How to Copyright my stuff?

I'm in the process of filming a dvd with a friend. We are spending a lot of time and money on this and I was wondering how hard it would be to copyprotect the dvd. We don't want it ending up on youtube and I've seen that youtube is really good with answering complaints about protected material on youtube. Has anyone on here gone through the process of copyrighting their stuff? If so can anyone offer info about it in non lawyer terms? We aren't a company just two guys so I'm not sure if that would be an issue?

You don't state what country you are in

Don't know about the states, but in the UK you cannot register for copyright like a patent. Copyright is automatic to an original work - you just have to prove you did it first

As long as your DVD contains a copyright notice and cites you as the author, that should be good. One way of proving the date of creation is to mail yourself a copy by recorded courier or mail and never open the package until such time as some disputes you made the work

US law may work differently so I hope someone can clarify

as for copy protected copies of your movies, I think the replication company adds this on and I don't know of a way to do this at home

Sorry about that. I am in the United States.

Copyright is automatic in the United States. There is no special registration required but it is available.

http://www.copyright.gov/

louishen said:

One way of proving the date of creation is to mail yourself a copy by recorded courier or mail and never open the package until such time as some disputes you made the work

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I've heard of that so that's a possibility here in the states. It would have a government stamped date on the box if you mailed it to yourself.

I recently had a copyright violation on my vw club's logo

luckily we published it in the club magazine so could prove provenance.

As it was a variation of the real VW logo the thieves tried to out smart us by saying we hadn't asked Volkswagen for permission to alter their logo. But we had a signed letter of permission from Volkswagen UK so they had to back down

Thanks for the tips. From the United States government website on copyrights I see that it is actually a very easy process to register the copyright. A simple form and $45 gets it registered. For some reason I thought it would be super expensive to obtain a copyright.

louishen said:

One way of proving the date of creation is to mail yourself a copy by recorded courier or mail and never open the package until such time as some disputes you made the work

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I believe you can't do that. You could just send a blank unsealed envelope to yourself in the mail and then stick the dvd in after.

Glenners said:

I believe you can't do that. You could just send a blank unsealed envelope to yourself in the mail and then stick the dvd in after.

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It's actually been a standard form of ID'ing copyright for years.

Glenners said:

I believe you can't do that. You could just send a blank unsealed envelope to yourself in the mail and then stick the dvd in after.

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No, the point is you don't open the envelope until you need to and only in front of witnesses or the court.

The "Mail yourself a copy" method has been in use for many years, but the thing to do to provide additional proof in that regard is to use the United States Postal Service Registered Mail to do that. That way, you've also got a log entry in a postal service system somewhere that can actually be requested via subpoena later.

Here's a more current idea, too: Steganography. In your digitally-created work of art, use some open-source steganography tools to hide "copyright 2008 by JRV and company" in various parts of the file. If the hidden message is spread throughout the complete work, then you can at least prove that portions of later, similar works (or the more prevalent rip-off) have been lifted from you.

The government website for United States copyright recommends that you officially register your copyright. They do mention the "mail to yourself" technique but they also mention that it does have some flaws. The main flaw with that would be that you need to open it every time you need to prove copyright. With a registered copyright you receive a certificate you can use to show proof. That is the best tool for helping prove you are the owner on sites like youtube. For only $45 it seems like a pretty solid way to go.