Legal Easel

Protect your copyright by registering it promptly with the U.S. Copyright Office.

There is no direct copyright protection for a “character” as such. Representations of characters—the images themselves or the written work in which they are portrayed—can be protected.

No. Although this myth has persisted for years, mailing your work to yourself, whether by registered mail or any other “authorized” or “certified” method, does not protect your copyright in any way. Registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office protects your work.

No. But placing a copyright notice on a work that has already been registered can affect what damages can be recovered in a copyright infringement suit.

Infringement is the use of a copyrighted work–copying, reproducing, distributing, or displaying, or making a new work based on the original–without the permission of the copyright owner.

A trademark is used to indicate the source of goods or services in commerce. A mark which applies to goods is called a trademark; a mark which applies to services is called a service mark.

A company or product name, a logo, a character, or even a color or a sound can be considered a trademark.

A trademark indicates the source of goods or services. A copyright protects the expression of an idea in a tangible form.

Sometimes. A logo, for example, is an image which can be protected by copyright. When the logo is used to indicate the source of goods or services—that is, to represent or indicate the company which provides those goods or services—it may be trademarked in addition to being copyrighted. The holder of the copyright to the image and the owner of the trademark may or may not be the same.

A trademark can be obtained simply by using the mark in commerce, but while use may create a claim to a mark, the mark is not well protected by use alone.