Copyright Master

By Aislinn O'Connell

The perfect distillation of everything you need to know about copyright law.

Covering everything from copyright’s early history to the protection of cutting-edge software, Copyright Master is a concise, practical guide through the labyrinth of licensing and intellectual property.

Whether by explaining the Creative Commons system, providing a useful guide to takedown notices, or examining the process for licensing orphan works, Copyright Master forms an ideal primer. It will help you use content imaginatively and judiciously, detailing what you can do without licences, including fair use, American legislation and recent amendments to British fair dealing rules. Finally, Copyright Master looks into the future of this rapidly-changing field and examines how the EU’s Digital Single Market strategy will shape digital copyright in the years to come

Packed with tips, links, and other practical information, this is an essential guide for anyone wanting to create and use copyright with confidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910859216

Book preview

Copyright Master

Aislinn O’Connell

Canelo

For Ronan – thank you for the support, encouragement, and Oxford commas.

Introduction: How Copyright Affects You

What is copyright?

Copyright is a form of intellectual property right granted by law, which gives certain exclusive rights over the reproduction, distribution and adaptation of an artistic, musical or literary work. These include rights of reproduction, distribution, and reproduction. Simply put, copyright is what ensures creators can control what happens to the works they have created.

Copyright arises automatically at the creation of a copyright work, and in Europe and the United States lasts, generally, for the entire life of the author, and for seventy years after their death. Other countries have differing copyright terms, with several international agreements fixing the minimum term at life plus fifty years. Copyright belongs to the author of the creative work, except where that work is created in the course of employment: then the copyright will belong to the employer, not the employee. After the copyright in a work has expired, it falls into the public domain, which means that anyone is free to use it as they wish, and there is no need to seek the permission of the author or their heirs or assignees.

How long does copyright last?

The duration of copyright depends on the type of work under consideration. Recordings and broadcasts are slightly different to musical, literary and artistic works. The list below outlines the term of copyright for various types of creative work in Europe, with the exception of a few special cases.

Literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works

General: 70 years from the end of the year in which the author dies

Author unknown: 70 years from the date the work was first made available to the public

Computer-generated: 50 years from the year of publication

Multiple authors: 70 years from the end of the year in which the last author dies

Sound and Music Recordings: 70 years from the year of first publication

Films

General: 70 years after the last of the following dies: director, screenplay writer, dialogue author and composer

If some of these identities are unknown: 70 years after the death of the last known person mentioned above

If all of these identities are unknown: 70 years from the year of first broadcast

Broadcasts: 50 years from year of first broadcast

Typographical arrangements of published editions: 25 years from year of first publication

What kind of work does copyright apply to?

In general, copyright applies to all categories of artistic work. The UK’s Copyright Act¹ lists literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, and the typographical arrangement of published editions as copyright works.

Software code is classed as a literary work, as are databases, provided there is an artistic quality to the selection and arrangement of the data (thus, exhaustive collections are not copyright, as there is no original artistic work in creating them). Literary work is a wide-ranging category, covering any form of the written word, from tweets to monographs. In addition, what