Info about Copyrights
Copyright
If copyright law did not exist, everyone could utilise every creative work that had ever been created. For example, it would be perfectly acceptable to incorporate large sections of another piece of work into one’s own, without ever giving credit to the original author or paying any royalties. Musicians could freely take the music of others and alter it only very slightly, and put their name on it as if it were entirely their own work. In a world such as this, there would be no desire to create new art, new books, or new music, as the credit would be short-lived and a flood of copies would saturate the market, leaving the original author or composer in the background, with no recognition and very little money to show for their work.
A copyright is the exclusive right, belonging to the creator of intellectual property, to copy, distribute and adapt the work. These rights can be sold by the creator to another party, who will then hold the sole exclusive copyrights to that piece of work. The copyrights to a work do not last forever, however, and expire after a fixed period of time. Once this happens, the work enters the public domain and is free for use by anybody. Work is also considered to be in the public domain if the creator forfeited their copyrights, or they were never claimed in the first place. Examples of public domain works include the English language and the works of Shakespeare.
Copyrights are an extension of property law. In the same way a deed entitles someone to own a house, adapt it as they fit, and sell it; a copyright bestows these rights on someone to do so with their work. The main difference, though, is that property laws usually refer to a tangible property, such as a building, whilst copyrights refer to a property that is intangible, the intellectual rights of a work. If a customer pays for a copy of an author’s book, the customer will own the book, but not the rights to the text contained within it, meaning that they are not permitted to make copies or adaptations of the book.
There are a number of international agreements which relate to copyrights. Perhaps the most significant of these is the Berne convention. First established in 1886, it relates specifically to literary and artistic works, such as films and books, and requires all nations who sign the agreement to provide legal protection for everything produced in scientific, literary and artistic domains. Another important requirement of the convention is that all member nations to provide the same copyright protection to works from other Berne convention signatory states as they would to works produced within their own nation. This convention also established the fixed times for which copyright would last. It was set that the minimum requirement would be for the copyright to last for the author’s lifetime plus an additional 50 years. One of the most important factors agreed was that a copyright for a piece of work did not have to be formally registered with any government body. Instead, copyright was said to arise with the creation from work, and took effect automatically.
Copyright infringement is a serious problem, and has become more and more commonplace with the rise of information technology. It is easy for people who wish to do so to copy digital media such as films, which can be easily and cheaply distributed. Copyright infringement is often referred to as piracy, and is a crime punishable by fines and prison sentences in a large number of countries. In this instance, the moral action of stealing someone else’s work is tied in with the legal action of breaking the law, and there is becoming more and more of a social stigma attached to copyright pirates.