Hi all. Just wanted to make the issue just a little bit clearer for anyone that is confused about copyrights. Because I write poems and have done research a long time ago, I know just a tad bit about copyrights.
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of
original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the
subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description;
it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
And yes, you can search a database of patents, trademarks etc. This is the best site to go to for information concerning copyrights, trademarks, servicemarks and patents.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#ptsc
People do tend to use the word copyright loosely as a scare tactic. Education is the key. If you stole her pic from her site and put it on yours, then I would be alarmed. Other than that, there's no
patent on the cheeseburger cupcake
