Case Study 05 - Copyright and Intellectual Property

Copyright and intellectual property law are vital for the protection of artists and developers as it means that they own and are entitled to the benefits of their own work. Intellectual property helps you protect things like names of your brand, designs of products and what you actually make. These are all inherent to creating something however should there be legal action in the future it would make it alot easier if you registered your intellectual property however, registering comes in a few forms such as trade mark which takes up to 4 months to get and covers product names and logos, the next is registered designs which takes 1 month to get and cover the products appearance which includes packaging, patterns and colour and last is patents which take roughly 5 fives to acquire and it protects any inventions like a machine, tool and parts. Things to keep in mind is that intellectual property ownership can be transferred and belong to a person or a business. When it comes to who can have ownership can be possessed by more than one person so you should be careful when you start your venture as if it is not clearly defined it could lead to a legal battle to determine ownership. Copyrights protect your work as it stops people using your work without your permission, distributing, remaking it and unloading it to the internet. There are many different types of copyrights as copyrights for films last for 70 years after the death of the author and same goes for anything written, musical or artistic work, once these all expire they are now a part of the public domain and now anyone can use them.