Most popular frequently asked questions about copyright registration.
1. What are the advantages of copyright registration in the SciReg system for the author?
Answer: The author immediately registers his/her priority for a work, and deposits materials (or a major part of these materials) of this work. A brief description (synopsis, summary, author’s abstract) of the works becomes accessible to all visitors of the register. Hereinafter, if you decide to somehow dispose of your work – sell, lend, will if any disputable situation arises, the SciReg certificate will confirm that it is you who are the author of this work and the exact date of your registration.
2. What material can I register as the author?
Answer: Any work, the author of which you actually are. It can be a text material, drawing, invention and its description, technology, commercial idea, any text material, research article, theory, hypothesis, any music material, any program code, any graphic picture, photo, or video.
3. How safe is registration in the SciReg system? Is there any hack or deletion of the system materials possible? Is there any modification in the author’s data possible?
Answer: The registration process is absolutely secure, and any hack of the system has no sense. Copyright is not time-limited, indestructible by nature and cannot be rejected from the author. Apart from depositing and backup of files of the author’s materials, a number of bank transactions through different banks and checkout system are performed during registration. These bank accounts and checkout are absolutely independent, and their information cannot be modified either generally or separately. All transactions specify the payer’s name and part of the payer’s details, as well as the purpose of payment.
Thus, it is required for the payment to be made by a payment card, banking or electronic private account of the author. In this case, complete legal and information security will be provided.
4. Can the SciReg certificate be evidence in business, jurisdictional disputes, courts and arbitration courts?
Answer: Certainly, it can be. Moreover, in case of any dispute, the parties or court may request and receive not only a copy of the certificate and deposited materials, but also copies of these transactions.
5. If some work has several authors, what will be specified in the certificate and how are transactions (payments) made?
Answer: Authors are indicated in corresponding text fields of the author’s form to be filled in on a corresponding page. The only difference is that the payment should be made from the banking account of any declared author. However, it is strongly recommended that the authors of such material enter into an additional agreement in any legitimate written form. This agreement should be also deposited in the SciReg system as a separate registered file with corresponding annotation.
6. Is any unfair registration possible, i.e. somebody not being the author of the work maliciously registers this work under his/her name?
Answer: Theoretically, it is possible but it has no practical sense since unfair registration itself forms an element of crime, which is easy to prove. By performing unfair registration, the person not being the actual author of the work acknowledges the fact of crime, which implies penalties established by the judicial and legal system of the country, where the court proceeding will be held.
7. When the author registers his/her work, he/she receives a certificate, and if later it turns out that a person unknown to the author registers in the SciReg system, or otherwise registers entirely or essentially similar work at an earlier date, what will legal implications look like?
Answer: The priority will belong to the author, who has registered his/her material earlier. The SciReg system does not analyze the content of materials submitted for registration. The SciReg system registers the exact date, name and other details of the author, and deposits his/her work (or its part). The SciReg system is not designed to compare any author’s materials.
8. Is copyright registration a substitution for patenting?
Answer: Copyright registration ensures absolute information security of the author against any malicious attempts to use the results of his/her work without his/her consent. Copyright registration in the SciReg system enables the author to carry out any operations with his/her material – sell, transfer, store, will, etc. Copyright (or scientific, technical, artistic priority) remains with the author forever. The author may dispose of his/her material in any manner on a simple contractual basis. The patent right regulates copyright only partially as regards to commercial use of the author’s product.
9. Somebody has registered my work earlier than me and has indentified himself/herself as the author. How can I prove my authorship?
Answer: First, perform your own registration in the SciReg system, and immediately apply to the court. Your evidence, certificate and other documents of the SciReg system, as well as your personal evidence of authorship – rough copies, earlier published materials on the subject, other evidence in your disposal that prove your position will be submitted to the court. Also, your opponent’s materials, i.e. documents of the SciReg system will be submitted to the court. In this case, the court will detect evident and proved elements of crime in the activities of your opponent, and inflict penalty for the guilty party in accordance with the legislation of the suitor court’s country.
10. What is the meaning of the RIA index in the SciReg system – revolutionary index, and what effect does it have on copyright?
Answer: The RIA index has no effect on the author’s right or displaying of his/her materials on the website. It is an indirect measure that represents subjective evaluation by moderators of registered materials. On the other part, the RIA index in the SciReg system provides preselection according to the revolutionary degree / confirmation level of registered materials.
11. How can I sell/grant/will my copyright to another person? How can I do it?
Answer: You can only dispose of the product – material registered in the SciReg system using any methods that you consider appropriate. Usually, it is done under a simple contractual law and in accordance with the legislation of the country, where the concluded contract is executed.
12. Can I block the access to the main material of my work and make free access only to the description made by the author (synopsis, summary, author’s abstract) or entirely hide my publication from displaying?
Answer: Certainly, the author is entitled to dispose of his/her material in any manner. You can also block the access to it. However, we recommend to make the description open for public so in future authors working in similar areas would be able to get acquainted with him/her and would avoid duplication of materials.
13. If I’ve created a graphic picture, for example a logo, trademark or some other graphic object, do I have to draw up its description or it is sufficient to publish a preview? If I’ve created a piece of music, should I deposit a musical notation or an archived music file will be enough?
Answer: Both for graphics and pieces of music and in addition to the preview, we strongly recommend making a simple and concise textual description, which will be indexed by our search engine designed for texts only.
Any commonly used JPG, GIF format can be used as an image preview; the preview size should not exceed 100 Kb. It will be enough to publish a part of your work at low bitrate as a preview for your piece of music; its size should not exceed 100 Kb.
If you have a music record at high bitrate, you can deposit an archive; its size should not exceed 7 MB.
For graphics – any graphic format or archive that you consider appropriate; its size should not exceed 7 MB.
14. I’ve created a website content or article for a magazine, or image for a broadcast. It has been made for the customer on a commercial basis – how will the SciReg system assist me in protecting my rights in case of the customer’s unfairness?
Answer: The SciReg system is quite effective in such cases. Whatever breaches of the contract on the part of your customer are, your copyright registered in the SciReg system will be completely protected. And your customer has no right to use somehow the author’s material till you (author) and your customer come to a mutual agreement. In case of a proved breach of your copyright (use of your own product, in full or in part, without your consent), there will be a very serious situation of legal liability to you as regards to unauthorized use of the author’s materials with appropriate compensations in your favor.
15. Can I sell my author’s materials (inventions, images, discoveries) using your resource?
Answer: A properly composed name and a description facilitate the interest of potential customers or clients. Also, we recommend providing true contact details for potential clients or investors to contact you. If you do not want to make free access to your contact data, potential clients can communicate to the SciReg system about their interests in the author’s material, and the SciReg system will provide transfer of the customer’s contact information to the author. This service is free.
16. Can I register in the SciReg system my copyright on photographic images, photo collection, video material, music file?
Answer: Yes, of course. However, because of the specifics of the object itself, there is no sense in depositing a full-size (full resolution) material in the SciReg system, a preview will be enough. The registration in the SciReg system will enable you to immediately send confirmation of your authorship to the customer or any third party.
17. What is the maximum volume of the deposited material?
Answer: The maximum volume of the deposited material is 7 MB. We recommend using RAR, ZIP, 7ZIP archivers to accelerate the uploading process and reduce the volume of the deposited material.
18. What is the maximum volume of the description (synopsis, summary, author’s abstract)?
Answer: The maximum volume of the description is 1,000 characters. In case of graphic files, photos, videos, it is advisable to upload a preview file in addition to the description. A properly made description will assist other users, as well as your potential customers, to find your material much easier.
19. How should I name my material correctly?
Answer: Think thoroughly of the name for your material. The name size should not exceed 100 symbols, and should exactly represent the content of the author’s material. The name cannot be changed at a later stage.
20. Can I modify the description of my material later?
Answer: Yes, you can enter the control panel using your own account and modify the description of any material of yours. A new description will be activated after additional confirmation by E-mail.
21. In case of the author’s death or incapacity confirmed by a court decision, how will the right of inheritance be transferred as regards to copyright?
Answer: Inheritance, as well as transfer of rights from the incapable person is carried out in accordance with the existing property law of the author’s country, and in accordance with the legislation of this country.
22. In what formats are the author’s materials accepted for depositing in the SciReg system?
Answer: Author’s materials up to 1 MB are accepted for depositing in uncompressed form, materials of bigger size – in RAR, ZIP, 7ZIP archives except for any program codes (including fragments). They are accepted only in RAR, ZIP, 7ZIP formats irrespective of their size.
23. Is any leakage of critical scientific, creative information possible to third parties during copyright registration?
Answer: The SciReg system ensures absolute confidentiality and operational efficiency during registration of the author’s material. The user is entitled not only to block free access to the author’s material; he/she is also entitled to carry out any type of coding or other cryptoprotection of the registered material. The SciReg system will store the material description prepared by the author, and his/her registration data, as well as main characteristics of the uploaded material – file size, registration date, transaction data. Traditional patenting, scientific publication, and patent examining are quite prolonged and complicated procedures, when many people somehow gain access to the author’s information, and may use the author’s materials for malicious purposes.
24. Additional information about general copyright and patent right.
Answer: The SciReg certificate entirely protects the author’s exclusive intellectual property right.
The exclusive right to the author’s work appears by virtue of its creation by the author. Issuance of the SciReg certificate is a voluntary and formal procedure. During the registration process, the application is checked for its conformance to the formal requirements, and the author’s material is registered if the form is filled in properly.
Copyright is valid for 70 years after the author’s death. The patent is issued for a period of 8 to 20 years. In most cases, you cannot extend the validity of your patent.
Patent right and copyright similarity and difference.
1. Copyright does not protect the idea; it protects the form of its implementation (scenario, artwork, computer program, opera, etc.). A patent right protects technical implementation of the idea, operational principle, and methods to achieve the result.
2. A patent right is valid on a certain territory (patent registered in one country has no force in some other country and vice versa). Copyright protects intellectual property everywhere.
3. For patent right objects (inventions, useful models, industrial prototypes), the decisive characteristics are modernity, inventive level, industrial applicability, and possibility for serial production whereas for copyright objects – patent (one object is created independently and irrespective of others).
25. Who can be considered as the author?
Answer: The author is a physical person, who has used his/her creative labor to create the work.
26. What is considered to be a copyright object?
Answer: Copyright objects are works of science, literature and art being the result of creative activities irrespective of their purpose or merits, expression methods, as well as derivatives of such works (translations, adaptations, annotations, abridgements, summaries, reviews, stage versions, arrangements, and other revisions of the works of science, literature and art) and collections (encyclopaedias, anthologies, data bases) and other aggregate works representing the result of creative labor by selection or arrangement of materials.
Copyright covers materials made open or not made open to the public, in case they exist in some objective form.
Copyright covers ideas, methods, processes, systems, methods, concepts, principles, discoveries, facts, messages about events and facts of information nature.
27. What does the symbol © mean and what is its status?
Answer: The symbol © is an integral part of the copyright mark consisting of the following three elements:
* symbol ©;
* name of the owner of the exclusive copyright;
* date of the first publication.
The owner of the exclusive copyright is not obliged to include the copyright mark in each copy of his/her publication. Absence of © does not mean that this publication has no author or that it (its elements) can be used freely.