as a publishing coach, I often get questions about copyright. People are confused about what it protects, what they need to do, if they need to add comments such as “All rights reserved” on materials etc.

An important thing to note about copyright is exactly what you can copyright. In principle, you can only copyright particular expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. You can not copyright titles, oddly enough, you possibly can brand them.

When you create a work, it is automatically protected by copyright law. Here is the relevant paragraph from the US Copyright Office

“under US law, copyright protection builds its income from work is fixed in any tangible medium of expression that it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Copyright registration is not mandatory, but it has important benefits. “

Because the work is copyrighted when it is created, you are not completely even after the Copyright Notice (including ie. the copyright symbol and date).

The main reason, in my opinion, putting copyright is to remind people that this is copyrighted material. The website where you’re selling something, you do not need to add “All rights reserved.” However, if the site contains valuable materials that anyone could want to copy, say, create a profile with your content.

something the public as a blog or website, say if you are giving away to show that you know what you’re talking about, it makes sense to add “All rights reserved” copyright notice. In fact, in such cases there is a slight indication that info is valuable

So -. For direct sales copy, no. For valuable content, yes. And nowadays, I think content is what sells, so the lines can blur.

For information products, such as Special Reports and books, mini courses, etc., you definitely want to include “all rights reserved.” It is not legally required, but it is a reminder to other people that this is in fact copyrighted material and they have no right to copy it or distribute it.

In all people download from my site, paid or unpaid, for example, I spell clearly in the front pages of what people can and can not do with my stuff – whether they can pass it or not, they can not copy it, sell it, etc.

Many people seem to think that if something on the Internet, it automatically free content that they can copy and redistribute freely. This is not the case, and a sign post copyright, date, and “all rights reserved” is a reminder to readers that this is content.

For me, often more of us to remind people that the better.