Dana is a founding partner of Techlaw LLP, one of San Diego's true IP boutiques. Dana's practice encompasses trademark and copyright law, as well as corporate formation, transactions, and IP related M&A work.
Dana can be reached at dana@techlawllp.com or at 858-488-2545.
Copyright law covers the rights one has in original works of authorship, when such works have been fixed in tangible form. Copyright rights arise upon creation. Once you've created something, you technically own the copyright in what you've created.
There are many nuances, though. For example, if you are a painter, and you base a painting on a photo that you have taken from a magazine, then your painting is an infringement of the underlying copyright owned by the photographer who took the original work (or the magazine if they magazine aquired the copyright).
In addition, copyrights can be either strong or very thin. If you have created a plush toy that is a bear, then your rights extend only to the features and elements that make that particular bear "your" bear versus any other bear that has been created. I would call this a "thin" set of copyright rights. On the other hand, if you have written a novel, and your rights might be quite broad or "strong" rights.
Sometimes people refer to copyrights when they mean trademarks. A trademark is a word or symbol that creates recognition of a particular person or company as the source of some particular goods or services. One's "brand" is subject to trademark law, which is an entirely different body of law, with different rules, rights and remedies.
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