by admin on December 30, 2010
Having a business run from the home can be a great thing. It can keep your overhead extremely low and may easily help the start-up of a part time business grow into a full time business. Here are a few hints in keeping your home-based business productive and legal.
TELEPHONE
You can have a separate business telephone line installed in your house. While a business line can be a bit more expensive than a residential line, it offers some advantages. If you have a business telephone line, your business name will be listed in the white pages as well as a basic listing in the yellow pages. One of the issues that home-based business often face is one of “legitimacy” – are you really a business, or someone just dabbling. Being in the business pages can be very helpful in having people find you. There are internet directories that people can search for business listings in an area. Also, you can get the feature of phone forwarding, and if you are in and out a great deal, the phone can be forwarded to a cell phone, for example, so that you can answer your calls whether you are in the office or not.
THINGS THAT CAN GET YOU INTO TROUBLE
Often, communities are reactive in terms of problems with home-based businesses. That means they are not out seeking violations, but will respond to citizen and neighbor complaints. The ordinances are written to protect the neighborhood – to make sure that a home-based business does not take away from a residential area and turn it into a commercial property or street.
ZONING
Every community has rules on home-based businesses. Cities and towns call these home occupation ordinances, so when you call City Hall, you’ll get to the right people faster if you use that phrase. For cities and larger communities, there may be a separate zoning department.
TRAFFIC
While a once a day delivery from the postal service may not be a problem, if you have a constant stream of deliveries or clients coming to and from your home, that would be an issue.
by admin on December 28, 2010
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
• To reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phone records (recordings).
• To prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.
• To distribute copies or phone records of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
• To perform the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial graphic or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, and sound recordings and architectural works.
WHO CAN CLAIM COPYRIGHT?
Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form; that is, it is an incident of the process of authorship. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created it. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author.
WHAT WORKS ARE PROTECTED?
Copyright protects “original works of authorship” that are fi xed in:
• Literary works
• Musical works, including any accompanying words
• Dramatic works, including any accompanying music
• Pantomimes and choreographic works
• Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
• Motion pictures and other audiovisual works
• Sound recordings
• Architectural works
These categories should be viewed quite broadly: for example, computer programs and most “compilations” are registrable as “literary works”; maps and architectural plans are registrable as “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works.
” WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT? Several categories of material are generally not eligible for Federal copyright protection. These include among others:
• Works that have not been fi xed in a tangible form of expression. For example: choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded.
• Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents.
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration.
• Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship. For example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rules, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources.
