Author: Christopher Hamel-Smith
Having examined how we can identify, register and use strong trademarks and domain names to support our e-commerce strategy, we now turn our attention to another species of intellectual property - copyright - that is also of great strategic value and importance in a commercial environment dominated by the Internet. Particularly since almost all types of material presented on the Web (including text, graphic images, software, sound and video) can attract copyright protection, we need to understand how to protect and exploit these valuable business assets to gain strategic advantage as we begin to conduct e-commerce.
To be protected by copyright, a work must be original (in the sense that it must be the result of our skill and labor and not a copy of another's creation) and it must be expressed in some material form, such as in writing or by recording. Once this is the case, then copyright protection arises automatically. No formal steps, such as
