Many businesses are constantly creating original intellectual property, this can be in the form of anything from articles, web pages to videos. As you are putting considerable time and resources into producing your original material it is understandable that you would also want to protect it. This is where copyright law comes into play.
Copyright will keep all of your original work protected from being used without your permission. If you discover that someone has breached your copyright and gone on to use your work without asking you first, you will have the right to take legal action against them to seek financial compensation.
If your work has a copyright you will be able to license it out and reproduce it in anyway you like. This means that you can receive an income from your copyrighted material.
In the UK you do not have to register to get a copyright. Copyright is created automatically as soon as an original work is made. A work has to be original to be granted a copyright, which means it must be significantly different to any other existing work. This is a qualitative evaluation as opposed to a quantitative measurement. To ensure that people are made aware that a work is protected by copyright you might want to consider adding a '' mark to any original material that you create along with the name of the person that made it and the date of which it was made.
Some industries such as the music industry are protected by copyright collection societies. These societies will often deal with licensing of copyrighted material on behalf of the copyright owner.
If you decide to licence out of your copyrighted material, you need to make sure that you have written up a firm copyright licensing agreement. This should include the terms in which you are licensing out the material, where it can be used and how long for. You should expect to get a fee for licensing out any copyrighted material and you should detail the amount in your agreement. This is known as a royalty.
You should ensure that you licensing agreement is written up by a legal professional to ensure that it is highly secure and that you don't leave yourself open to being exploited.
You may also wish to consider registering a trademark for your company. This should be a sign that people associate with your business and could be an image, logo, phrase or any other thing which identifies your company. If someone copies your trade mark you will be able to take legal action against them. Sometimes even if you haven't registered your trade mark you may be able to get compensation if another company uses your logo, as it is illegal to get trade by using a logo which is already associated with another company. When this happens it is known as 'passing off' but it can be difficult to prove.
If your company invents new products, you may wanted to consider getting them patent protected. A patent protects an invention for a specific amount of time so that no one else can make the same invention and sell it.
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