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Protection and Its Advantages
As mentioned previously, in most cases copyright exists automatically once the work has been created, and usually nothing further need be done to obtain protection.
Copyright protection is similarly available without registration in the United States and in many other countries. To obtain certain legal advantages in the United States, an acceptable Universal Copyright Convention notice should appear on every copy of a published work. Copyright notices may be in one of two forms, examples of which follow:
© 1981, Purple Prose Publishers, Inc.
[This notice is satisfactory in all countries subscribing to the Universal Copyright Convention.]
Or:
Copyright, Purple Prose Publishers, Inc., 1981
[This notice is acceptable in the U.S.A. but not necessarily in other countries.]
In the foregoing examples, 1981 is the year of first publication and Purple Prose Publishers, Inc. is the name of the copyright owner. In the case of a phonograph record, the letter P inscribed within a circle, should be substituted for ©. We recommend, however, that we be consulted concerning copyright protection in the United States, or any other foreign country so that we are in a position to give up-to-date and accurate advice with the assistance of foreign counsel if necessary.
Advantages
Registration in Canada provides the registered owner with a Certificate of Copyright Registration and confers on the registered owner the important presumption, often useful if copyright is to be enforced against an infringer, that copyright subsists in the work and that the person registered is the owner of the copyright.
A copyright registration can be a useful tool in negotiations involving the sale or licensing of rights in the copyright work.
The copyright registration remains of record and available for public inspection at the Copyright Office.
The Copyright Act provides that, in an action for an infringement of copyright, if the defendant proves that he was not aware, and had no reasonable grounds for suspecting that copyright subsisted in the work, then the plaintiff is entitled only to an injunction and not to damages. However, if copyright in the work was registered at the time of the infringement, then the defendant cannot claim that he had no reasonable ground for suspecting that copyright subsisted in the work.
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