What is Copyright?
As with all fields of intellectual property (patent, trademark, industrial design), copyright is concerned with protecting work of the human intellect. The domain of copyright is the protection of literary and artistic works. These include writings (including documents and books), music, TV programs and plays, works of the fine arts, such as paintings and sculptures, and technology-based works such as computer programs, websites, design and electronic databases.
Note that copyright protects works, that is the expression of thoughts, and not ideas that have not beed developed. So if you imagine a plot, it is not protected, but when you express it ina synopsis or in, say, a short story, the expression of the plot in that story will beprotected. Still, other writers may build new stories based on a similar plot. The same applies to all other categories.
Copyright protects literary and artistic works, as the title of The Berne Convention (1886) states. The two concepts need to be taken in a very broadsense. The term literary, for example, does not mean just novels, poems or short stories: it could cover the maintenance manual of a car, or even things that are written but not supposed to be understood by the average human being, such as computer programs. The key to this expression infact is the word “works”. What we mean by that is that expression, human expression, is the determining factor. So, if I have the idea of painting “sunset over the sea”, anyone else can use the same idea, which is not protected. But when I actually produce my painting of “sunset over the sea” the painting itself is expression, and that is protected.
What are the rights Protected by Copyright?
The most important feature of intellectual property such as Copyright is that the owner may use it exclusively, i.e., as she/hewishes, and that nobody else can lawfully use it without the owner's authorization. The phrase "as she/he wishes" does not, of course, mean that they can use it regardless of the legally recognized rights and interests of other members of society. For example, the owner of a car may use it "as she wishes,"but this does not mean that she may drive her car recklessly and create danger to others, nor that she may disregard traffic regulations. Copyright is a branch of intellectual property. The owner of copyright in a protected work may use the work as he wishes, and may prevent others from using it without his authorization. Thus, the rights granted under national laws to the owner of copyright in a protected work are normally "exclusive rights": to use the work or to authorize others to use the work, subject to the legally recognized rights and interests of others. There are two types of rights under copyright: economic rights, which allow the owner of rights to derive financial reward from the use of his works by others, and moral rights, which allow the author to take certain actions to preserve the personal link between himself and the work.
What rights does a copyright holder have?
The copyright holder has a set of different rights which are governed partly by the Berne Convention, where there are minimum rights, and partly by national law, which often takes the rights even further. Traditionally and historically, the right of reproduction is the key, which incidentally is reflected in the word copyright. The right of reproduction would, for instance, cover the printing of books – and photocopying too – but it also covers more modern methods of reproduction such as tape recording and the copying of tape recordings. It covers the storage of works in computer memories and of course the copying of computer programs on diskettes, CD-ROMS, CD-writeable ROMS and so on. Another right that has a long history is the right of performance. You perform a work when you play a tune, for example, or when you act on stage, and over the year that right has given rise to a number of other rights, such as the right of broadcasting and the right of communication to the public, the latter being sometimes defined differently in various national laws: broadcasting may actually form part of communication to the public, or they may be linked parallel concepts, but typically all kinds of communication will be covered, broadcasting being one, but cable distribution could be another, and Internet distribution another again.
Parts of this text are Copyright of WIPO Academy
Copyright Disclosure can keep this website free of charge because the website is financed with sponsors who advertise on these pages.
PROTECT yourself now and register your work online today - FREE!
Click here to start the copyright registration |
