In my perform, I encounter this specific confusion pretty frequently - customers (and adverse parties) appear to believe that copyright applies to each a web page and its domain name. But this belief is incorrect. Here's a hassle-free, straightforward way to bear in mind it:
Copyrights are for Content material. Trademarks are for goods/services.
So, a client can claim a copyright in the content written on a blog, a internet site, and so on. Yet, you cannot claim a "copyright" in the domain name that hosts your web-site: it's not genuinely content. It could be, yet, a name linked to your goods or to a service that you supply. If so, you can claim trademark rights in that name.
[Note that these rights normally apply no matter whether you register with the Federal government or not! But registration surely assists your arguments later on, if it comes to that...]
For further information, the US Copyright Workplace webpage has a document that explains in greater detail what type of factors can get copyright protections, such as literary, musical, and dramatic works. And, likewise, the US Patent and Trademark Office (often abbreviated USPTO, or just PTO) has a document that explains trademarks in higher detail - it describes them as "a word, phrase, symbol, or style, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods [or services] of one party from those of other people...." Every US state may perhaps also present trademark or copyright registrations, ordinarily at a lower filing price, although the usefulness of nearby registrations may perhaps not be great as federal registrations.
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