Copyright Law

In most countries (over 160), copyright is free. In a few countries where you can register copyright, a small fee is charged.

In the USA, where copyright registration is optional until you want to sue in federal court, copyright registration costs $35 for each application. One application can be used to protect hundreds of works simultaneously in a collection.

It sounds like you are looking for open-source software.

The copyright agreements do differ, so check before you put too much work in to it.

A copyright owner can be one of several entities.

1) the original author
2) a purchaser of the rights
3) an heir/heiress
4) a company which contracts the material via "work-for-hire"


note: A transfer of copyright has no effect on the term of copyright protection. The counter does not "reset" with a change of ownership.

Better? It is certainly "different". Copyright lasts for a fixed period. Trademark lasts as long as the owner continues to use it. You can have trademark rights on things that cannot be protected by copyright and vice versa.

Typically there would be a written agreement between the artist and the entity to which they are surrendering their rights. See the article linked below for an example.

Works no longer protected by copyright are said to be in the public domain.

If you are a creator, using a Creative Commons license means your work can get greater exposure without heaps of paperwork. If you are a user, CC materials can be used and often modified without heaps of paperwork.

Most modern copyright laws protect materials for the life of the author plus 50 (or 70) years, so the date the work was produced doesn't affect the term of copyright.

However, corporate works (for example a movie, a magazine, anything that was created by a large number of contributors) are protected for an amount of time starting when they were created or released to the public, so the date would be crucial in determining the status.

In the US, works prior to the last major revision of the copyright law (1976, coming into effect in 1978) are protected based on their original copyright date as well.

The song itself is in the public domain, but certain settings, arrangements, performances, and recordings may still be protected.

No; many are protected by patent law. See the Google patent search below for examples.

Not in the technical legal sense. Most of Europe didn't have a formal copyright law until the late 19th century. However, copying things just plain wasn't feasible in that period, so it wasn't so much of a problem. Another factor is that Mozart had a steady income, as an employee of various princes and archbishops.

It's not stealing, because there's nothing to steal. That's why it has its own name: infringement. Infringe comes from a Latin root meaning to break or weaken: you're weakening my claim on my art.

Because notification is not required for protection, it is safe to assume that any mp3 is protected by copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise.

In copyright, CC stands for Creative Commons, an extremely broad license that lets the copyright holder specify what uses they will allow without additional permission. For example, CC-BY-NC means you can use my work for non-commercial uses (NC), as long as you properly attribute me (BY).

Public domain books are not protected by copyright. The term of copyright may have expired, they may be works of the US Government and not protected, or the creator may donate them to the public domain.

you have to pay money to the people who charged yo

Generally you will be asked to pay a fee close to the real damages the owner suffered. Sometimes owners want to make a bigger impression, and ask for the statutory damages available through the law, which can be up to $30,000 per infringement in the US.

it could protect you from plagarising

Copyright automatically gives the creator of a work the exclusive right to copy, alter, distribute, or perform/display the work, or authorize others to do so, for a limited time. For some creators, copyright offers their largest income stream.

Copyright infringement, also called piracy.

Much of the text of the copyright law consists of limitations, defenses, and exceptions, which allow unlicensed use of copyright-protected works.

Section 107 allows use of excerpts "appropriate in kind and amount" "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research."

Section 108 allows certain reproduction by libraries and archives

Section 110 allows certain educational or governmental performances and displays

Section 117 allows copying a computer program onto a hard drive

Section 121 allows Braille transcription

The TEACH Act also created certain exemptions for educational uses.

Absolutely. A book that includes existing material will have one copyright for the new stuff, and have to license the old stuff.

For example, an anthology of short stories would have many copyright holders--one or more for each story, plus one or more for an introduction, editorial material, and so on. A novel can have one rightsholder for the original content, one for the translation, one for some song lyrics that were quoted, and more. A textbook on photography or contemporary art would need a license for each image.

What this means for the user is that you might end up needing permission from a whole bunch of people just to copy what seems like one thing, because behind the scenes, it's a whole bunch of things.

In the US there are two separate agencies for copyright and trademark administration. The US Copyright Office oversees the registration of copyright and archives the information with the Library of Congress. The Patent and Trademark Office is in charge of administering trademark applications and renewals, maintains the Trademark Electroniic Search System (TESS) and handles patent applications and awards.

Most sites give the current year as the copyright year, because that's when the page rendered on the user's computer. There may be a notification at the bottom of each page, on a "home" or "about" page, or nowhere at all: notification is not required for protection.