Hi, I've been making an animation project with a complex story which I have been working on for a nearly a year now. How do I copyright the story, so no one else can copy it? thanks paul

Well, by creating it you have copyrighted it. However, you can register your copyright with the copyright office or you can get your work notarized by a notary public.

Copyright automatically attaches to something you create, making it illegal for anyone else to copy the work, whether or not you register the copyright.

Enforcing your rights requires registration of the copyright. Check the U.S. Copyrights Office web page on copyright procedures.

Somewhere on the project add the copyright symbol and the year. It is a gentle reminder to people. Also mail yourself a copy and when it arrives, mark what is inside and store it safely away, unopened. The postmark legally dates the material as long as it is unopened. If you are going to have public viewings of the material though or plan to make money from it, it's worth registering the copyright.

Mailing yourself the item does not always hold up in court.

Thank you for the replies, I was a bit worried about one of my tutors stealing my idea (apparntly it's happened before at my university). Hopefully it will get made into a series (fingers crossed)

As a tutor, I have absolutest contempt for a tutor who would steal the ideas of a student. That is reprehensible in the extreme, and cowardly to boot. Disgusting. So common. Sometimes I hate humanity. Keep 'in progress' states of your work (all my posted work is in B&W, but I work in colour; I challenge anyone to come up with the colour scheme and layer compositing that would lead to my image). Mail your work to yourself and also to a friend or two. Then they can vouch for you if it becomes an issue. The files can be hacked, but not the machine that processed them. Those datestamps on your own copy can be checked and verified.

Attached Link: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/forms/

To properly copyright your work, you'll need to go to the link I've provided, and grab several forms, which need to be filled out and sent to the U.S. Copyright Office. If your story is written out, you'll need Form TX or Form SE (Literary works or Serial Publications). For the animation work, you'd need Form VA, which covers Visual Arts. All forms are available with full instructions, so read over them carefully to make sure you're submitting the correct form for your work. Hope this information helps you...

kieraw is correct in writing that technically, you automatically have a copyright in the work, but registration is generally necessary to enforce it in court. And since the US adopted the Berne Convention (an international agreement on intellectual property), you no longer have to use the little "c" symbol, though Barbarellany is right to say that it does provide a gentle reminder to people. Also, though this is more about the subject line than the actual topic, you cannot copyright an idea. Your copyright applies to the work itself; it is only when another's work bears sufficient similarity to another's work that infringement is shown. Finally, infringement is generally proven by showing the time sequence of the creation of works, their similarities, and is even easier to prove when the alleged copier had access to the original work...so it would seem to me that an unscrupulous tutor would find himself or herself in some degree of peril...

Mailing it to yourself and keeping it unopened is a good step, but if you end up in court it really is imperative that it be officially registered. It will improve your chances in court significantly. Assuming we are talking US Copyright, I believe it costs $50 to copyright something. At $50 a crack, I can see why so few people bother who do lots of little things, but perhaps there is different scale for small items (like poems, digital art, short stories, etc.). In theory, if you created it you automatically hold the copyright to it. But if you think your work has even a slight chance to making it to a series, by all means do a formal registration. jon

 
~jon
My Blog - Mad Utopia Writing in a new era.

Attached Link: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ15.pdf

jstro; It *is* possible to compile smaller items like poems and short stories and copyright them collectively...that information is also available at the link I provided earlier....typically, for written works, that still falls under Form TX, you just give a collective title to the volume. For images, you might be able to submit Form GR/PPh/CON along with Form VA to collectively copyright many images. i'm not 100% sure if rendered images qualify, but you should be able to dig up the information from the instructions. IMHO, as a writer and artist, it's never a waste to spend the money and legally copyright your work. While methods like mailing to yourself and so on are 'decent', they're not 100% reliable, and may or may not hold up in court, should it become necessary to go that far. Details on Copyright length, and copyright renewal, are available at the link provided here. (PDF document, Adobe Acrobat Reader required) Again, I hope this helps...

thank you again for the replies and links but I'm not american (I'm british) At easter i'm going to get the copyright sorted.

I'm American by birth, but I've been living in Britain for some time. I am fortunate enough to be working in a field where it is common to see footnotes in published work crediting someone for an idea discussed over drinks in the pub. I'm very sorry you have to go this route.