Everything You Need To Know About Copyrights

As today is acknowledged as the World Book and Copyright Day as declared by UNESCO in the light of promoting publishing, reading, and copyrights, we will be walking you through the various insights about the term ‘copyright’. 

It has been stated n number of times that books are one’s best friends, and to support this adage and run a drive of enthusiasm among the olds and the Millenials to explore the leisure of reading, the 23rd of the month of April is celebrated as the World Book and Copyright Day. 

There’s barely any of us who has not even once come across the term ‘copyright’ but there are very few people who know and understand the same right from its core. Taking this day as an opportunity, we will be throwing some light upon the same and will be discussing the facts and legal aspects of the term that we stumble upon many times while exploring the web. 

To clear the air around this legal term that creates a lot of skepticism among people, we will be diving right into the basics and will take you through the entire spectrum. 

What is Copyright?

Initially, whenever we create or develop anything in the field of creativity, art, music, cinema, literature, etc., ‘we’ are the first owner of that document. This means we have a copyright of the product, design, or whatever we have created and for anyone else to use it, there are some laws that need to be followed. If in any case, we do not want any second person to get their hands on our creation, we can preserve our copyright issues on the same with the help of the jurisdiction and laws and we will be the sole owner of that particular property. 

Broadly speaking, it gives us the authority to control and limit the use or access by any other person on our product. It is entirely in our hands whether we allow anyone to access it or not under a set amount of time. Primarily, it is a protection of the right of ownership of any product, piece of art, music, or anything to protect it from being raided by any second or third person for that matter. 

Anyone who is the creator of any piece needs to undergo a registration process to protect his ownership rights and authorities. Although the registration for copyrights is optional unlike that of a trademark or patent. 

What form of work is protected under copyright law?

There is a list of works that are protected under copyright law and they are broadly categorized under the following categories. 

• Literary work:

This section includes computer programs, databases, books, etc. It covers everything that falls under the umbrella of the literary fields. Anyone owning any of these pieces can get their rights registered. 

• Musical compositions:

Be it a song, a melody, a composition, or a recording, all the music works are subject to copyright registration. The owner can get his rights preserved by the law. 

• Artistic space:

Right from paintings and sketchings to architectural work or engravings, everything underlying the artistic space can be registered under copyright law. 

• Cinema:

Scripts, films, cinematography, and everything around this loop are too subject to copyright registration by the owner. 

Above are the few categories in which the various forms of creations are divided in and the ownership rights for all of them can be preserved and protected under the laws of copyright.

Advantages of copyright registration

Speaking of the registration of copyright, here we are elaborating on the advantages of the same and why should you do it. 

• Ownership proof:

The first and the most prime importance of registration is that you will be backing legal proof of the ownership of the product or design that has been created by you. This gives you a sense of security towards your work as you know that your rights are preserved and protected under the law. 

• Right to file an infringement:

If you ever land in a situation wherein you need to file a case of infringement against a violator of your product, having a copyright registration makes the entire process legally possible and smooth for you. 

• Right to claim damages:

Being registered as a copyright holder of a product, you can nimbly file any claim against the damages incurred to your creation. It gives you an easy path to incur the legal cost of any infringement against your product. 

• Right to license:

If you hold registered copyright ownership, you can license or assign the copyright without having to worry about being frauded. 

Can we use a copyrighted work without permission?

The downright answer to this question is- NO. Using anyone’s copyrighted work for any personal or commercial use and being benefited from it is not legally correct. The owner of the product can levy charges against the users and the law might completely detain you from using any of the creator’s products without their consent. You can also be ordered to at once destroy your creation wherever you have used copyrighted material. 

Well, now that we are aware of the cons of using any copyrighted work without legal permission, it’s needless to say that we should be very careful and aware of what we are downloading and using on the internet. 

How to know whether a work is copyrighted?

The very basic thing that can tell you whether a work is copyrighted or not is the presence of the copyright symbol (a small case ‘c’ in an enclosed circle). Another sign of a copyrighted work is a ‘watermark’. If an image has a watermark on it, that means it is protected by the copyright of the ownership. 

To fetch more information on the same and to know about the legal process of identifying a copyrighted work, you can go to www.copyright.gov. 

Winding up this blog, we hope we were able to convey some amount of vital information about the term ‘copyright’ and have succeeded in juicing out the gist of the entire legal propaganda around copyright laws. 

On this day when we celebrate World Book and Copyright Day, we want everyone to be in the safe zones while traversing the various paths on the internet. Do let us know if this piece of information was in any way beneficial for you as we would love to hear from you.