Title vs Trademark vs intellectual prop

[Chamber005]

Okay!

So I thought it might be pertinent to have a little discussion about the legalities of what you guys are doing with your productions in regards to ownership.

It's pretty clear, I think, that copyright exists once you create whatever it is you're creating. E.g., you write a story about a clan of vampires who go to Alaska for 30 days, while your idea can't be copyrighted, certainly the specific story and characters are.

As an aside to copyright, though, as I understand it you can't actually sue someone else for copyright infingement unless you yourself have had the thing copyrighted. What that means is that someone can steal your stuff and present your stuff but if they try and copyright it and are found guilty of copyright infringement (when you go to copyright the identical thing prior to filing your lawsuit), they can be then liable for federal charges as well, having copyrighted something they did not hold the copyright to.

But, copyright aside, how do we all feel about our titles and the intellectual properties within out stories?

I see a hundred new comics come out every month and most of them do not have registered trademarks. However if you look at Xmen, Terminator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman, etc. the circled R stamp or TM is clearly visible.

So I guess the question is, should a person (or company) only trademark its titles if it's going to be selling product (like toys, games, etc), or do you think Buffy was trademarked to protect the actual production? For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer does not have the TM next to the titles on their DVD packaging, but on their comics, toys and games it does.

As I understand it you can trademark a word (even an existing word) if it's going to be tied to a specific explanation of the word. E.g. "Visa" is trademarked as a company that provides credit and loans and can be trademarked as such, but another company could come along and also call itself Visa so long as it had nothing to do with credit cards.

Intellectual property, to me, is the most interesting and also the most abtuse as it seems to me that if you create, say, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and call him "Gill Man", no one else should be able to call their creature "Gill Man". But is that covered under intellectual property law, copyright? Would one need to have Gill Man trademarked?

I'm interested in what all of you are doing to protect your stories and creations.

 

[HerzogisGod]

I would start by registering your script with the Writers Guild. This alone should cover a lot; names of characters etc

I wrote all the music for my film. Does the film itself copyright my music? if my music turns up somewhere, there are specific encoded dates I can always refer to for ownership. Dates that are embedded on my HDD.

 

[Huy Vu]

As an aside to copyright, though, as I understand it you can't actually sue someone else for copyright infingement unless you yourself have had the thing copyrighted.

Your rights to the property is automatic as soon as the creative work in question is created. You don't have to register it anywhere to be able to sue somebody for stealing your ideas (in a concrete form aka a book, a script etc.). What WGA registration does is that it makes it easier for you to prove your case in court should it comes to that. You're able to say "On date XYZ I registered this script" and there's official documentation to prove it. There used to be a cheapie method for "registering" your script where you would send a copy of the script to yourself and have it post-marked for a certain date. Same idea.

As I understand it you can trademark a word (even an existing word) if it's going to be tied to a specific explanation of the word. E.g. "Visa" is trademarked as a company that provides credit and loans and can be trademarked as such, but another company could come along and also call itself Visa so long as it had nothing to do with credit cards.

Visa would sue them for potentially confusing the consumer with their brand even if they're not in the same business. Monster Energy did this a few years ago when they sued a small tire company for having the same "Monster" name. You can make a case that if your product name is derivative of a well known brand in order to attract customers, you're violating trademark.

 

[David Jimerson]

Your rights to the property is automatic as soon as the creative work in question is created. You don't have to register it anywhere to be able to sue somebody for stealing your ideas (in a concrete form aka a book, a script etc.). What WGA registration does is that it makes it easier for you to prove your case in court should it comes to that. You're able to say "On date XYZ I registered this script" and there's official documentation to prove it. There used to be a cheapie method for "registering" your script where you would send a copy of the script to yourself and have it post-marked for a certain date. Same idea.

Actually, no -- registration of the copyright (which is what most people mean when they say "have something copyrighted") is required for access to federal courts. Without it, you can't sue, at least not in federal court where it actually matters. Which is why WGA registration doesn't get you anything but a calendar date with respect to infringement.

(And no, the "mailing a copy to yourself" bit doesn't work.)