Bonjour! Itâs Nancy here â from the soon-to-be world famous pop group Nancy and the Meerkats!
After our first record âPut Your Paws Upâ became a massive hit, weâre off on a huge tour of the UK!
We havenât quite made it to stadium status yet â some of the venues are more Weeny than Wembley â but Iâm going to be letting you know whatâs been going on each day in my journal for Fun Kids!
The tourâs going great at the moment and Iâm loving living life on the road! Although, our manager Big Joe seems a little less amused by it all!
He came on to the tour bus earlier and said it looked like a rubbish tip!
OK, so there were quite a few music sheets lying around⌠and one or two lyric sheets⌠and maybe a couple of cupcake wrappers⌠ oh, and some sausage roll packets⌠but I need sausage rolls for inspiration! They help me think!
Well, Big Joe wasnât happy about them stinking the place up and so he opened the window â when disaster struck!
The music for a new song went flying right out the window in the high wind â but the worst part was still to come!
Later on I was playing Diva Dogs on the computer to try and cheer myself up when I stumbled across a video of that festering feline Kitty Perry covering our song!
She must have found the music and lyrics we lost and stolen them!
Big Joe says thereâs no need to fret though because copyright is an automatic right, which means Kitty Perry has NO right to be using our music and lyrics!
What is copyright?
Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission.
Copyright covers things like music, sound recordings, lyrics, broadcasts, and websites.
As the copyright owner, you can prevent others copying or adapting our work without your permission.
We thought it would be a good idea to get the bus in order so thereâs nothing else Kitty Perry can get her pesky paws on!
Big Joe had got just the thing â elastic bands! Chouette!
I can keep all my music and lyrics together with those (and, of course, my collection of posters of Bustin Retriever)!
Elastic bands are a pretty cool invention when you think about it!
Big Joe was telling us that in 1845 it was Stephen Perry who patented the idea â but it wasnât particularly new. Even the ancient Mayans used rubber to hold things together!
Apparently it isnât enough to come up with the idea â if you want to own the idea you need to patent it and even then you have to find a way to tell people about it if you want it to be a big success!
I guess thatâs something Nancy and the Meerkats and elastic bands have in common!
What is patenting?
A patent protects inventions.
How they are work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. It means that no-one can copy, make, sell or import your invention without your permission.
Listen to this episode of Nancy and The MeerkatsâŚ
And if you want to get really creative, make sure you check out how to protect your cracking ideas! Click here to find out more!
Nancy and the Meerkats is supported by the Intellectual Property Office.
Click here to find out more!