This is the WBZ Book Club. I'm Jordan Rich. I'm often asked the
question, how come there are so many books with the same title. Well,
if you're writing a book and have an idea for a title, you
might think you can copyright it. Well you cannot, but you can trademark
it. Copyrights protect original works of authorship, including books, plays, movies,
music, poetry, song, computer, software, and architecture. Trademarks,
on the other hand, protect words, symbols, phrases, and or
designs that set apart the goods of one party from those of others, and
a service mark is the same thing for services. Another big difference between copyrights
and trademarks is that you can have copyright protection as soon as your work is
published, but you have to register and get approval to have trademark protection.
So book titles are among the list of things that cannot be copyrighted. Titles
aren't considered intellectual property, but are only short phrases not eligible for copyright.
I'll have more on the copyright versus trademark issue coming up, and there's a
whole list of other things besides titles you cannot copyright. That's the book Club
WBZ Boston's news radio