Would you believe a person if they told you that it was possible to take another person’s work, change it anyway you please and call the edited material yours? What if that person also told you that besides being able to do so, you could actually profit from that take action and not be...
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Copyright is the form of safety provided by laws of United States to authors of the “unique works of authorship” that includes dramatic, musical, literary, creative, and architectural with few other logical works. This safety is accessible to be published as well as unpublished works. Material in “public domain” is rational property, which will...
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Introduction Most people have heard of software licensing and pay per view television, but possibly not connected it with a development in technology called Digital Rights Management (DRM). To understand what DRM is trying to achieve you first of all need to understand intellectual property. Intellectual property To understand digital rights you need to...
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BDV-776379-BDV  What is Software Piracy? Software piracy is the unauthorized use or distribution of software. Why shouldn’t I use pirated or pirate software? Who am I hurting?There are several reasons not to use pirated or pirate software.   It’s illegal and there is liability on your part. (See Liability for Piracy below) It’s risky. If the software is from...
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These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are written, and no copyright notice is required. Copyright is still violated whether you charged money or not, only damages are affected by that. Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and don’t grant you any permission to do...
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The following persons are legally entitled to submit an application form: The author. This is either the person who actually created the work or, if the work was made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared. The copyright claimant. The copyright claimant is defined in Copyright Office regulations as either...
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A copyright registration is effective on the date the Copyright Office receives all the required elements in acceptable form, regardless of how long it then takes to process the application and mail the certificate of registration. The time the Copyright Office requires to process an application varies, depending on the amount of material the...
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In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make...
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There is no such thing as an “international copyright” that will automatically protect an author’s writings throughout the entire world. Protection against unauthorized use in a particular country depends, basically, on the national laws of that country. However, most countries do offer protection to foreign works under certain conditions, and these conditions have been...
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Any or all of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent. Transfer of a right on a...
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The notice for phonorecords embodying a sound recording should contain all the following three elements: 1. The symb l C  (the letter P in a circle); and 2. The year of first publication of the sound recording; and 3. The name of the owner of copyright in the sound recording, or an abbreviation by which the name...
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The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright.  There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in...
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