Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: My Idea

You're talking about apples and oranges with registering a URL and copyrighting the content of a website.

To register a URL, go to the website of a web registrar (www.register.com; www.squiggout.com; www.godaddy.com; www.netsolutions.com; others also exist (these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head). Yahoo has web registry services and I think Google does too). Register your website and pay the registrar's registration fee.

You'll also need a web hoster to host the website. Many of the registrars can do that for you -- again for a fee.

Rights to a URL are worldwide rights: no one else in the world can register the same name as you have registered, and you can register more than one name.

To register copyright, you must print off the content of your site and send the printout (or a CD containing the website's files) to the Copyright Office in the country(ies) where you want to obtain full copyright protection, along with the fee charged by that office. Copyright is geographically constrained; it is good only in the country(ies) where it is registered.

A DBA has nothing to do with any of this. That is another name for a sole proprietorship business form. You register that with your county (and pay the county's fee). It is good only in the county (not country or even state; county) in which you register the DBA.

For help with these several processes, please call my office for an appointment.

THE INFORMATION PRESENTED HERE IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND IS NOT INTENDED, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSTRUED, AS LEGAL ADVICE. THIS POSTING DOES NOT CREATE ANY ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN US. FOR SPECIFIC ADVICE ABOUT YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION, CONSULT YOUR ATTORNEY.