From Copyright Witness:
We receive a large number of enquiries and these often highlight a number of common misconceptions and misunderstandings about copyright law. The following attempts to dispel the ‘top 10’ copyright myths.
1. Copyright can protect my ideas
Copyright applies to a recorded work, it cannot apply to something as intangible as an idea. Within certain fields, (such as inventions) it may be possible to apply for a patent.
Because copyright applies to the actual recorded work – documents, music, artwork, etc., if a competitor used your copyright work, (i.e. copied or adapted your promotional literature or stole content from your website to promote their own product), this would be an infringement and you could certainly take action, but there is little you can do to prevent someone else creating their own work based on a similar idea as long as they are not copying your work to do so.
2. I can copyright a name or title
Copyright laws are actually very restrictive, and do not apply to items such as names and titles that may be duplicated coincidentally, or that may be legitimately used in unrelated instances.
From a copyright perspective, there is no reason why two works cannot have the same title. As long as the content of works themselves are not copied or adapted, no infringement has occurred.
This does NOT mean that there is no protection on the name, as it may be covered by other legislation: If the name was a trademark, or if it could be proved that that use of the title misleads or confuses the public, (this is know as ‘passing off’), then there can be issues.
While copyright will apply from the point a work is created, ‘passing off’ is based on the public perception of what the name implies, (i.e. you have a very clear idea of what you expect to be given if you ask for a ‘Coca-Cola’).
For further reading on this subject please see our fact sheet: P-18: Names, titles and copyright
3. I can simply post a copy to myself as proof of copyright
This method (sometimes called ‘poor man’s copyright’), may help in some cases, but it is extremely poor evidence as it is very easy to fake – for example by replacing the actual materials inside at a later date.
The main problem if you send your work to yourself via courier or the postal service (including recorded/tracked and signed for services) or use any other system which requires you to store the work yourself, is that there is no verifiable evidence to say that the contents have not been swapped.
For more on this, our page dealing with poor man‘s copyright and other ‘alternatives’ may be worth a look.
Link to the rest at m Copyright Witness