Copyright Law

Piracy is a type of copyright infringement. A traditional radio station, for example, would pay a fee to the performing rights organizations for each song played; a pirate radio station operates without a license from the PRO, so artists are not paid when their work is broadcast.

The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, they honor each other's citizens' copyrights. However, the United States does not have such copyright relationships with every country.

Prior to the first federal copyright act, state law applied. Thus the first protected book in this country was A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean by John Ledyard, registered in Connecticut in 1783.

The link has a good basic introduction to the origins and history of copyright law.

Although the Aldrete score was formally registered with the Copyright Office in 2004, ten years after it was first published, it does not appear that Dr. Aldrete has enforced that copyright in any way.

Generally, no, it does not. As of 1978 in the USA, all works became copyrighted from the moment they were created, although published works still required copyright notice or registration until 1989.

Non-published works were given retro-active copyright from the date of creation to 70 years after the death of the author, if an individual, or 120 years from date of creation for any anonymous and pseudonymous works, or works made for hire, never published.

Laws of other countries may vary, but those under the Bern Convention do not generally require any formalities for copyright ownership to subsist in the works.

The most obvious pro to IPR is protecting your product from imitations. Creating new products is a costly business (Time and money-wise) and no firm would invest in R&D if there wasn't something in it for them in the long run.

Another pro is the fact that when somebody comes up with a new product or idea they rush to get it patented. Thus creating a document. In the past people have stayed quite secretive about these things because they did not want to have their idea or product stolen by somebody else.

A quite noticeable con to IPR is that the creator is provided with legal support to holding a monopoly over his product/idea. In the long run this means that firms holding these patents can charge you whatever they want because there is nobody out there who can provide the same service/product.

Another con is that copyright laws usually benefit large firms and not small individuals. Patents are bought by large companies and then extended indefinitely, leaving almost nothing behind for the public domain.

I hope this helps!

There are numerous exceptions and exemptions regarding whether a copyright is possible, what it covers, and whether various uses are allowed without any license from the owner.

Example of non-copyrightable exception: Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts or principles.

Example of exempt performance: It is not a copyright infringement to perform a copyrighted song in public for no profit and where the public has no direct or indirect admission charge. 17 USC § 110(4).

Example of exempt copies: it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make another copy of that computer program for "archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful." 17 USC § 117(a).

Example of exempt works: "The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place." 17 USC § 120.

Not necessarily; works are protected by copyright as soon as they are fixed in a tangible medium, but they may not be published for years or even decades.

Copyright is automatically assigned on creation of a work. There is no formal registration process. Copyright will belong to a company if a work is created by a person during company time and the course of their employment, otherwise the copyright automatically belongs to the person creating a work.

Under US laws:

Most copyright infringement is a civil offense for which you could be sued for money damages or ordered by a court to stop (an injunction). In a case of criminal copyright infringement, you could ALSO get a fine and up to 6 years in federal prison for a first offense, and up to 10 years for a subsequent offense. Some violations, such as "willful infringement for private financial gain" of copies worth less than $2,500, can get you up to 1 year in prison. 18 USC § 2319.

It isn't necessary to take any action for a completed artwork to be protected. Copyright protection is free and automatic, as soon as work of sufficient originality is "fixed in a tangible medium, perceptible to human eye, machine reader or other device".

If you want the additional protection a formally registered copyright can afford, contact the copyright office in your country for the proper procedure and attendant fee structure.

Congress passed the Copyright Clause, also known as Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, to protect inventors and writers. This grants them exclusive rights and patents to their work.

The copyrighted object or phrase will have a symbol shown as ©. The copyrighted object/phrase may also have something near it saying copyright info or just copyright signifying it has a copyright.

Unfortunately, since notification is not required for protection, it's often the case that you have to assume something is protected by copyright unless you can explicitly prove otherwise.

Attribution merely means you know who owns it; it doesn't mean you have a right to use it.

There is nothing that need to be done to "claim" a copyright. Copyright protection is free and automatic. All that is needed is that a work of sufficient originality is "fixed in a tangible medium, perceptible to human eye, machine reader or other device".

No. You could copyright a drawing or photograph of the logo but the logo itself would have to be protected as a trademark.

You can't copyright a name. "Where's Waldo?" however, is copyright!

Books can fall out of copyright (into the public domain) in one of three ways. First the copyright can expire at the end of it's natural term. All books published before 1923 fall into this class. Second, books published before 1964 but after 1923 which were not properly renewed are considered to also be public domain. Finally certain authors can opt to voulntarily give up their copyright an donate a book immediately into public domain.

Works of sufficient originality that are fixed in a tangible medium.

Copyright laws apply to digital materials in the same way they apply to physical materials, but because the internet makes infringement so cheap and easy, it becomes an ethical issue: doing the right thing even when the wrong thing is easier, and you know you won't get caught.

Powers that are only fiven in the federal government; these powers may not be used by the state an example is making treaties

From a societal standpoint, intellectual property rights reward creative thinking by giving artists and inventors a temporary monopoly on their works, increasing value by increasing scarcity.

From a business perspective, intellectual property is an increasingly valuable commodity, as the global economy becomes more knowledge based: rather than trading in things, we trade in information.

Without laws protecting intellectual property, this valuable commodity will be reduced.

In order to ease trade and knowledge sharing among different countries, many intellectual property laws are based on the same general ideas. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works have led to standardization of many laws, and advanced international parity.

Berne is an excellent example. Prior to Berne, a work was only protected in its country of origin: a book published in France could be freely copied in England, and vice versa. Berne ensured as many countries as possible had similar copyright laws (no formalities, minimum of life + 50) and required the recognition of the rights of other signatories.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) also requires its members to adhere to many of Berne's conditions through the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

The 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty further standardized international copyright issues by addressing contemporary technology, most notably the internet.