Acquiring Copyrights and Patents
Copyright is said to subsist in an original work of authorship. An author need not undertake any formal act—other than the act of original creation and fixation—to obtain a copyright. This applies to software as well. Any original software that is written down is automatically protected by copyright.
Formalities still may be useful. You should mark an original work with a copyright notice in the form:
© Copyright <year> <author>
Such a notice is no longer required to obtain a copyright, but it provides added protection. If you mark your software with a prominent copyright notice, a defendant can't argue that he was unaware who owned the copyright on the work. Registering a copyright isn't strictly necessary to ...
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