How to Copyright T-Shirt Designs for Your Ecommerce Business

When creating designs for a t-shirt business many people take into consideration how copyrights and trademarks will affect their designs. Whether you’re worried about other people stealing your designs or about infringing on the designs of others, information surrounding intellectual property can be confusing, overwhelming, and intimidating. This article will discuss the differences between copyrights and trademarks, how your designs will be protected, and how you can protect yourself from possible infringement.

Let’s dive in to learn more about how to copyright t-shirt designs.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is the right of a creator to control who can copy their work whether by print, photograph, audio recording, or in any other way. It’s actually a basic human right that’s protected by the universal declaration of human rights.

Copyright exists to stimulate and encourage artists and creators to produce original works. Without copyright, there would be no convincing incentive to create outstanding works of art or literature since it would be easy to copy others’ ideas and receive full credit for it. The fundamental right to copyright is very important for cultural development and growth and due to this, most countries take copyright very seriously and handle infringements through their court of law.

What Does Copyright Protect?

Copyright protects “works”. Works include but are not limited to books, poems, songs, photography, software, designs, etc., and are essentially any original creation that could be copied by others.

A creator automatically has the copyright to any work they create, whether it’s published or not. They don’t have to legally register their claim, although it is possible to do so and advisable in some cases to have copyright legally recognized and documented. In most cases, however, it’s not necessary to legally register a copyright. Creators also don’t have to use the copyright symbol to protect their work. In the past,…