What is copyright infringement?
Copyright infringement is the exploitation of any of the rights of copyright — the right to copy, distribute, display, perform, and make derivative works based on the protected work — by another without proper permission. In order for a court to determine that a copyright in a work has been infringed upon it must find that: 1) the allegedly infringing work is “substantially similar” to the copyrighted work and 2) the alleged infringer had access to the copyrighted work. Although establishing “substantial similarity” can be somewhat difficult, courts look for similarities in the text, format, layout, sequence, and other elements of the works. If there is no direct proof of the alleged infringer’s access to the original author’s work, courts may look to indirect evidence of access, such as correspondence to or from a publisher or producer (i.e., submission or rejection letters) or the masthead of a publication to prove that individuals could have seen the author’s submission. If a subs
Copyright infringement means that an individual has violated the owner’s rights. Most commonly, this occurs when something is copied in whole or in part. For copyright infringement to occur, the infringing copy need not be identical, but rather needs only to be substantially similar to the original.
A work does not have to be identical to infringe a copyrighted work. The legal test of infringement is “substantial similarity” — which roughly amounts to whether an ordinary observer would recognize a work as having been copied in whole or in part from an earlier one. Independent creation is permitted. A second work, identical to an earlier copyrighted work, does not infringe, if it is, in fact, independently created.
