Copyright Information

Copyright Information

What is Copyright?

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, architectural and certain other intellectual works. ***This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Material in the "public domain" is considered to be intellectual property, and as such does not come under copyright laws. In general, nearly all work before the 20th Century is not copyrighted or falls into the "100 years" law arena.

Exactly what is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the the act of stealing and passing off the ideas, words, or other intellectual property produced by another as one's own. For example, using someone else's words in a research paper without citing the source, is an act of plagiarism.

A Brief History of copyright

Copyright law was firs enacted in 1790. On October 27, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the "Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act," which extends the terms of almost all existing copyrights by 20 years, to provide copyrights in the United States the same copyright protection afforded to those in Europe. The basic term of copyright protection, the life of the creator plus 50 years, has been increased to lifetime, plus 70 years. The terminology "work for hire" has been extended from 75 to 95 years.

A general quick reference on how long copyright lasts?

* Any works created on or after Jan 1978 = life of author + 70 years.
* Work for hire 95 years.

The OWNER / manufacturer / creator(but not always the creator) of the work CAN

Copy their own work.
Create derivative works based upon their work.
Sell, rent, lease, lend copies of their work.
Publicly perform literary, musical, dramatic, motion picture and other audiovisual works derived from the original work.
Publicly perform sound recordings derived from the origingal work.