This is a bit of world building idea I had that I think ties in pretty well with Canon.

There is such a thing as Magical copyright and Public Domain.

The idea is related loosely to the Fidelius charm.

Lets say you work for years and years, and create a new spell or potion. You can take this spell/potion to a magical copywriter who performs the magics to make the spell "yours". This would mean the knowledge of the spell and its workings are tied to your person (And possibly bloodline but that gets messy). You can then write a book to sell it. The spell prevents people copying your work and passing it off as their own. It also prevents people from trying to teach it.

A few points:

* There are different strengths of copyright, down to the skill of the wizard and what is allowed by law.
* If a spell is copyrighted it means people can't pass on the knowledge willingly, but people can observe magic and try to reverse engineer it
* The ministry regulates this, as they don't want all knowledge locked away, but appreciate the need to protect IP. They themselves use powerful versions of this magic for ministerial use.
* There can be "Teachers" versions of books that allow Hogwarts professors to pass on knowledge, these are more expensive and again legislated by the ministry. Hogwarts library is much more powerful than people realise.
* almost all spells seen day to day in HP are Public Domain. The inventor(s) long since dead. Copyright is almost always limited to the life of the inventor. There have been cases where someone has been killed or died suddenly to free up copyright.
* The ministry has a way to break these spells if needed. It is not something even someone like Dumbledore could likely do solo.
* Snape could of copyrighted his spells, but he thought them secret to himself, or didn't care, or couldn't afford the process.

 

What you have describes sounds more like patent protection than copyright. What you have there is an invention, while copyright protects creative works such as literature, art, music etc. A book containing details of the spell would be copyright, but the invention itself (the spell or potion) would be patented.

Should be copyrighter.

So something intent based? I like that.

In real life, patents are both cheap and expensive. The filing is cheap and you can in theory do all the paperwork yourself, but if you make a single mistake here there's a good chance your entire patent can be thrown out in court. So, in actuality, a patent costs tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum due to lawyer fees.

Does it have to be through a special copyrighter wizard? I don't like that idea much. I'd prefer the idea that you can try the spells yourself, but obviously a professional that costs money is probably a better idea.

I would keep Ministry involvement to a minimum. They are not needed in the process. The magical patent office should only exist as a formality for registration. After all, if you don't register your spell, how will they find you so they can buy the right to use if off you?

Edit: On a related note, I like the idea of magical marriage being the same. It's performed magically so there's no need for a formal office or anything unless there is some actual need to register them as well. Or maybe just the Ministry feeling the need to stick their dicks in it.

 

I would lean towards needing to go to a professional, partly as I think it adds another highly skilled job to the universe. I believe Dumbledore and the like would be able to pull off a version of the spell. But the vast majority of wizards would not.

I also like the ministry getting involved, as the ministry we see is huge, and this gives them another job. And since we know the ministry is in the business of monitoring other things, why not do this as well.

But I am just throwing this out there, if anyone wants to run with it, they can change it to fit.