ownership
Protecting intellectual property
<p>I have a startup and I just sent via E-Mail some sample images to a family member who owns a small marketing and design company in the US. My parents had suggested it since we are on good terms with the person and we trust him. The images I sent are close to what the final product is intended to look like. The first e-mail I received back, within a couple of minutes after I sent mine, asked something to the likes of &quot;Do you have copyright on any of the images or the concept?&quot;</p>
<p>Obviously, I do not. It's the last piece missing in the startup. This got me thinking, however. Can he, in theory, copyright what I've sent him? Even though I created it, and he indirectly implied in the e-mail that he's not the content owner, can he attribute my own intellectual property to himself? Can he replicate what my startup does, copyright it, and make it impossible for me to build my own product? I am a Canadian citizen (residing in Canada), so I'm not sure if that makes a difference.</p>

<p>You automatically have a copyright in any copyritable things you create. So you own copyright over the pictures you sent him (as long as you created them) </p>

<p>Te question contains a misunderstanding of what copyright protects, and how it is obtained.  Under current law, in Canada and in any country signatory to the Berne convention (which includes the vast majority of all countries now on Earth), copyright is automatic as soon as a protectable work is &quot;fixed&quot;.  Writing something down, creating a drawing or painting on paper, and saving test and/or image to a computer file are all ways of fixing them. Anything sent by email has been fixed.</p>
<p>Images created by the OP <strong>are</strong> protected by copyright, and the copyright is owned by the OP unless s/he has sold or given them away or otherwise transferred the copyright. Copyright does not require registration nor the presence of a copyright notice .</p>
<p>Even if the images had been cr3eated instead by the Family member (let's call that person B), that would not allow B to prevent to startup from operating. At worst the start up would have to get different images. But ideas, concepts, and business plans cannot be protected by copyright. Inventions can be protected by patent. But most ideas and business plans are not subject to patent protection either.</p>
<p>It is possible for a person to falsely claim copyright in someone else's work. Such a claim can be challenged, it then becomes a matter of evidence. Blatant false claims are not common, because it is usually easy enough to di8sprove them, particularly in cases where the work has significant commercial value.</p>
<p>I am not sure why OP suspects that B might falsely claim copyright on OP's creations. Nothing mentioned in the question suggests that this is likely.</p>
