Copyright protection is automatic

You do not apply for copyright in Australia, and there is no system of registration here. Nor are there any forms to fill in, or fees to be paid.

You do not need to publish your work, put a copyright notice on it, or do anything else before your work is covered by copyright – the protection is free and automatic, from the time a work is first written down or recorded in some way. For example, as soon as a poem is written, or a song is recorded, it is protected.

The “copyright notice” and “©”

The copyright notice consists of the symbol ©, followed by the name of the copyright owner and the year of first publication: for example, “© Gus O’Donnell 1968”. For sound recordings, the letter “P” (for phonogram) in a circle or in brackets is used instead of the “C” in a circle.

The “copyright notice” does not need to be on something to ensure that it is protected by copyright in Australia or in most other countries, but it does remind people that the work may be protected. It also lets people know who is claiming copyright.

Copyright owners can put the notice on their work themselves; there is no formal procedure.

Generally, while there is no legal problem under Australian law in using a pseudonym or “nom de plume” in a copyright notice, you should use your real name. As one well-known commentator has stated, “the use of a pseudonym would frustrate the intent ... of making traceable the copyright proprietor” (Arpad Bogsch, The Law of Copyright under the Universal Convention, Sijthoff, Leydon, 1972, p. 28).

If a company owns copyright, the copyright notice should include the name of the company. However, if someone trades under a business name, the correct name to put in the copyright notice is not the business name but the names of the relevant individual or individuals. The reason for this is that copyright is a form of property, and a business name is not a legal entity, and therefore cannot own property; only individuals and incorporated bodies such as companies can own property (including copyright). You could, however, use a formulation such as “© Bob Jobs t/as Jobs4U 1983”, where the “t/as” indicates that at that time Mr Jones was “trading as” that particular business name.

If you are regularly updating a work (such as material on a website, or a computer program), you can include all the years from first publication to the present: for example, “© Gus O’Donnell 1998–2007”.
Sometimes you will see the words “All rights reserved” as well as, or instead of, the copyright notice. This is not necessary under Australian law, nor in most other countries. However, if the first publication of your work will be in a country outside Australia, you should seek advice from a solicitor with the relevant expertise.
How do I prove I’m the copyright owner if there’s no registration system?
If there’s a dispute about who created something protected by copyright, it may need to be resolved by a court. A court would look at all the relevant evidence. The most important evidence would usually be oral evidence from the creator and from people who saw the material being created or who saw early copies. Other evidence may include drafts of the work.

Such cases are, however, extremely rare.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, someone who goes to court claiming they own copyright when they don’t runs very large financial risks, as they might have to pay not only compensation but also both their own and the other side’s legal costs. Second, there are provisions in the Copyright Act which allow people who have been groundlessly threatened with copyright infringement to take action against the person making the threat. Third, if someone claims in court that they have created a copyright work when they haven’t, they risk perjury charges (a criminal charge for lying to the court).

More:

• Protecting your copyright
  
• Copyright protection in other countries
  

More on introduction to copyright