: Re: How can I get a copyright for my e-book? As I'm a new writer, I don't know how to get copyright for my first book. Could anyone help me please? My book is an e-book in E-Pub format.

@Debbie451

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The ownership of the copyright is de facto attributed to the author as
he creates the work.

However, you may have to prove that you are the author against
possible claims by someone else. All means that can prove your
authorship are appropriate. You can register it with a public notary,
or you can publish an unforgeable signature (SHA1) on the Internet and
manage to have it stored by the Internet archive. Or you can publish
that signature as a classified ad in a newspaper (some corporations
did that). What is important is to have a date officialised when you
were the only one (plus your trusted ones) to know the content of the
book. Publishing may do that too, if you intend to go through a
professional publisher, which not everyone does any longer.

If your book is published in the USA first, you need to register it
with the US copyright office if you want to be able to sue copyright
infringers in the USA (article 411 of copyright law). You can register at any time, but it has to be before the infringement started if you seek statutory damages or attorney fees (article 412 of copyright law). Registration does
not grant you the copyright (you already have it) but it grants the right to sue
to whoever owns the copyright (it can be sold).

However if you publish first in another country, you can sue copyright
violations in the USA without registering (as a consequence of the Berne
Convention). However, you cannot claim damage or attorney fees if you
had not registered before the infringement started.

Note that it is the country of first publication that matters, not the
nationality of the author, or the country where it was written, or the
language used. So, for an e-book, try to make it available in another country first, so that it is better protected in the USA, strange as it may seem. This works for US citizens too.

In all other countries (member of one of the major treaties on intellectual property), afaik, you can simply sue all copyright
violations, and with at least the same legal protections as local
citizens (even when they are subjects). There is no registration formality.

A last point is that copyright violation is not the same as
plagiarism. Copyright violation is duplicating your book without your
consent. Plagiarism is pretending to be the author of your book, or of
parts of your book.

Authorship is a moral right, independent from copyright. You can sell
your copyright, in whole or in parts. But authorship remains with the
author. It is protected by article 6bis of the Berne Convention. You can sue for plagiarism even when you do not own the copyright, but the specifics are country dependent.

IANAL - this is no advice and I am not a lawyer ... I probably do not even exist.

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