So just what is a copyright?

As always when we enter into these sorts of conversations its important to note I’m not a lawyer. Any expertise you place in me is on you, this information should be used for enlightening purposes only and you all should consult lawyers. Keep in mind outside of costing a ton of money, lawyers are generally quite useful.

So having gone through an Intellectual Property Management certification, and being a zealot for copyright holders I feel quite confident I can give an interesting look into the world of copyrights.

What is a copyright?

According to our friends over at the USPTO (who you may remember from our trademark discussion):

“Copyright is a form of protection provided by U.S. law to the authors of “original works of authorship” fixed in any tangible medium of expression.  The manner and medium of fixation are virtually unlimited.  Creative expression may be captured in words, numbers, notes, sounds, pictures, or any other graphic or symbolic media. The subject matter of copyright is extremely broad, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, audiovisual, and architectural works.  Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works.”

Wow that’s a lot to take in. The first sentence really is the most important one in that blurb though, as it identifies protected works as being original works, fixed in any tangible medium of expression. So we’ve seen how broad and powerful this protection is but why is it so important?

The Vision Behind Copyrights

This may not come up on a citizenship test, or have been a huge component of your US History class, but copyrights were a Congressional granted power via Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution.

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”

The key our forefathers settled on for how to best further arts and science was by granting property rights to intellectual property. This was a very new concept, and has pretty much been the backbone for much of the innovation found in this country. By securing ownership rights, this enabled authors and inventors to more freely share their collected works without concern of being cheated.

What Are All the Rights granted by Copyright?

Reproduce: This right grants the copyright holder the right to reproduce or authorize another party to reproduce the work.

Adapt:This one is a little more problematic for me (think I need to look it up) basically modify, adjust format etc. Think adapting a book to a movie etc. 

Distribute: Grants the right to distribute the work through some medium. think television, movies, the internet.

Publicly Perform: A Public performance of the work, think a play or a concert.

Publicly Display: This allows a work to be displayed in a public setting. Think art, or a landmark.

Publicly Perform by means of Digital audio transmissions: Think performed via radio. this one is always cracks me up but will make sense later.

When Do 6 Rights Make a Wrong

You may be wondering right now why do we need 6 separate categories for copyrights, why not just group it together throw a heck of a lot of commas at it, have a run-on sentence (like this one), and call it a day? Because the genius of copyrights are that you can pick and choose which rights you want to grant to interested parties. One of the best examples are artists that do public works projects for free, granting the city the right to only publicly display the work; while continuing to assert their rights to the copyrighted image.

Think about this for one second, you go to Seattle and see the Space Needle for example (note I’m not entirely clear on the actual rights ownership, and privalages for this landmark so its being used as an example only). You take a photo of the landmark, and decide to reproduce it on a t-shirt as it looks amazing. If the group behind the Space Needle had only granted certain rights such as public display, and restricted others such as reproduction then you’re now infringing on their rights. 

Conclusion

While this is a massive post, its just touching the surface of copyright law, and how it impacts businesses. The reason for this article was a discussion on the last blog post surrounding Google’s side wiki. Side wiki is interesting in that it does create some tension by undermining the ability of the copyright holders to enforce the rights given under our current copyright laws.