At EPI the professor explained to us how easy it is to register a work on the US Copyright Office website so after hearing this, I decided to explore the website myself. I was surprised to learn that for only $35 someone could file a basic claim online and it only takes about 2.5 months to process online. In my mind, I always expected copyrighting to not only be a long process, but also an expensive one. Before visiting the website, it also never crossed my mind that copyrights in the US are recognized in many other countries and vice versa. After looking at this website, I also got to thinking about patents. Unlike copyrights, patents require lawyers. Having to hire a lawyer not only makes a patent more expensive than a copyright, but I would think it would also increase the length of time it takes to acquire one. We put a great deal of value on our belongings and property, so I would think that if more people were to recognize how easy and cheap it is to file a claim for a copyright, more would do so.
It is interesting that the cost is so low and a fairly speedy process. I wonder if more people knew this then they would be more inclined to register works. Maybe the United States copyright does not want it to be well known that it is easy to file a claim because they could end up with an incredibly high number of claims for smaller works.
It is interesting that there is a discrepancy in the price of different intellectual property. Copyright, as you mentioned, is not very expensive, but patents tend to be much pricier. The professor at the EPI mentioned that patents require lawyers, which drives up the cost. Does the cost of establishing intellectual property reflect on the value we put on the property itself?
That is a very interesting question. My dad is a patent lawyer and it is interesting to see how his job changes over time as the technological landscape changes. In fact, there was a new law which stated that a patent was owned by the first to patent not the first to invent as previously granted. In the past if an inventor could prove that they actually invented something before the patent holder then they could gain the patent. This new law provides an enormous advantage to larger firms that have more money to put towards patents.
I was extremely surprised with the low cost to copy write a piece of work. This makes me wonder why more people do not choose to copy write their work. Do they just not know the cost? Or is it really more expensive than the website states? The comments above mention how lawyers become necessary and I wonder if maybe that is why so many people chose to not copy write their work.