Copyrights
Copyrights are legal protections granted to the creators of original works, such as literary, artistic, and musical creations. They give the creators exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and display their works. Copyrights provide a way for creators to control the use of their works and to benefit financially from their creations.
8 Key excerpts on "Copyrights"
eBook - ePub- Geoffrey Hull, Thomas Hutchison, Richard Strasser(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Copyrights are intangible personal property. The Purpose of Copyright Law Copyright law in the United States exists as a vehicle to encourage the creation of more literary and artistic works for the general benefit of society. By providing certain rights in their works the law makes it possible for the authors of those works to make a living, and thereby encourages them to create more works. So, it is for the benefit of society, not just the authors, that these laws exist. As the US Supreme Court put it: The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration. However, it is “intended definitely to grant valuable, enforceable rights to authors, publishers, etc., without burdensome requirements; ‘to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary [or artistic] works of lasting benefit to the world.’ The economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant patents and Copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors and inventors in “Science and useful Arts.” Sacrificial days devoted to such creative activities deserve rewards commensurate with the services rendered.” 1 KEY CONCEPTS The purpose of copyright law is to encourage authors to create more works to benefit society. This is done through balancing the interests of three groups, Creators, Consumers, and Commerce (i.e...
eBook - ePubMusic Publishing
The Roadmap to Royalties
- Ron Sobel, Dick Weissman(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Much like ownership rights in real estate and other personal property, songs created from the “factory of the mind” are valuable property assets that can generate substantial wealth, and can lead to long-lasting careers. And like other more traditional property rights, interests in Copyrights can be sold, licensed, assigned, and passed on to the owners’ heirs. Legally, a copyright means that a musician, author, or artist has a “limited duration monopoly” on anything she creates. The U.S. Constitution grants the government power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries” (Article 1 Section 8, U.S. Constitution). Copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the “form of material expression.” It is not designed or intended to cover the actual ideas, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work—this is called the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy. Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally “the right to copy” an original creation. For example, if a writer has a general concept or idea for a song, a copyright of that “idea” does not prohibit other writers from creating the same general idea for a project. However, if the writer develops the idea to a point of detailed and specific lyric and melody, then that specific expression of the idea is copyrighted. Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or “works.” These include musical compositions, audio recordings, and radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances. Copyright is one of the laws covered by the umbrella term “intellectual property.” In most cases, these rights are of limited duration...
eBook - ePubIntellectual Property And The Law
A Straightforward Guide
- (Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Straightforward Publishing Digital(Publisher)
...9 Copyright Definition of copyright Copyright is the right to prevent others copying or reproducing an individuals or other’s work. Copyright protects the expression of an idea and not the idea itself. Only when an idea is committed to paper can it be protected. Others can be directly or indirectly stopped from copying the whole or a substantial part of a copyright work. However, others cannot be stopped from borrowing an idea or producing something very similar. Copyright is a right that arises automatically upon the creation of a work that qualifies for copyright protection. This means that there is no registration certificate to prove ownership. To claim ownership the author will have to produce original and preferably dated evidence of the creation of the work and proof of authorship. The author will also need to show that he is a qualifying person and that the work was produced in a convention country. To be a qualifying person (s.154 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988) the author must have been, at the material time, a British Citizen, subject or protected person, a British Dependant territories citizen, a British national (overseas) or a British Overseas Citizen or must have been resident or domiciled in a convention country at the material time, which is when the work was first published. If the author dies before publication the material time is before his death. A convention country is a country that is signatory to the Universal Copyright Convention or the Berne Copyright Convention, which includes most countries in the world. The works that can qualify for protection are defined in S.1 of the 1988 Act. These are: a) Original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works b) Sound recordings, films, broadcasts and cable programmes c) Typographical arrangements of published editions Historical background Copyright has its origins in the 16 th century. The courts recognised a need for some form of protection for books...
eBook - ePubIntellectual Property Asset Management
How to identify, protect, manage and exploit intellectual property within the business environment
- Claire Howell, David Bainbridge(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...It gives the owner of the copyright control over how a work is used. An owner can prevent others from copying their work, making it available to the public or dealing with it without their consent. The author can license their work to an entrepreneur such as a publishing house or a recording studio and receive royalties; alternatively they can sell or assign copyright outright. After sale the author may retain their moral right to be acknowledged as the author and not to have their work treated in a derogatory way. If someone infringes a copyright work the owner can sue them and obtain damages or an injunction to prevent them infringing again. Justification The creative industries are regarded as a benefit to society as a whole. Not only is the entrepreneur publishing a book or producing a film seen as creating jobs and contributing to the economy of the country, but the author creating art and literature is seen as improving the quality of the lives of people on a personal level. Copyright can be explained as an incentive for both the economic rights of those bringing copyright works to market but also the moral rights of authors of the initial creation. There are three main approaches to justifying giving copyright protection. If poets receive no compensation for the time they spend creating a poem, they may have no choice but to spend their time earning money in another way in order to feed their families. If the producer of a film cannot recoup their expenditure they cannot continue losing money indefinitely and will eventually stop producing films. Copyright can also be justified as a reward. The more a book is valued, the greater the number of people who will buy it and the larger the reward made by both the author via royalties and the publisher from the sales of the book will be. A further justification is that a work of creation actually belongs to the person who created it; that it is their property. If I grow an apple it is my property...
eBook - ePub- Jeremy Harris Lipschultz(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The copyright is limited to those aspects of the work – termed “expression” – that display the stamp of the author's originality. —U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Harper & Row Publishers v. Nation Enterprises (1985, p. 547) Social media communicators may not own an idea, but how the say it, or the manner of expression, is protected under copyright law. The book that you are reading, for example, does not keep other authors from publishing a social media law and ethics book, as long it is a sufficiently original presentation. Put another way, two photographers or videographers may be in about the same location and each shoot original work that they own and can sell. The United States encourages development of intellectual property by protecting creative works through copyright law and by issuing patents. Article I of the U.S. Constitution explicitly granted Congress under the Patent and Copyright Clause the power: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) The Supreme Court interpreted the language to mean that Congress could encourage creative progress and the Copyright Act of 1976 protected original works. Branded symbols and images also are protected under the Trademark Act of 1946, known as the Lanham Act. Social media posts have the potential to infringe copyrighted expression or show a trademarked logo and both statutes are important in a digital and social media age. Mobile phones and social media communication have increased the number of disputes over ownership of content. User-created YouTube video, for example, sparked copyright infringement cases for use of video and music. Google and other site owners police copyright as part of their agreements with content creators...
eBook - ePub- Lior Zemer(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...One may argue that since copyright is a powerful, bounded, and protected right, and is a deeply ingrained and enduring one, the question ‘what copyright is?’ can be simply answered. 6 I will argue that although the entitlement structure reflected in copyright law almost perfectly mimics that of traditional property, its social nature should render it a lesser form of property. In practice, however, copyright is a strong form of property, enough to destabilise its delicate balance. 7 Associating copyright with property is attractive for many reasons. In fact, ‘those who started using the word property in connection with inventions had a very definite purpose in mind: they wanted to substitute a word with a respectable connotation, “property”, for a word that had an unpleasant ring, “privilege”.’’ 8 Similarly, a statement like ‘copyright is property’ has its roots in the attraction of a private right to control an object to the highest possible degree. As Blackstone once wrote: ‘There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right to property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.’ 9 The right to copyright is the right to control the social and economic agenda of an abstract entity, which implies its separation from a community of similar entities, from the public domain. In copyright, as in property, people are concerned with acquiring possessions and protecting mine and thine, preserving the rightholder’s exclusive possessions from trespassers. Like private property, to have copyright is to have an exclusive title, which confers on its owner the right to use, the right to exclude all others both from use and possession, and the right to transmit use and possession to others...
eBook - ePub- James Griffin, Ying Jin(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...C h a p t e r 11 I NTRODUCTION AND THE NATURE OF COPYRIGHT 11.1 I NTRODUCTION 11.1.1 Copyright and the Law 1. Copyright protects original work from being copied or reproduced without authorisation. 2. The governing law of copyright in the UK is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988). 3. There is no copyright in ideas. Ideas must be expressed in some tangible form for copyright to subsist. 11.1.2 Registration of Copyright 1. There is no requirement of registration for copyright. Copyright accrues from the moment a work is expressed in some tangible format; all that is needed to prove ownership is to produce original creation of the work with proof of authorship. The author should either be a qualifying person or the work must be first published in a Convention country. 2. To be a qualifying person, the author must be, at the material time, a British citizen, subject or protected person, a British Dependent Territories citizen, a British National (Overseas), a British Overseas citizen, or must have been resident or domiciled in a Convention country at the material time (s154 CDPA 1988). 11.1.3 Where does Copyright Subsist? 1. Copyright subsists in (s1 CDPA 1988): (i) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works; (ii) sound recordings, films or broadcasts; (iii) typographical arrangements of published editions. 2. Copyright subsists only in original works. 11.1.4 What Constitutes Work? 1. There is no statutory definition of ‘work’, but case law establishes that the author must have expended a minimum amount of effort. 11.1.5 Trivial Works 1. There is no copyright in trivial works. 2. A single word was refused copyright protection in Exxon v Exxon Insurance (1982). 3. Similarly, titles and names also do not usually qualify for copyright protection (Francis Day and Hunter v Twentieth Century Fox (1940)). 11.1.6 Duration of Copyright 1. The duration of copyright depends according to the type of work. 11.2 H ISTORY...
eBook - ePub- Guillermo Cabanellas(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3. The Copyright Protection of Translations 3.1 Basic rules of copyright protection as applied to translations Copyright law has developed specific and relatively detailed rules regarding translations. Although the rights of translators are also governed and protected by other types of rules, to be discussed in the following chapters, copyright law addresses the specific issues posed by translations and includes special rules dealing with such issues. Translations are universally considered as intellectual works protected by copyright. Article 2(3) of the Berne Convention expressly requires member countries to grant such protection. National statutes generally include translations among the types of work protected by copyright. However, even if translations are not listed among the types of work protected by copyright, they are protected by national laws under the general provisions which extend copyright to intellectual or literary works. The present status of translations as intellectual works protected by copyright has not always been accepted. Intellectual works protected by copyright require a certain level of individual creativity, and it may be argued that translations may be purely mechanical or that they do not allow the translator scope for his or her creativity. Although this argument still has some impact on the determination of the limits of copyright protection for translations, it has been largely rejected by contemporary treaties and national statutes, which generally include translations as intellectual works protected by copyright. Even in the absence of such provisions, case law has decided that translations are protected by copyright. 1 Contemporary copyright law generally classifies translations as derivative works. Some statutes, such as the U.S. Copyright Act (section 106(2)), expressly follow this approach. In other legal systems, this characteristic is generally accepted even if it is not expressed in the relevant statutes...
