How to Copyright Your Work in Canada

When you create an original work, copyright is secured automatically and your protection extends outside of Canada as long as that country is covered under an international copyright treaty, which the US is.

To help protect your work, it is recommended that you mark your work with the copyright symbol, the date and your name, and, for $50 online fee, register it using the Copyright Registration form.

Infringement, of course, has taken place when some unoriginal thief copies your work, even just in part. (According to the Copyright Act , it isn't infringement if someone copies your work to review it, criticize it, report it in some news form, or uses it for private study.)

If someone has copied your work (which has happened to me numerous times and is very frustrating, especially when done blatantly by competitors) you can send them a cease and desist letter.  A registered letter is best but you can also send registered email though Point of Mail.  If that doesn't resolve the problem, you will have to take the offender to court.  You can sue for lost profits or for damages.  In addition, the offender can face fines up to $1 million and up to five years in jail. 

NOTE: You can sign up for an account with Copysentry to receive notification if someone has copied your material onto their web site!  You can also do a free search at Copyscape where you enter in the URL address of your web site page that you are curious about and it will search the web to find your text on anyone else's site!