18th May 2005

Copyright Witness Ltd / the UK Copyright Service have announced the launch of its long awaited online registration service for copyright works.

The facility allows you to register work directly over the Internet, so cover will start immediately from the time the work is uploaded.

For those unfamiliar with  Copyright Witness, the service provides a copyright witnessing facility for writers, musicians, artists, designers and other creative individuals and organisations throughout the world. The registration service allows copyright owners to deposit copies of their work as legal evidence, and helps prove ownership in case of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other disputes.

Daymon Lester, Director and Services Manager for the Copyright Witness is keen to point out that these new facilities build on the existing services, and that there are no plans to discontinue the existing postal registration service.

“We believe that it is important to retain the solid foundation of our postal registration service, so that copyright owners know that they are dealing with real people in a real organisation, and not simply talking to a computer.”

He also explains why this was such a difficult milestone for the company.

“Security and confidentiality for copyright owners has always been a primary driving force. While we were keen to improve access and usability of the service, it was vital that we also maintained a totally secure facility, so we had to approach things the right way.

Opening up our network to allow online registration meant making some hard choices, developing new strategies and also making significant new investments in our IT infrastructure.

We have been actively working towards this goal since September 2003, and we are pleased to announce the launch of what we are certain is, the most secure and comprehensive online copyright witnessing facility in the world today”.