Copyright Law

The song itself is controlled by EMI Feist, but certain arrangements, performances, and recordings can have additional protections.

Copyright fees in the US range from $30 USD to $220 USD.

The intent of copyright protection is to encourage creation by making it financially viable to create for a living. Without copyright, some of your favorite artists might never have been able to quit waiting tables.

In the United States, a copyright notice consists of three elements::

1. the © symbol (in some cases (c) is substituted), the word "Copyright" or abbreviation "Copr.";

2. the first year of publication; and

3. the owner of the copyright, either by name, abbreviation, or other designation.

Because digital materials don't degrade when copied or distributed, the internet makes copyright infringement very cheap and easy. More specific to ICT is the notion of software piracy, because computer code can be protected by both copyright and patent.

Patents and copyrights give authors a monopoly over their own work for a "limited time." In this sense, they affect competition because they eliminate competition for that work once the author patents or copyrights it (assuming it's patentable or copyrightable), giving the author full control over her work. Aside from the cost of granting the author a this limited monopoly, there are other costs to having patents and copyrights: there are transaction costs in enforcement, for example, and costs to making the laws. So, the question is, why do we have it?

The purpose of copyright and patent law in the United States is actually written in the constitution: "to promote the sciences and the useful arts." The limited monopoly gives authors and inventors an incentive to create (which is very beneficial to our society), and outweighs any anti-competitive costs associated with having copyright and patent laws.


The basic standards for copyright and patent law support this basic purpose. For copyright law, the standard is "originality," and for patent law, the standard is "obviousness." The standard for patent law is higher because the cost of the monopoly is greater -- in patent law, you get a monopoly over an idea. If there were a low standard for granting monopolies over ideas (ex: if I could patent my idea for cooking broccoli a certain way), you could see how that would actually stifle progress. Accordingly, we don't want people controlling works of authorship unless they're original, and we don't want people controlling ideas unless they were not obvious.

If you legally own a product you are allowed to make a "back up" copy for personal use. However unless your copies would qualify as "back up" or "fair use" no you can't legally duplicate a copyrighted product. It would be an infringement of the original authors' rights to control duplication and creation of derivatives of their work.

Yes; the original text of the Berne Convention drew the conclusion from Locke's second treatise that when you put part of yourself into a creative work, it becomes part of you.

In the US, the law itself consists of about half a page spelling out the exclusive rights of the creator of a work, and 86 pages of limitations, defenses, and exceptions to those rights--that's a lot of wiggle room!

The strictness comes more in how the law is interpreted and applied, which has never been consistent. There are many countries you might think of as lenient--even encouraging--to infringers, that have nearly exactly the same laws as the US, just not as intently enforced.

There are several hundred different companies using the phrase "yellow pages" or "yellow page" as part of their trademarks, but (at least in the USA) they cannot prevent each other from using the words "yellow pages" in other combinations (e.g., "Bumpkinville Yellow Pages" could be a new trademark). To even be considered for a federal registration of a trademark including "yellow pages", you would be required to "disclaim" any proprietary right to those words, apart from your specific combination (i.e., with other words, with a distinctive logo, etc). A descriptive and non-distinctive brand is not a very valuable marketing tool, and it only takes a bit of imagination to come up with something much more catchy.

For the most part, music and film producers are taking some part in creating content, so they would be relying on copyright protection to allow them to monetize the content, and ideally recoup the investment they've made. However, they may also be using content, which would mean copyright licensing becomes an expense.

Intellectual property laws allow the monetization of creative works, trademarks, and patents, which in turn allows trade in these otherwise esoteric goods. Without such laws, value could not be ascribed, and an economy could not be built on them.

Under US laws, a criminal copyright infringement could get you up to 6 years in prison for a first offense and 10 years for any subsequent offense, but you could also be charged with 1,000 simultaneous offenses, meaning (in theory) 6,000 years for your first offense.

At worst, you get sued. At best, the creator won't care. But you won't know which unless you ask (or the until creator finds out you stole his/her work).

FYI: under US law, all intellectual property, be it words, music, or works of visual art, are all automatically copyrighted. The only exception is when the creator expressly states that the work in question is in the public domain. If not, you need to get permission, or else you risk that lawsuit.

All newly-written songs will be protected for the life of the songwriter plus 50 years in most countries, the life of the author plus 70 years in the US and several others. Current recordings have the same durations of protection.

Song written 1923-1978 are protected for 95 years from publication, and songs written 1922 and prior are in the public domain. Recordings from this period are difficult to determine; in the US they will enter the public domain in 2037.

Copyright text is basically anything that someone else has written. You cannot use copyright text unless the owner has given you permission.

All members of the World Trade Organization are required to abide by the TRIPS agreements (Trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights), which in turn require members to adhere to articles 1-21 of the Berne Convention. A link to the most recent list of WTO members is below.

That being said, not all countries have the same reputation for upholding the law; you will see that China has been a member of the WTO for ten years, yet its enforcement of IP laws is notoriously lax.

Giving proper credit is not a substitute for getting permission to use copyrighted material and will not exempt you from prosecution for infringement.

An extensive list of songs in the public domain (in the US) is linked below.

It's much harder to find public domain recordings, as the copyrights for sound recordings are especially convoluted.

The creator of the image, unless other arrangements were made.

In UK there is a copyright law called "First players copyright" this essentially says if you created a unique piece of work (Picture, photo, book etc) then you own the copyright and you dont have to apply for that.

Federal depository law guarantees access to government documents stored at more than 1200 depository libraries across the country.

Copyright law gives creators of works the exclusive right to copy, alter, distribute, or perform/display the work, or authorize others to do so.

In most cases it isn't. Bear in mind that copyright allows for what is known as "fair use". It is not an absolute prohibition on all forms of copying. Furthermore, not all material in every website is copyrighted anyway. Obviously, some abuse is still possible, which would be considered copyright infringement.

There is no specific form for transfer; it just needs to be in writing, and signed by the original owner of the copyright.

Copyright protection prevents others from copying, altering, distributing, or performing/displaying your work without your permission. This enables you to generate more income from the work than you would be if it were not protected.