Tips before Copyright protecting your work:

1.Though your work is copyright protected in the moment you created it, better keep a copyright notice to tell the world who the author is.This makes for other people easy to contact you in times they need permission to copy few sections of your work.

2.When you publishing others work ALWAYS contact the author before putting that matter in your book or material.Let that part of your publication retain the original authors copyright.

3.What if my work get reproduced by others with out my permission?:Contact the person who is claiming copyright on your work and ask him or her to take out the part that was originally created by you or add your name as the author of that work.

If you don't know the person go to http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois and do the search by entering the website name in the box.

If your work is published as a brochure or pamplet where you can not get any information on the person who reproduced your work, then you can contact a lawyer abd discuss how to proceed further.

4.Always remember that copyright doesnot apply to names,titles, ideas and phrases unless you are registered your Company name as your trade mark.

If you want toprotect your ideas then you can proceed with patent laws.

Common questions about Copyright protecting:

Some of the common questions answered here.But always do an enquiry in your country about these laws before proceeding further.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/copyright_questions.htm

Resources to know further about the copyright laws:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/index.htm

Note:This article is only for informational purpose only.You have to contact proper personale before acting further.