Make Your Mark - The Historical Import of Copyright & Trademark

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"Faster than the speed of dark."

- Garfield Arbuckle

Copyright and trademark are widely understood as legal protections from theft and plagiarism, but there are more important and longer-lasting implications.

The production of media has come full circle. When the printing press was invented, creation and distribution of media began its journey from an individual act to a collective work. During the modern age entire corporations were created for the purposes of publishing media. As with any bureaucracy, these corporations developed and maintained standards and practices which became rote actions. Today, more and more media is being produced and distributed by individuals once more. Many musicians no longer rely on existing companies maintaining relationships with retailers and distributors, but prefer cutting out the "middlemen" by delivering their work directly to their audience. As a result, many of the rote behaviors of these corporations are skipped, overlooked or ignored by independent publishers.

Most of the admonitions towards copyright and trademark I have read appeal to a sense of profitability and protection, but I don't think these are the most important considerations when evaluating copyright. There are certainly financial and legal implications, but these are temporary considerations whose importance are as transitory as our individual existence. The US Copyright Office is a division of the Library of Congress. To focus on copyright as solely a financial necessity is to ignore copyright registration's role in posterity and the historical record. Worse, this myopic view may encourage producers and creators to avoid copyrighting materials made for non-profitary reasons. It doesn't matter if you intend to sell your work, you should register everything you create.

Registration with the Library of Congress is an official placement in the historical record of the United States. The Library of Congress's goal is to have at least one copy of every piece of media ever created. This is, of course, an unachievable goal - but in this case the attempt is more important than completion. The motivations for this goal are varied and include historical and social reasoning as well as goals of business. Copyright and trademark have limits defined by the lifetime of a media's creator, and are intended to protect an people's ability to profit from the fruits of their labor and encourage creative activity. Registration with the Library of Congress, however, continues beyond the reach of copyright law and becomes an offering to the future.

In short, register your work. Not just to protect yourself, but to improve future generations' understanding of us and our piece of history.