What is copyright?
Copyright law protects original works, such as websites, books, music, paintings, photos and video. A work is “original” if it contains some elements you created and did not borrow from others. Typically, when you create an original work, you own the copyright. As the copyright owner, you can control how others use your work. For example, if you write a movie script, you have the right to, and can prevent others from, copying your script, sharing it with others (“distributing it”), making a movie or book from your script (a “derivative work”), or publicly performing your script as a play or movie. You also have the ability to sell or give away these rights. In other words, you could sell the right to make a movie based on your script to a movie studio. If you use someone else’s copyrighted materials without permission, that use generally violates the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, and is copyright infringement. So if you create a new work and include parts of other people’s works
Copyright is the legal right of creators of “original works of authorship” that have been fixed in a tangible medium of expression, which include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other creative works, both published and unpublished. Copyright law provides the following exclusive rights for copyright owners: to reproduce all or part of the copyrighted work to prepare derivative versions based on the original copyrighted work to distribute copies of the copyrighted work to the public to perform or display the copyrighted work publicly Generally speaking, works that have been published in the United States since 1923 are protected by copyright. For more information on copyright, see the U.S. Copyright Office’s FAQs.
From the US Copyright Office: “Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of ‘original works of authorship,’ including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” It is suggested that you visit the U.S. Government Copyright Office website. It’s chock full of useful documentation. Highly recommended!
