What are the different Copyright Licenses?

Answer 1

Copyright licenses can be constructed in virtually any way that complies with contract law including (but not limited to)...

per use basis

timed license

flat rate

exclusive use

or any combination thereof.

Different uses also have different licenses, often specifically corresponding with one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. The right to perform or display, for example, would roughly align with a performance license.

Answer 2

Anything you might want to do will have a slightly different license, but they all amount to getting permission to do something that the law considers an exclusive right of the copyright holder.

• Copy: you might need a license to scan an image or replicate a sculpture
• Alter: you might need a license to translate or abridge a book, or arrange a song for a Saxophone quartet
• Distribute: you might need a license to broadcast a football game, hand out flyers with a poem and a photo printed on them, or record a cover song
• Perform/Display: you might need a license to show a movie or put on a musical

Each of these rights may have differently worded licenses in different disciplines (visual art may be different from music, etc), but when it gets right down to it, they're all "can I do this? Yes/no."

Answer 3

Each country has its own copyright law, but most are based on the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, a treaty managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization.