Copyright protects creative works. In modern
law, copyright is automatic, but registering your copyright with the government
may give additional benefits. Copyright includes the right to control who makes
copies (thus the name), but also the right to make derivative works — new works
that are not identical to the original, but are based on it.
Copyright lasts for the life of the author + 50
years or more, depending on country. If the author is a corporation, it lasts
50 years (again, or more, depending on country). In the US, these are life + 75
years and 95 years, respectively.
Copyright does not apply to individual words,
names, titles, or short phrases; it’s considered that if these could be
copyrighted, it would be too restrictive. Being able to keep anyone else from
using a certain word, for example, could stifle speech to far too great a
degree.
That’s where trademarks come in. A trademark is
something that identifies a product, company, or brand in trade. You can
trademark a word, name, title, or phrase… but trademark rights are much more limited than copyrights. First off, trademarks
only apply in a limited field. For example, if I trademark “The Big Beef” for
my hypothetical restaurant, I have to specify what areas I’m trademarking it
in. Food services, of course, but I might also trademark it for apparel, if I’m
planning on selling t-shirts with that on them.
Trademarks can also be geographically limited.
That’s why there can be a “Joe’s Garage” in one town, and a different “Joe’s
Garage” in another. Each can hold the trademark in the area where they engage
in trade.
Engagement in trade is a big part of having a
trademark. In the US, even if you register your trademark, if six years go by
and you haven’t actually used it in trade, it lapses. If you do use it, your
registration lasts for 10 years, but can be renewed as long as you keep using
the mark.
So, trademarks can last longer than copyrights…
but if you stop using them, then they go away fairly quickly.
Lastly, you can lose a trademark for failing to
defend it. If other people use your trademark, and you don’t tell them to stop,
you can be assumed to have given up the trademark. You can’t lose copyrights in
this way.
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