Protecting Intellectual Property: Copyright and Trademark - podcast

Intellectual property issues can be confusing, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there. As an author, here are some basic concepts you should understand: copyright and trademark. In this interview, Dana Newman, intellectual property attorney, describes the facts about copyright and trademark for authors, including what a copyright is, why it’s important, and how a trademark is different than a copyright. She also discusses the current state of online file sharing and what you can do to protect your book. Copyright is the legal principle that is intended to prevent your book from being copied and distributed by another party. Trademarks and service marks protect a product or a service. For example, if you’re writing a series of books, you may want to protect the series title with a service mark. Based on the struggles of the music industry in recent years, it’s easy to see that illegal file sharing is difficult to prevent. There is still much to debate and learn about the best practices in intellectual property protection, including the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM). There aren’t any perfect solutions, but as an author, you should be aware of these issues.