Copyright is a protection that covers published and unpublished literary, scientific and artistic work, whatever the form of expression, provided such work is fixed in a tangible or material form. This means that if you can see it, hear it and/or touch it - it may be protected. Whether it is an essay or a play or a song or even a funky original dance move or a photograph, HTML coding, a computer graphic that can be set on paper, recorded on tape or saved to a hard drive, it can be protected. Copyright laws grant the creator the exclusive right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display the work publicly. "Exclusive" means, that only the creator of such work, and not anybody else, who has access to it, can publish or distribute it.

There are no "international copyrights" that enable you to protect your work throughout the world. However, Ukraine is a member of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), which allow the protection of works in countries of which you are not a citizen or national. Under these treaties, the following works may be protected:

•

both unpublished and published works of an author who is a national or resident of a country that is a member of these treaties

•

published works, with permission, of an author who is not a national or resident of a country that is a member of these treaties. In this case a work may be considered simultaneously published in several countries if it has been published in two or more Berne Union countries within 30 days of its first publication.

To benefit from the above protection, there are no formal requirements established in the Berne Convention other than having the author's name on the work. Under the UCC, a copyright notice is required. This notice should consist of the copyright symbol "©" accompanied by the year of first publication and the name of the copyright owner, for example: Copyright © 2002 John Smith. This notice is to be placed in such manner and location as to give reasonable notice of the claim to copyright.