Legal Question in Technology Law in Maryland

Re: Copy Rights

Unfortunately, a full response to your questions would require volumes of space. Generally, you should understand that any time a person creates a "work" by expressing it in some medium (whether it is a written work on paper, a sculpture, a movie, a web-page) that creator owns certain "copyrights" automatically as a matter of both statutory and common law. However, in order to protect those rights fully (meaning prevent others from using the "work" without permission) the "work" should be registered with the copyright office, and all publications of the work should be marked with the (c) symbol that warns the world that the work is protected by copyrights.

With regard to using other people's copyrighted material, as a general rule you should seek permission before using copyrighted material. Although there are exceptions to this general rule, space will not permit me to do any justice to discussing them in this message.

Unfortunately, this area of the law is both complex and rapidly changing (particularly as regards the internet). I am not going to be able to do any justice to answering the remainder of your questions in this response.

Fortunately, you can obtain much information on this issue from the web site of the United States Copyright Office (I don't have the web address handy, but if you do a search you'll find it -- it will probably give you good basic answers to most of your questions.)

Of course, I am available if you would like to retain me to provide further assistance with these issues.

Lawrence R. Holzman, Esquire

Joseph, Greenwald & Laake, P.A.

6404 Ivy Lane, Suite 400

Greenbelt, MD 20770

(301) 220-2200

fax (301) 220-1214

Disclaimer: Please note that the posting of this response is not intended to constitute legal advice. You should contact an attorney to obtain information applicable to your situation. This posting is not confidential or privileged and does not create an attorney/client relationship.