Copyright in Cyberspace

Muhammad ShafeekMass Communication

"Copyright" is a protection that covers published and unpublished literary, scientific, and artistic works, whatever the form of expression, provided such works are fixed in a tangible or material form.

This means that if you can see it, hear it, and/or touch it-- it is protected.

What is Copyright?

Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.

What is Cyberspace?

musical score dance books poetry web page photographs course materials computer programs (multimedia, etc) videos, audio, (your own voice) artwork your face

What is copyrighted?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

Intellectual Property (IP)

a copyright owner the exclusive right to control copying of a writing (or recording or picture or electronic transcription).

Copyright law gives..

Consider the following situations:

You buy a piece of software and e-mail it to five friends.

You download an article from a newspaper's Web page and post in on an electronic bulletin board.

You take a post from one news group and forward it to another news group.

Copyright in cyberspace

You respond to someone's discussion list post, and quote part of his post in yours.

Each of these examples implicates

copyright law. In each of them there's at least a possibility that you'd be violating the law.

a copyright is created by law the moment the work (a book, picture, song, etc.) takes tangible form.

Add the copyright symbol to anything you create.

The symbol © implies copyright.

How do we copyright our work?

Everything on the Internet is copyrightedWorld Wide Web pagesCoursesElectronic mail and newsgroups

The same copyright laws apply to electronic materials as to print materials

Copyright in internet

Creative Commons licenses provide a standard way for content creators to grant someone else permission to use their work. YouTube allows users to mark their videos with a Creative Commons CC BY license [attribution - reuse allowed]. These videos are then accessible to YouTube users for use in their own videos via the YouTube Video Editor. Attribution is automatic under the CC BY license, meaning that any video you create using Creative Commons content will automatically show the source videos' titles underneath the video player. You retain your copyright and other users get to reuse your work subject to the terms of the license.

Creative Commons License

A movement characterized by a body such as the Open Software Foundation which believes that, as a minimum, the code of software systems should be available to all so that individuals can alter a system or provide add-on software or support software for it.

The members of this movement advocate the removing of copyright and patent laws from software so that products become a free commodity

Open source movement

A fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.

What Is Fair Use?

Copyright protection rules are fairly similar worldwide, due to several international copyright treaties, the most important of which is the Berne Convention. Under this treaty, all member countries -- and there are more than 100, including virtually all industrialized nations -- must afford copyright protection to authors who are nationals of any member country. This protection must last for at least the life of the author plus 50 years, and must be automatic without the need for the author to take any legal steps to preserve the copyright.

International Copyright Protection

The Copyright Act, 1957 provides copyright protection in India.

Copyright law in India

The doctrine of fair use. This allows others to use portions of copyrighted works for purposes such as reviews, commentary, news and scholarship.

Items which are not copyrightable, such as titles, names, common facts and ideas, are not protected.

Some works are in the public domain and may be used by anyone. This includes works with expired copyrights.

Limits on Copyright Protection

Wikipedia www.answers.com www.copyright.in/CopyrightOffice www.cyberspacelaw.org

Reference

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