Business slogans (slogan, tagline) are one of the ways to impress and attract consumers and are also a sign for consumers to easily recognize the brand. For example, the Nike shoe company’s slogan is “Just do it”, Disneyland’s is “When dreams come true” and Coca-Cola’s is “Open happiness”,… Business slogans themselves are often seen as phrases or sentence that is very simple but impressive and brings great efficiency to business. Therefore, are those slogans protected by copyright?
1. What are slogans and taglines?
Slogans and taglines are both impressive short phrases or sentences, used by brands so that consumers can easily recognize and distinguish that brand and its products from other brands.
The slogan is a short, impressive, and attractive phrase or sentence, often used to convey the value of the product and the spirit of the brand in advertising campaigns. Slogans are often associated with certain products and have a short-term appearance. Slogans can be changed when a brand launches a new product or carries out a new advertising campaign.
A tagline is a short phrase or sentence used to convey a brand’s values, helping to create a lasting impression with consumers and increase overall brand awareness. The tagline is integrated and helps express the core values of the brand, its vision, and its long-term mission. The tagline always goes hand in hand with the brand’s image, is used for a long time, and hardly changes during the brand’s operation. Taglines are often shorter than slogans.
To be able to have impressive and highly effective slogans and taglines, creators must go through a process of thinking, creating, and researching carefully. However, the created product is a slogan. From the perspective of intellectual property, whether this slogan is protected by copyright or not depends on the form of expression of that slogan.
2. Are slogans and taglines protected by copyright?
According to Article 14 of the Intellectual Property Law, subjects protected by copyright are literary, artistic, and scientific works, including:
- Literary, scientific works, textbooks, course books, and other works expressed in writing or other characters;
- Sermons, speeches, and other talks;
- Journalistic works;
- Musical works;
- Theater works;
- Cinematographic works and works created by similar methods (hereinafter collectively referred to as cinematographic works);
- Fine artworks; applied arts;
- Photographic works;
- Architectural works;
- Maps, diagrams, maps, and drawings related to topography, architecture, and scientific works;
- Literary and folk artworks;
- Computer programs, and data collection.
Slogans and taglines are often just short phrases or sentences, which can be shaped in written form, on graphic design logos, or on advertising recordings. However, if the slogan or tagline is formatted in written form, separate from the brand logo, it is not considered a written work and does not belong to one of the subjects of copyright protection mentioned above. Because when separated from the brand, that phrase or slogan is a completely everyday saying, does not convey the meaning that the brand wants to convey, and does not ensure the creativity of the work. At that time, business slogans such as slogans and taglines were not protected by copyright.
In addition, if a slogan or tagline is designed to accompany the brand’s logo, that design is considered part of the logo and can be protected by copyright as a work of applied art use. On the other hand, if the slogan or tagline is formatted as a sound recording, that sound recording will be protected by related rights. However, businesses need to note that copyright only protects the form of expression and does not protect the content, so in these two cases, ownership of copyright for brand logos and records Sounds containing slogans and taglines will only prevent others from copying and using these two objects without preventing others from imitating those slogans and taglines to use for their own brands.
Therefore, slogans and taglines cannot be protected if expressed in regular written form. Only when a slogan or tagline is designed in conjunction with a brand logo, or is presented in the form of a recording, will copyright be protected for the corresponding form of expression of the work.
Above is the article “Is the brand’s slogan and tagline protected by copyright?”. We hope this article is useful to you.
