No, you don't HAVE to register a copyright in Canada, but some people do it voluntarily because, especially in the case of self-published works, it can help you prove ownership and originality IF someone steals your intellectual property. That is one of the caveats that rarely seems to be given by those who tout self-publishing, because it doesn't cover you for distribution, royalty collection or copyright litigation costs should it be necessary. My publisher contractually undertakes to take care of that aspect of my works, which relieves me of having to find several thousand dollars to hire a lawyer if someone infringes my copyright and takes a few hundred dollars out of my potential earnings.... There has been a revision of the Canadian Copyright Act in the works for some time now, but it gets stalled going through the House of Commons because of elections etc. One of those changes is to keep works from going into the public domain 50 calendar years after the year of death of the creator. In the US, and I believe the European Union, that period is now 70 years. That means, currently, if you died today, your work would be in the public domain in April of 2060. In the US it would be come public domain in 2080. In the meantime your estate, or the person to whom you assigned that copyright (my wife in my case) and my publisher, would retain the copyright. Jay Underwood Elmsdale >From Jay Underwood and Railfare*DC Books "Ghost Tracks": http://www.railfare.net/Ghost%20Tracks.html "From Folly to Fortune": http://www.railfare.net/FromFollyToFortune.html "Built for War": http://www.railfare.net/builtforwar.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Cordes" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 6:23 PM Subject: Re: [NS-L] [LL] Chronically Horrid > Hi Bob, > > Re your statement about Canadian copyright law: I don't > believe that is the case. However, in a brief search I have > not found an *authoritative* reference for this. It would be > useful if someone could provide such a source. > > John > > On [2010-04-03 at 04:30pm] Bob Hegerich <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi Malcolm: >> >> I'm not a lawyer either, but am fairly certain you are right on the >> mark. One point though . . . >> >> It has been my understanding that, under Canadian copyright law, it is >> necessary to expressly claim and register a copyright, whereas under US >> law, the courts have fairly recently held that that an author has >> an"implicit" copyright and need not register for the copyright to be >> valid. >> >> Know anything about that? >> >> -----Bob H----- > > <quoted material snipped> > ---------------------------------------- > Basic List Commands: > > 1. To post to the list > Send a message to: > [email protected] > > 2. How to unsubscribe > a. List mode: Send a message to NOVA-SCOTIA-L- > [email protected] that contains only the word > unsubscribe > > b. Digest mode: Send a message to NOVA-SCOTIA-D- > [email protected] that contains only the word > unsubscribe > > 3. How to subscribe > Send an email containing only the word > subscribe > to [email protected] > > 4. How to change to Digest mode > a. Unsubscribe from List mode (2.a. above) > b. Subscribe to Digest mode > Send an email containing only the word > subscribe > to [email protected] > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message