who can claim a copyright?

Answer 1

Copyright is an automatic process, there's no procedure to go through. As soon as you create something in tangible form you are the copyright holder to it - a book, a painting, a website, a photo, even a shopping list scrawled on the back of an envelope.

In most countries copyright exists for the lifetime of the author and 70 years thereafter. In the US it's for 95 years (it used to be 75 until the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act).

Complications can arise when trying to prove copyright - someone may copy another's work and claim it as their own. To avoid this registration can be useful, copyrighted works can be registered at the Library of Congress.

Copyright can be ascribed to another person by the original copyright holder.

An interesting issue concerns the production of derivative works. For example, someone may make a drawing of a painting hanging in a gallery, the drawing is a derivative and the copyright of the drawing also belngs to the artist of the original work (unless agreed to the contrary beforehand).

Answer 2

Basically: you write, you owned the right automatically. You can publised it to make sure everyone knows about what you write. Written works have a lifespan of 60 years copyright. eg. you can take shakepeare's work because he's been dead for hundreds years. Intellectual copyright eg. you discover a way to make an apple always fresh and never get rot. is country by country. Patent and trademark are another issues.

Answer 3

Only the person who has legally obtained the copyright to the material. It doesn't matter who the original creator is, it's who holds the copyright.

Good luck!

Answer 4

all answers contained in this question are protected by united states copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of the almighty © or in the case of third party answers, the owner of that response. you may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the question and/or answer.

Answer 5

Anyone the material to be copyrighted belongs to.

Age doesn't matter, either.

Answer 6

Anyone who creates an intellectual property or buys the rights off the creator.

Answer 7

Any producer of an original work of any kind, that isn't considered already public domain or common knowledge.