Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin (Tone)

When does Copyright Protection begin, and what is required? Copyright protection begins when any of the above described work is actually created and fixed in a tangible form. If you write a poem, your copyright over that poem begins as soon as you set it in tangible form by writing the poem down on paper. Your copyright does not begin when you register it. It began when you wrote the poem on paper. Registering a copyright is just taking the protection a step further so as to leave no room for doubt that one is the creator of a work.

Copyright lasts for various lengths of time depending on the work. The following is a general guideline: Literary, Dramatic or Artisitic Works Copyright lasts for 70 years after the year of a known author's death. For unknown authors it expires 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first made available to the public. If a work is produced by two or more authors then the copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the last of the authors to die. Photographs Photographs are protected for 70 years after the death of the photographer. However if they are subject to Crown copyright then it applies for a maximum of 125 years; if subject to Parliamentary copyright it applies for 50 years from the taking of the photograph. Sound Recording, Broadcasts, Cable Programmes and Computer Generated Works Copyright lasts for 50 years from the end of the year they were made, released or first broadcast.