In Canada, a work is protected by copyright law the moment it is created and fixed in a material form. Registering your work with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is voluntary, but can be beneficial.
The certificate of registration is evidence that copyright subsists in the work and that the person registered is the owner of the copyright. This evidence may, however, be challenged in a court proceeding. To register your work, please click here.
Marking a work with the copyright symbol is not mandatory under Canadian copyright law but some other countries do require it. The copyright notice consists of the symbol ©, the name of the copyright owner and the year of first publication.
Including a copyright notice serves as a general reminder to everyone that the work is protected by copyright. You can use this symbol even if the work is not registered.
You should also ensure you contain a notice on your website to protect your content from generative AI tools. See the example below from the New York Times:
“The contents of the Services, including the Site, are intended for your personal, non-commercial use. All materials published or available on the Services (including, but not limited to text, photographs, images, illustrations, designs, audio clips, video clips, “look and feel,” metadata, data, or compilations, all also known as the “Content”) are protected by copyright, and owned or controlled by The New York Times Company or the party credited as the provider of the Content. The New York Times Company also owns copyright in the selection, coordination, compilation, and enhancement of such Content (“Arrangement”). You shall abide by all additional copyright notices, information, or restrictions contained in any Content accessed through the Service. Non-commercial use does not include the use of Content without prior written consent from The New York Times Company in connection with: (1) the development of any software program, model, algorithm, or other generative AI tool, including, but not limited to, training or using the Content in connection with the development or operation of a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system (including any use of the Content for training, fine tuning, or grounding the machine learning or AI system or as part of retrieval-augmented generation); or (2) providing archived or cached data sets containing Content to another person or entity.”
