Dispelling Common Misconceptions about Copyright.  Guest post by Cait Doyle.

If you have created valuable intellectual property, a good copyright could mean the difference between being a wealthy individual and being like the funny pirates singing on the credit report commercial. First off, do not confuse a copyright with a patent. According to copyright.gov, the difference is that a copyright is a form of protection over the things you create, giving ownership to things such as artwork, music, and novels while a patent protects discoveries and inventions. Section 106 of the 1976Copyright Act details the types of intellectual property covered under a copyright. Second: the moment your work is published or  “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” (Section 101 of the 1976 Copyright Act), it is considered copyrighted. This means that it is not technically required to register with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to be protected. What many people don’t realize is that there are some very good reasons why you should go ahead and do so anyway:o  You will have an official certificate of registration  If you wait 5 years after your work has been published, you lose your presumption of the right to secure a copyright registration.  If you wish to sue someone for infringement, you are required to have a registered copyright and if you don’t possess one at the time, it could complicate the process of enforcement.  Copyrights are money:  biztaxlaw.com reports that if you do have a copyright case go to court, from a body of work for which you had a previously registered copyright, you may be eligible for statutory damages (things like attorney fees and the court costs incurred) as opposed to simply damages. Whether or not you decide to register, you should consider adding the © –an internationally known symbol meaning that the work is copyrighted– to anything and everything you post on the world wide web. Follow this how-to for creating the symbol on any type of computer, or for any medium.