NO, BOOK TITLES AREN'T PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

If you thought book titles were protected under copyright law, you thought wrong. I wrote about this at length in my book on the limits of copyright law, From Russia, with Love.
   Then I did a follow-up piece in Harry Potter and the Shameless Cash-Grab Rip-Off Bogus Tie-In. 
   Available in shoe shops.

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Another day, another petty online squabble over shit that was obvious if the squabbler on the squeaky side of the street had bothered to check first.

   Book titles are not protected under copyright law, with an exception I'll shortly stagger to.

AUTHOR ONE: I've written Stacking Vaginas - One Archivist's Quest for Love in the Cutthroat World of Industrial-Strength Shelving.

AUTHOR TWO: (Remains silent. Has already written a bawdy comedy called Stacking Vaginas. This has nothing to do with archival research.)

AUTHOR ONE: (Discovers book with near-identical title.) Holy fuck-shit-balls on a stick with suggestive bells on. I AM FUCKING OUTRAGED AND WILL NOW SHIT-POST THE LIVING HELL OUT OF THIS GOLD-PLATED CLUSTERFUCK. And I'll blame the other author.

INTERNET: Calm thy fucking tits.

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Copyright law does not protect ideas - only the presentation of those ideas. I've decided to create a womanising drunk of a man who kicks around in the Royal Navy before embarking on a career as an operator in the glamorous world of spies and large rockets with symbolic meaning.

   Next? I'll keep him so secret that I only refer to him by number. He's 07. How am I doing so far? Andrei Gulyashki tried this just after Ian Fleming's death. 

Old Andrei there tried to cut a deal to make his Bond book official. This KGB-backed approach through a Bulgarian scribbler might have tickled Fleming's fancy as a collaborative project earlier in Bond's literary adventures...

   But Fleming was soured on dealing with people who wanted a piece of Bond, after being dragged through the courts over issues with Thunderball, so this Bond project would've been no-go in Fleming's later life.

   With Fleming's estate protecting the property, that Bond story wasn't going to happen over the author's dead body either. We've had the technicians at GCHQ run the title through every process imaginable, and...

   It seems highly likely that 07 stands for James Bond, 007. One copy on Amazon, a snip at four hundred quid. Used. No reviews.

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Back to the original topic. Book titles are not protected by copyright law. However, if a book contains a Trade Mark in the title then that part of the title is afforded a level of protection.

   So be aware of that hidden branch on the forest floor.

   Beyond that, though...

   There is protection against passing off. You can't get away with passing off your work as someone else's. If I write a book called From Russia, with Love, by Ian Flamming, then I am attempting to pass my work off as Ian Fleming's. And that's no-go.

   There are plenty of rip-offs having a go at Harry Potter, and Andrei's stab at the espionage story is a blatant rip-off...but Andrei isn't passing his story off as an Ian Fleming tale - even if 07 is the largest image on that book cover.

   Yes, the difference between rip-off and passing off is a sketchy one at times. Parody is another matter entirely.

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Don't infringe a large corporate entity's Trade Mark in your book title: that's a battle of the wallets you'll lose in court.

   Parody a work if you must.

   Rip it right off if that's the limit of your ability. We hope you expand on your ability to the extent that you stop ripping things off.

   Don't pass your work off as someone else's.

   With these things in mind, be aware that there's no copyright in titles. And you are very likely to find other books out there with your title on them. So, yes, run a title search online the moment you come up with a title, and save yourself the hassle.

   And this, yes, this above all else. If something pisses you off, don't run to the internet to whine about it first. Check up, and do your research. Ask people about the regular state of play inside the industry.

   Learn that titles are not unique. And learn that it's a bad idea to run to anti-social media with non-news that someone has ridden the tails of your coat when no such free taxi-service materialised.

   Now I'll expand on this short piece and bundle it in a book. Needs a suitable title. Stacking Vaginas...